Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How does Google know where I am?

security.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 158 posts

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#71

Post by dev1n »

I had someone from Google (young guy, summer job stuff) come into my office park and map out wi-fi points asking us if this office is still where the company I work for works at. Google has the resources to utilize HUMINT. That's how Google knows where you are.

This guy said he does this in a bunch of cities, driving around the geographic area of the USA where I work in. Very interesting to learn about.

Edit: I am not located anywhere near where Google has an office, so for him to stop by was interesting by itself.

Edit 2: grammar.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#72

Post by wil421 »

jomamaxx wrote: post #22
wil421 wrote: post #13

If you want to stop your network from being scanned by Google street view or stop Microsoft doing whatever they do, you can add strings to your ssid. https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3g3xyu/for_wifi_ms... .

We should not have to do that.

You don't have to explain this to me. I was just providing a fix. Talk to your local representatives.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#73

Post by mikestew »

kuschku wrote: post #40
mikestew wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it okay for a private company to have detailed positioning data from inside of your office or home? I don't know the answer to that question, but I have a guess at the answer to another question: "is it okay for a private company to create a geodatabase of SSID strings that were freely and willingly broadcast via radio?" I think the answer is "yes". Ten, fifteen years ago, if there were an HN story about how I, ow…

So, then it’d also be legal if I stand near all schools, and photograph every child with a telezoom lens, follow each of them home, and then publish a website with photos of every child and where they live? If they don’t want to be seen, they can just stop broadcasting their face and wear a burqa, right? There is a huge difference between "publicly available in every case seperately" and "publicly indexable". EDIT: I…

Others have explained it, but I downvoted without comment because, to paraphrase Jules in Pulp Fiction: "that's not only not in the same ballpark, it's not even the same fuckin' sport." I wouldn't know how to comment beyond that. (That, and your "think of the children" didn't help.)

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#74

Post by DominikR »

paavokoya wrote: post #66
DominikR wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His argument was that you can reasonably expect people to know how to handle such technologies safely, not that he expects people to know how to build a WiFi Router from electronic parts themselves. Using your analogy it would be sufficient for a person to know how to handle electricity coming from your wall or the plumbing under your house safely. And generally people do know how to do that. Everyone who is regularl…

I think the advanced users of HN vastly over-estimate the common sense level of the general public. http://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-ide...

In third world countries people historically got to use Internet services much later, with more limited hardware and in also in a very different way. (not on a PC, instead on a feature phone with a very small screen) So it's not surprising that they have a different perception than we do.

Frankly I don't care for the matter at hand about the perception and understanding of the Internet that people from a different culture might have just as I do not care about the Saudi perspective on women's and LGBT rights. We are discussing here what should be the standard in our societies.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#75

Post by spyder »

gohrt wrote: post #27
jomamaxx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should not have to do that.

Talk to your government, or organize a boycott threat. Your house is also visible in Street View, for precisely the same reason: It transmits electromagnetic waves that are visible from public roads.

Yea, the government can stop it legally, that's why there is no Street View in Austria.

In other countries you can ask Google to blur your house.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#76

Post by spyder »

slim wrote: post #55

If I understood correctly, android downloads nearby BSSIDs with corresponding Geoposition when internet connectivity is available, to use them when no connectivity is available. It should be possible to reconstruct google's BSSID database, right?

Yes and there are multiple databases available on the net:

http://openbmap.org/

https://openwifi.su/?lang=en

https://wigle.net/

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#77

Post by kuschku »

DominikR wrote: post #56
kuschku wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, then it’d also be legal if I stand near all schools, and photograph every child with a telezoom lens, follow each of them home, and then publish a website with photos of every child and where they live? If they don’t want to be seen, they can just stop broadcasting their face and wear a burqa, right? There is a huge difference between "publicly available in every case seperately" and "publicly indexable". EDIT: I…

It is different because this behaviour fits a well know pattern of a certain type of criminal. The child molester. There is no such established pattern where we can reasonably assume that a company collecting SSIDs will usually do this to act in a criminal way. By the way I didn't down vote you, but I think this is the "common sense" reason why people reject your position.

Well, but it applies to every other such case, too.

You can't publicly index newspaper articles that are already decades old and irrelevant, you can't publicly index photos of buildings, you can't publicly index the names of people even.

Every of these things requires written approval of everyone listed, be it StreetView, the application of the Right to be Forgotten, or collecting WiFi SSIDs.

So the question is: why does everything require approval, except for SSIDs?

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#78

Post by spyder »

awalGarg wrote: post #9

From the comments section of the top-voted answer: > Something you didn't mention: when a Google-car goes around taking pictures for StreetView it also maps the location and all wifi networks name. So taking a new router with a new network name from a different ISP might work, but only until they come near your house to update their pictures... > - Bakuriu I am not sure how this makes me feel :-|

And don't forget that they "accidentally" collected not only SSID names and positions but the data transmitted trough open wifi networks: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-ad...

OK, it's only open wifi data that can be accessed by anybody (nearby), but still "I am not sure how this makes me feel"

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#79

Post by [deleted] »

kllrnohj wrote: post #42
comboy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure they do that when wifi is off? I was under the impression that it only happens when wifi is on (and it seems to me that my location on the map is more stable with wifi on). That would be very not ok if it would happen with wifi off. I turn my wifi off to save the battery, and it wouldn't do much if it was still looking for broadcasts.

> I turn my wifi off to save the battery Sending/receiving data over wifi takes roughly ~8x less power than sending/receiving data over cell. If you want to save battery you need to turn off data entirely not turn off wifi. Turning off wifi ultimately costs you battery.

[deleted]

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#80

Post by bogomipz »

kllrnohj wrote: post #42
comboy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure they do that when wifi is off? I was under the impression that it only happens when wifi is on (and it seems to me that my location on the map is more stable with wifi on). That would be very not ok if it would happen with wifi off. I turn my wifi off to save the battery, and it wouldn't do much if it was still looking for broadcasts.

> I turn my wifi off to save the battery Sending/receiving data over wifi takes roughly ~8x less power than sending/receiving data over cell. If you want to save battery you need to turn off data entirely not turn off wifi. Turning off wifi ultimately costs you battery.

>"Sending/receiving data over wifi takes roughly ~8x less power than sending/receiving data over cell"

How did you arrive at this 8x figure? I don't think this is correct at all. See:

http://people.cs.umass.edu/~arun/papers/TailEnder.pdf

Additionally power efficiency is related to distance from the cell tower which is generally much further away than a wifi access point.

Post reply on HN