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How does Google know where I am?

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Re: How does Google know where I am?

#121

Post by kalleboo »

Gracana wrote: post #86

Wifi mapping is the method by which google has no idea where I am. My roommate moved across the country and moved in with me, and android thinks I'm at his old house whenever I connect to his wifi router, even with GPS enabled, and even having installed OpenWRT and changed the ssid of the router. It's pretty maddening.

My parents moved across continents and had the same problem. It finally fixed itself after a couple weeks/a month. This was with Apple devices though (not Google), so a different database.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#122

Post by mikestew »

kuschku wrote: post #85
grkvlt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? I didn't give written approval for the Google StreetView car to photography the front of my house. If I was to create a database of photographs of buildings, taken from a public location and indexed by street address, I don't believe I have to get permission, and the product could be released publicly, or even sold to estate agents or similar. I used to have to give the phone company written (or st least exp…

Well, here Google had to run a media campaign and had to wait for people explicitly say yes or no to streetview, and the phone books have been opt-in for decades, since the market was liberalized and the Postmonopol ended with it being split into Deutsche Post DHL, Postbank and T-Online. At least for Germany Google could have stayed within of this single law. I don’t care if Google literally would enslave and rape US…

the phone books have been opt-in for decades

Where I live, it used to cost extra to have an unlisted number (it might still, don't know).

"Enslave and rape"? You are quite the master of hyperbole, aren't you? Your point might be better made if you dialed back the emotional rhetoric a bit.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#123

Post by rohit89 »

kuschku wrote: post #45
RKearney wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could create a faraday cage around your home to prevent your Wi-Fi signals from broadcasting outside your home. Otherwise I don't really see the issue with Google picking up signals from the street that people blast outside the extents of their homes.

So I can go around with a telezoom lens attached to a drone and photograph into every backyard, into every window, photograph people naked in the shower, children changing clothes on 21st floor thinking no one will look, etc – and publish that? Or maybe we as society do already have reasonable limits where "publicly available" is not equivalent to "publicly indexable".

No, this is analogous to cameras on every street. Perfectly legal even if they are recording children ...

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#124

Post by mynewtb »

omilu wrote: post #115
jhayward wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or consuming any energy on your radio Listening is actually one of the more power-intensive things a radio does, because it tends to be active more of the time than transmitting does. For many radios power consumption is the same whether transmitting or receiving.

>For many radios power consumption is the same whether transmitting or receiving This, is not right.

Please elaborate at least a bit.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#125

Post by jsjohnst »

klodolph wrote: post #116
mirashii wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nor consuming any energy on your radio This simply isn't true. You'll be using power to demodulate at a minimum. You'll also be using energy to ammplify the incoming signals and a variety of other things.

Yes, this is also the reason why GPS is so power hungry--it takes a lot of power to keep a GPS radio receiver operating.

Close enough for a quick reply, but it's not the "radio" using lots of power, it's the chip that's doing the signal processing. GPS signals are very weak (approximately -120dbm) and thus below the noise floor. It takes complex FFT operations that actually cause the power hungry nature to find the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#126

Post by [deleted] »

paavokoya wrote: post #32
TeMPOraL wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. There have to be some minimum standards of knowledge required for the citizens of a technological society, and I'd argue that "how radio works" is one of those things one should be expected to know.

minimum standards of knowledge required for the citizens Do you know how the electricity in your wall works? What about the plumbing under your house? Would you be able to fix those things on your own?

[deleted]

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#127

Post by kuschku »

rohit89 wrote: post #123
kuschku wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I can go around with a telezoom lens attached to a drone and photograph into every backyard, into every window, photograph people naked in the shower, children changing clothes on 21st floor thinking no one will look, etc – and publish that? Or maybe we as society do already have reasonable limits where "publicly available" is not equivalent to "publicly indexable".

No, this is analogous to cameras on every street. Perfectly legal even if they are recording children ...

But they are not.

Video surveillance of public space is illegal, not even the government can do that.

At least here in Germany.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#128

Post by kuschku »

KirinDave wrote: post #109
kuschku wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here Google had to run a media campaign and had to wait for people explicitly say yes or no to streetview, and the phone books have been opt-in for decades, since the market was liberalized and the Postmonopol ended with it being split into Deutsche Post DHL, Postbank and T-Online. At least for Germany Google could have stayed within of this single law. I don’t care if Google literally would enslave and rape US…

It was never illegal. It has always been legal. Debates were around asking if people could change the law to make it retroactively illegal. Also: down voted again for emotionally manipulative and outright vile rhetoric. If Hacker News is a place for free speech and open debate, you casually turning every conversation you can to molestation, rape and violence is a violation of the social contract we all have to keep t…

But that's literally what I don't care about? Google cando whatever they want, no matter how crazy it would be, in the US, as long as they follow the laws Ivoted for where I live.

I use that hyperbole to make it specifically clear that I would literally not care. I literally wouldn't care if they used Blackwater's army to level entire cities if the people chose to allow this by voting. It's literally the worst case scenario, and hundred times more, and I wouldn't care.

But I do care about them following the laws I voted for where I live.

And yes, it was already illegal.

German law has a principle where an action being done once or twice is very different from the same being automatically done thousands of times.

That includes collecting SSIDs, likely.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#129

Post by kuschku »

mikestew wrote: post #122
kuschku wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here Google had to run a media campaign and had to wait for people explicitly say yes or no to streetview, and the phone books have been opt-in for decades, since the market was liberalized and the Postmonopol ended with it being split into Deutsche Post DHL, Postbank and T-Online. At least for Germany Google could have stayed within of this single law. I don’t care if Google literally would enslave and rape US…

the phone books have been opt-in for decades Where I live, it used to cost extra to have an unlisted number (it might still, don't know). "Enslave and rape"? You are quite the master of hyperbole, aren't you? Your point might be better made if you dialed back the emotional rhetoric a bit.

I used the hyperbole tomake specifically clear I don't want to appeal to any "protect X group" or similar rhetoric — I literally wouldn't care if the US was wiped out if it was democratically legitimated — but I do care about Google following those democratically legitimated laws wherever they operate, and that means not collecting SSIDs where I live.

BSSIDs might possibly be legal to collect, but SSIDs definitely not. Likely one could even argue for copyright protection on a specifically poetic SSID.

Re: How does Google know where I am?

#130

Post by kuschku »

KirinDave wrote: post #108
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…

I down voted and left a comment. Appealing to child stalking as a way to emotionally charge your argument about radio reception is a disingenuous tactic for this conversation. What's more, people who actually work to promote and secure a safer environment for kids don't need people like you constantly exacerbating parental paranoia with a constant back chatter stranger danger. Please refrain from emotionally manipula…

Then assume I'm talking about taking a picture of every living room through the window whenever no one is there.

Or anything else that's that personal.

The point isn't about what is collected, but that this type of broad data collection exists in the first place.

Let's recap: not eventhe government can do video surveillance of public places, streetview became opt in, the phone book is opt in.

But Google collects SSIDs?

Collecting only the router mac or BSSID might possibly be justifiable, because it's just a map of technical data, but collecting a string where people but creative works in, or names, or jokes?

I've seen families where the WiFi for the first floor had another name than that for the ground floor — specifically, the names of their two children, whose room was on first floor.

Collecting such PII can be problematic.

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