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Comment by pard68 | Hacker News Reader

Is there a way to prevent this data from being used? Can I somehow not broadcast certain data over wifi or otherwise keep google and apple from using my wifi metadata without my consent?

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Yes. From this article:

  > But in late March 2024, Apple quietly tweaked its privacy policy, allowing people to opt out of having the location of their wireless access points collected and shared by Apple — by appending “_nomap” to the end of the Wi-Fi access point’s name (SSID).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102515 (Search for "_nomap")

Google also supports this scheme: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/1725632

Wigle.net, too: https://wigle.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2330

Would I trust any of this? No.

It's ridiculous that it's we who have to opt out through attention-drawing configuration which has no guarantee of being respected in the future.

Or indeed the present.

I find that incredibly irksome. I'm glad they provide an opt-out mechanism, but strongly dislike that it requires me to give my Wi-Fi network an ugly name. And what if 2 vendors have different opt-out strings such that I can't choose to stay out of, say, Apple and Google's DBs at the same time?

Welcome to the future where our wifi network names are as ugly as browsers' User-Agent strings

This is already happening: Microsoft's opt-out is _optout (can appear anywhere in SSID), Google/Apple's _nomap has to be at the end so prepare for YourAPName_optout_nomap! https://superuser.com/questions/1005235/wi-fi-opt-out-micros...

Oh FFS. Sure, why not.

In the near future it will be required that your wi-fi SSID be <your exact address and house/apt number>_optout_notrack_nothanks_offgrid_nomap

Your address is needed so they can know exactly which place _not_ to map, of course.

That'll never be required.

But if you do it, you'll save $2 off the ad-supported Netflix tier.

The original link no longer includes the information about _optout. At least when I load the page.

https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-open-wi-fi-ho...

I feel you and agree, but there's a good argument to be made that BSSIDs are "public information".

It's a slippery slope to walk trying to regulate that one. One example: "No public citizen, you are not allowed to monitor our frequencies without paying our corporation a subscription fee."

I understand. I have a ham radio license and I can listen in to all sorts of things sent out into the public airwaves. That's what broadcasting is.

At the same time, I write a blog for other humans to read. I'm annoyed that some companies are likely scraping it to train their LLMs. Beyond my annoyance, I don't know how far I'd want to go toward making it possible for humans to consume it but not AIs. The legal cures for that seem like they'd be worse than the disease.

I am thinking of starting a competing product that uses wifi APs for geo location instead of GPS satellites. I want to be a more customer friendly business than google or apple though, it'll only be opt-in. All you have to do to indicate that you have opted-in is to append "_nomap" to your AP name. /s

If I understand correctly, the research was only possible because they were able to leverage the Google and apple APIs against each other. The lesson I get from this is these companies shouldn't behave like they exist in a vacuum and when exposing data or forcing global configuration (like the AP name) they need to be more careful.

Dear friend,

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your _nomap geolocation service.

(Also, I note that the nomap.bot domain is available...)

I saw that, but as you point out, whether it works or not is all a trust thing.

>without my consent?

consent isn't needed, given that broadcasting your SSID in the open clearly fails the "expectation of privacy" test.

Also from a practical angle, what exactly are you trying to prevent? That there's a wifi router at your house?

But most people don’t intentionally “broadcast their SSID in the open”. They just want to surf wirelessly in their homes with as little hassle as possible.

Until there’s technology that lets you do that easily I think this definitely violates privacy. Especially if unique information like MAC addresses is collect, and not only the Wi-Fi name.

I wonder how MAC addresses are treated under GDPR since e.g. IP addresses are considered personal information.

When a consumer can see their neighbors' networks' SSIDs being broadcast on their own pocket computer, but somehow doesn't think that anyone else can see their own network's SSID, then:

That's magical thinking.

Magical thinking is not a privacy problem. Magical thinking is a cognition problem.

There's a surefire way to prevent this kind of thing forever: Stop broadcasting your data on the air for anyone to hear, and others will stop being able to listen to it.

THIS IS A PRIVATE COMMENT; ANYONE READING THIS COMMENT IS IN VIOLATION OF NEWJAZZ POLIS-Y AND WILL BE SUBJECT TO PUNISHMENT.

I kinda love you.

Frustrating, but true. It's our own hardware shouting its details into the wild for anyone to pick up.

Not really because they can track AP MAC addresses even when not broadcasting SSIDs. The only sure way is to use only wired networking.

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