I just recently found out that our cellphones may be giving google, (by default anyway), in general, all the SSIDs around us, but, more sinisterly specifically, the SSID of our own home broadband routers.
My first question is whether that's true (by default)?
My second question is how to turn that off (only if it's true).
NOTE: I am not asking if we give google our geolocation; I'm only asking if we give them our SSID when we're at home and under what conditions (so that I can turn off those conditions).
NOTE: I also know about _nomap (but that's not what I'm asking).
Yep - and this is nothing new. Google has been collecting SSIDs as long as they do picture recording for StreetView.
For Android: Yes.
For Android: Depending on the in the advanced WiFi settings - the option is called "Scanning always available - Let Google's location service and other apps scan for networks...".
By default android devices give the *passwords* for your SSIDs to google, so that when you enter it into one device, it syncs to other devices on the same account, so you don't need to enter the password again, or when you replace your device it can restore the settings.
But you do have sync turned off, so I think it won't share your SSIDs/passwords with google or your other devices (assuming you've never turned it on, even once).
I don't think you *must* have a google account, just that the device will lose a lot of functionality without one, choose your compromise ...
I don't even really *understand* what sync does. Why would I need the phone to sync anything?
I should note that the android account is *not* my gmail account that I use daily. The android account is only a bogus snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com style account, just so that I can download from Google Play.
I copy my pictures and files myself, over to my laptop, so I'm not worried about that kind of data.
I created a wholly bogus snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com account *only* so that I could use Google Play to download apps.
Are you intimating that I don't even need the Google Play account to download apps from Google Play?
There is no "special equipment" needed to see SSIDs. When I go to the backyard of the apartment building where I live, I can easily pick up around 10 different SSIDs with my smartphone.
Yep. And as long as you don't live in a very high floor or have some kind of magnetic shielding in your house everybody around the place you live will pick up the SSID as well - and so the smartphones moving along the place you live.
The option I described is in Android 5.1. Maybe it is in the advanced location service settings or in the "Google Settings" app which can be found on some devices.
It synchronizes your data between the phone and all accounts you have there. Google is usually one of the accounts, but you can add additional services which will also do synchronization - e.g. calendar and addressbook using your own DAV server and the CalDAV/CardDAV app by Marten Gajda.
I use this to keep the addressbook and calendar on my PC in sync with the one on my Android devices - so I don't have to enter the data again on every single device. And if I add address or an appointment on my phone it will automatically show up on my PC as well. However I don't use Google for this but Baikal on my server and apps for CardDAV/CalDAV on the Android devices.
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Officially? No - you always need an account.
Yep - for example F-Droid, which only has Open Source stuff.
I didn't want to get into the Google cars sniffing of SSIDs. I just wanted to keep the question about what my phone and my neighbor's phone does while we're sleeping.
Does the Apple iOS equipment also hand Google our home SSIDs while we sleep?
To be clear, I'm just worried about my home SSID and what happens on my phone (which I can control) and what happens on my neighbor's phones (which I can't control).
I'm on Android 4.3 but still, I can't control the phones of my neighbors. So what matters mostly is what the default allows.
If you have e.g. a phone and a tablet, then sync can keep SSIDs, todo lists, calendars etc, etc synced between them. Also if you lose your old phone and buy a replacement, or upgrade to a new one you can just log in, let it reinstall the same apps and their settings and carry on.
I don't really use my gmail account daily, but my phone has a separate google account from my gmail, however google do seems to have formed an association between the two accounts, probably because I've logged into either account from the other device, or from common IP addresses, in a similar way to they have worked out who some of my co-workers are from being at the same location, or behind the same IP address.
Yes you need an account to install apps from play store.
SSIDs are by definition broadcast, so everyone who's within radio range of an access point can see its SSID. That's entirely legitimate and is required so you can see a list of SSIDs and decide which access point to connect to.
If you want to know whether an Android phone reports back to Google every SSID it connects to: I don't know. But, since SSIDs are public knowledge anyway, it's not something I worry about. YMMV.
If everyone around me has a cellphone that tells Google what my ssid is, and if they then "see" that ssid when I try to connect at a hotspot, they instantly know exactly who I am simply by putting two and two together.
Acutally, you're "giving away" the SSID and MAC address of your home router to the outfits that both Google and Apple hire to roam the streets harvesting that information for their location services.
How else do you think they know where WiFi-only devices are located?
This is generally only true if your network is misconfigured (SSID hidden), if not, when not connected, the SSID is only broadcast by the base station and not clients.
They can't directly identify you, however, simply having a list of SSIDs and BSSID that a device has identified and used in the past, along with timeframes when those are added, would allow one to infer a lot of data about the behaviour of those individuals. Google at least collects the SSID here, and possibly the BSSID.
Already Google has a list of every BSSID, and it's associated SSID, along with some indication of when it went online, as well as when it moves.
Finally, each wireless device broadcasts it's own MAC address during scanning as well as normal activity. While some security-conscious devices do randomize their MAC address during active scanning, I'm not aware of Android doing this, and even if they do, once you connect, a consistent MAC address is typically used.
Knowing a combination of the SSIDs to which a user connects and details about the timing will give you a lot of knowledge, potentially enough to uniquely identify a person in a very short amount of time.
Of course this is relatively moot since it's attached to a Google Account where you have already provided Google a way to identify you, however, an omnipotent network observer could learn a lot more than you might guess just by collecting SSID and BSSID data from devices, and MAC address visits from base stations -- A large organization such as Google might move into this world by creating their own line of powerful access points with a "cloud" management component, along with a widely deployed line of mobile devices that are dependent on Google's infrastructure and offer features to upload data automatically for use convenience.
And for the record, do I care? No. I connect to public wifi, I understand the risks (and can encrypt data over said wifi when needed), I especially connect to the access points provided by my service provider(s), and I synchronize my network history between my own mobile devices as well as frequently use location services.
Yep, but you can turn it off. On older Android versions, it's under: Settings -> Backup & Reset -> Backup My Data
One nice feature is the ability to print out all your stored SSID's and passwords. That can only be done on a "rooted" Android device. So, I have one "rooted" phone, which has all the SSID's and passwords nicely synced from all my other devices. I then run: which displays and saves all my SSID's and passwords.
Now that you're sitting down, please fasten your seat belt and skim through the Google Dashboard at: I think you'll especially enjoy the "location history" and "Manage Chrome Sync".
You can also vaporize everything on your Android device with a simple click of a mouse button in the "Android Device Manager": Here's all your devices:
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