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Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

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Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#21

Post by dpark »

gst wrote: post #17
dotBen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right, an opt-in system would destroy the whole location-by-wifi-ssid service for everyone. ...but that doesn't create leverage or a good reason for having such a poor and inelegant opt-out. This is an "ends justifies the means" argument, which is in itself Machiavellian. From a different perspective, there are other ways Google could handle an opt-out list - such as letting people add their SSID/M…

There are two problems with the MAC approach: 1) The amount of Mac addresses for each vendor is very limited. Blacklisting a few Mac addresses would therefore blacklist lots of routers. Combining this with the SSID doesn't really help that much, as many users will stick to the default SSID. (And if you require that users change their SSID to a non-default one you can as well require that they just add a given suffix)…

>The amount of Mac addresses for each vendor is very limited. Blacklisting a few Mac addresses would therefore blacklist lots of routers.

MAC addresses should be globally unique. If your hardware vendor is shipping lots of routers with a shared MAC, they've messed up really badly.

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#22

Post by mmaunder »

If you configure your AP to broadcast your SSID, you are advertising yourself to the rest of the world and you should expect the rest of the world, including Google, to catalog your existence.

If you disable your AP's SSID broadcast, then Google should not catalog your AP and if they do it by sniffing packets then I would say that's unethical.

But complaining about Google with SSID broadcast enabled is like hanging out in a singles bar after taking a vow of celibacy.

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#23

Post by gst »

dpark wrote: post #21
gst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two problems with the MAC approach: 1) The amount of Mac addresses for each vendor is very limited. Blacklisting a few Mac addresses would therefore blacklist lots of routers. Combining this with the SSID doesn't really help that much, as many users will stick to the default SSID. (And if you require that users change their SSID to a non-default one you can as well require that they just add a given suffix)…

> The amount of Mac addresses for each vendor is very limited. Blacklisting a few Mac addresses would therefore blacklist lots of routers. MAC addresses should be globally unique. If your hardware vendor is shipping lots of routers with a shared MAC, they've messed up really badly.

They should, but in practice it seems they aren't.

In the past (working at an ISP) I've seen collisions on Ethernet hardware (two Ethernet cards with the same MAC address). So if that even happens in a relatively small Ethernet, I assume that this will be fairly common if your address space includes each active WiFi router.

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#24

Post by sneak »

Opting out is simple: stop voluntarily broadcasting unique identifiers out unencrypted on the public airwaves.

This is like complaining that your neighbors keep posting naked pictures of you on the Internet because you like to sunbathe nude on your front lawn.

If you transmit the rays, other people can record them. It's as simple as that.

See also: cordless phones, DECT, FRS, street view, pre-digital unencrypted 800MHz cellular

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#25

Post by rickmb »

gregable wrote: post #10

Google is mapping publicly broadcast wifi access points to provide location services to augment GPS (faster locks for example) or when GPS is unavailable due to location or device. It's a very useful service - if you use a smartphone with mapping software, you likely benefit from this on a daily basis without realizing it. Apple does the same thing, although they collect it from user's iphones and ipads: http://www.a…

No. Google is not going above and beyond normal privacy protections outside the US.

Just because you can collect the data, doesn't mean you are allowed to. In countries with other definitions of privacy it can be considered a reasonable expectation the your AP's SSID is only visible to people within a small radius. The owners clearly didn't have the intention to have it collected by a major corporation, collated with other data about their location and then published world wide for entirely different purposes then for which the AP was set up.

In many countries, the law protects people against those kind of unintended consequences, and several European authorities have made it clear that they consider this kind of use an invasion of privacy. And that is considered more important than multinational giant's ability to offer an "effective" service.

You can argue the merits of this, but Google's stance of "just fucking opt-out then" is blatantly disrespectful.

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#26

Post by rickmb »

anigbrowl wrote: post #19
rickmb wrote: post #15

Oh god, here we go again. Why doesn't Google (or a large portion of HN for that matter) ever learn? Privacy has a different meaning outside the US, and in many places, especially Europe, is strongly protected. Just because the information is public doesn't mean you have the right to collect it and use it any way you see fit, and it certainly doesn't mean it isn't in invasion of privacy. Given the issues in the past,…

Speaking as a European (albeit living in the US) this doesn't offend me at all. If you're broadcasting an AP, then it's like walking past your house and noticing what color it's painted. Don't want to broadcast, then plug in a wire. It's not like they're monitoring your traffic. When I was growing up, every household with a telephone got a book that had everyone's name and home address in it. That too was an opt-out…

Noticing something as you walk by and a corporate giant collecting, collating and using that information for something the owner never intended it for are two wildly different things. Context is everything.

The phonebook was a well known consequence of having a phone, dating back to the days when the phone companies were state owned public services. These days it would be utterly unacceptable if for instance internet access providers would do the same thing. Again, context is everything.

And just to make it clear: as a European, you are not offended by an American company that thinks it has the right to ignore local laws and sensitivities?

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#27

Post by cpeterso »

dotBen wrote: post #14
gregable wrote: post #10

Google is mapping publicly broadcast wifi access points to provide location services to augment GPS (faster locks for example) or when GPS is unavailable due to location or device. It's a very useful service - if you use a smartphone with mapping software, you likely benefit from this on a daily basis without realizing it. Apple does the same thing, although they collect it from user's iphones and ipads: http://www.a…

You are absolutely right, an opt-in system would destroy the whole location-by-wifi-ssid service for everyone. ...but that doesn't create leverage or a good reason for having such a poor and inelegant opt-out. This is an "ends justifies the means" argument, which is in itself Machiavellian. From a different perspective, there are other ways Google could handle an opt-out list - such as letting people add their SSID/M…

> I would suggest that Google have intentionally created a high-friction solution of "-nomap" to your SSID simply to make it as difficult and unpalatable as possible.

A serendipitous example of the difficulty of Google's opt-out "solution" is that the correct SSID suffix is "_nomap", not "-nomap"! The Icrontic article is incorrect. I would hope Google forgivingly matches any "*nomap" SSID.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/greater-choice-for-wi...

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#28

Post by airlocksoftware »

rickmb wrote: post #25
gregable wrote: post #10

Google is mapping publicly broadcast wifi access points to provide location services to augment GPS (faster locks for example) or when GPS is unavailable due to location or device. It's a very useful service - if you use a smartphone with mapping software, you likely benefit from this on a daily basis without realizing it. Apple does the same thing, although they collect it from user's iphones and ipads: http://www.a…

No. Google is not going above and beyond normal privacy protections outside the US . Just because you can collect the data, doesn't mean you are allowed to. In countries with other definitions of privacy it can be considered a reasonable expectation the your AP's SSID is only visible to people within a small radius. The owners clearly didn't have the intention to have it collected by a major corporation, collated wit…

When it comes to privacy violations in the digital age, this is so far down the list of concerns that I don't understand why we're talking about it. Probably just because some politicians in (I believe it was) Germany misunderstood what it is and took legal action against Google.

Facebook / other social networks, poorly secured databases, warrantless GPS tracking (in the U.S.), cell phone data being stored; these are all orders of magnitude more worrying and more likely to cause harm.

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#29

Post by cpeterso »

yellowbkpk wrote: post #9
notatoad wrote: post #2

SSIDs are a signal you broadcast to identify yourself. if you don't want people receiving that signal, stop broadcasting it. if i stand on my roof and shout at the top of my lungs "HEY LOOK AT ME", i can't then expect people not to look at me. broadcasting your SSID is essentially the same thing, and you can't blame google for the fact that your router does this. pretty much any router will allow you to turn off SSID…

You don't have to broadcast an SSID (the human-readible name for the access point) for Google's system to pick it up. I'm pretty sure (based on some packet sniffing I've done on the Android Google Maps app suite) that Google's grabbing the BSSID, the MAC-address-like thing that uniquely identifies a Wifi wireless device. Even if you turn off SSID broadcast, your router will still send out broadcasts of some sort.

If someone has gone out of their way to disable SSID broadcasting, that seems like a pretty strong message that they would like to opt-out of Google's Wi-Fi trawling.

Re: Google is mapping your wi-fi access point and the opt-out options stinks

#30

Post by amartya916 »

dotBen wrote: post #14
gregable wrote: post #10

Google is mapping publicly broadcast wifi access points to provide location services to augment GPS (faster locks for example) or when GPS is unavailable due to location or device. It's a very useful service - if you use a smartphone with mapping software, you likely benefit from this on a daily basis without realizing it. Apple does the same thing, although they collect it from user's iphones and ipads: http://www.a…

You are absolutely right, an opt-in system would destroy the whole location-by-wifi-ssid service for everyone. ...but that doesn't create leverage or a good reason for having such a poor and inelegant opt-out. This is an "ends justifies the means" argument, which is in itself Machiavellian. From a different perspective, there are other ways Google could handle an opt-out list - such as letting people add their SSID/M…

I don't know why your comment is being down voted. It's perfectly okay for people on Hacker News to be expected to add "_nomap" to the SSID but for most people, they just won't even be aware that Google's collecting this data, let alone figure out how to opt-out.

I love Google as a company but it seems that more and more of it seems to be getting shrouded behind lawyer speak. It makes me uncomfortable.

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