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Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

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Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#51

Post by Aissen »

pornel wrote: post #47
Aissen wrote: post #30

Is the wifi AP database downloadable somewhere (OSM/Wikipedia style) or is it "cloudlocked" (we can only query it through the API) ?

I can't find the post, but I remember reading that they'd rather not expose full raw data because of privacy concerns — there could be a way to mine this data to de-anonymize users. I'd love to play with the raw data too, but I understand their concern. So far many "anonymous" large data dumps ended up exposing too much (e.g. recently NY taxi data).

Oh I know this might be very sensitive privacy-wise. People should just be aware if they're contributing to a proprietary database (like Google Maps) or an open one (like OSM) when using Mozilla Stumbler.

Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#52

Post by pserwylo »

Icybee wrote: post #48

This seems similar to what Google did to receive massive fines a few years back.

Correct me if I'm wrong, bug I believe the issue with Googles wifi collection was because they had code which intentionally read (and stored?) all data being transmitted over open wifi networks.

Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#53

Post by Touche »

justcommenting wrote: post #45
zz1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever count APs during a short walk in a relatively low density neighbourhood? You have hundreds in under 100m. Tell me, how do you plan to ask each and everyone of them? Ring on every doorbell? -Sorry, is FritzBox!239? -No, here is YouMakeTooMuchNoiseWTF -Oh, I see, could you please pass a message to your neighbour? I'd very much appreciate if he could please fill in this form and send it back through paper m…

that would be one respectful way to do it, and yes, challenging. but the premise of your comment is that of course my device's SSID and related location should be collected in someone else's database because a google-funded nonprofit wrote an app for people to go wardriving with. just because SSIDs can be legally observed and collected doesn't mean i have to be happy about it. I wasn't talking about this as a technic…

Your SSID is being broadcast on public property. You have no claims of privacy there.

Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#54

Post by maxerickson »

justcommenting wrote: post #43
icebraining wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Google was sued because in process of doing this, they "mistakenly vacuumed up e-mail messages, user passwords and other communication", that is, they recorded actual data packets instead of just the AP identifier.

does anyone really believe this occurred "mistakenly"?

I think it is more likely than not that it was more or less unintended. Meaning that I think there is a good chance that none of the people building up and deploying the collection system had any interest in looking through packet fragments (which is where I would personally draw the mistake/intention line).

Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#55

Post by Ygg2 »

justcommenting wrote: post #45
zz1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever count APs during a short walk in a relatively low density neighbourhood? You have hundreds in under 100m. Tell me, how do you plan to ask each and everyone of them? Ring on every doorbell? -Sorry, is FritzBox!239? -No, here is YouMakeTooMuchNoiseWTF -Oh, I see, could you please pass a message to your neighbour? I'd very much appreciate if he could please fill in this form and send it back through paper m…

that would be one respectful way to do it, and yes, challenging. but the premise of your comment is that of course my device's SSID and related location should be collected in someone else's database because a google-funded nonprofit wrote an app for people to go wardriving with. just because SSIDs can be legally observed and collected doesn't mean i have to be happy about it. I wasn't talking about this as a technic…

How is this any different than robots.txt?

I don't see your point. If you are ignorant enough to not know how to secure against such measly attempts at privacy breach, how will you secure against a more determined hacker?

Further more the SSID is publicly broadcast, so that any device you authorized can identify and connect.

Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#57

Post by pserwylo »

lgierth wrote: post #19

Will 1.0 be available on the F-Droid store, like earlier versions?

I believe so. crankycoder1975 was asking for some pointers on #fdroid irc a few hours back to help build 1.0 for F-Droid. Hopefully any issues will get ironed out. While I appreciate my siblings comment about the app auto-updating - I'd rather have apps managed by a central area (F-Droid on Android, package managers on desktop Linux).

Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#58

Post by JackC »

paulojreis wrote: post #26
mike-cardwell wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google provides an opt-out. They will ignore your AP if you append "_nomap" to the end of your SSID. Does Stumbler also support this? If not, why not? Ref: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/1725632?hl=en edit: Found the answer to my own question. Yes, they do support "nomap": https://github.com/mozilla/MozStumbler/issues/149

Is this really a thing? WTF? I feel very ashamed, as someone who works in IT, everytime this happens. I mean, people can opt-out, of course - but, in order to do that, they need to know what an SSID is, and how to change it. What about people who don't? Will we just assume that they don't care or that their opinion doesn't matter?

Can you say more about your privacy concern here? I'm not seeing it.

As far as I know, the sole use of this database is to say, "if you can see this set of wifi networks, then you are probably at this GPS location." It's literally the same thing, except at a different electromagnetic frequency, as saying "if you can see houses with these addresses, you are probably at this GPS location." Kind of like a street map.

I definitely think that privacy concerns can emerge when you aggregate public data -- is there something I'm missing here?

Re: Mozilla Stumbler 1.0

#59

Post by justcommenting »

Ygg2 wrote: post #55
justcommenting wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that would be one respectful way to do it, and yes, challenging. but the premise of your comment is that of course my device's SSID and related location should be collected in someone else's database because a google-funded nonprofit wrote an app for people to go wardriving with. just because SSIDs can be legally observed and collected doesn't mean i have to be happy about it. I wasn't talking about this as a technic…

How is this any different than robots.txt? I don't see your point. If you are ignorant enough to not know how to secure against such measly attempts at privacy breach, how will you secure against a more determined hacker? Further more the SSID is publicly broadcast, so that any device you authorized can identify and connect.

i didn't say i didn't know how to secure against something like this or that it was not legal.

my point was that this approach to data collection, consent, and privacy sharply and directly contradicts claims mozilla makes to users about being committed to their privacy. i think this reflects the opposite.

maybe a better analogy would be someone from the ACLU photographing everyone they saw in public: legal and easy to defend against, but hypocritical/not cool in my opinion and it might make me question the organization's priorities.

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