Does anyone respect a Wi-Fi Access Point SSID with _optout_ or _nomap anymore?
Mozilla apparently said they'd respect the SSID_optout designation. "Mozilla's client applications do not collect information about WiFi access points whose SSID is hidden or ends with the string _nomap."
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What "client application" are they speaking about anyway?
Especially as it seems M$ long ago deprecated use of _optout in the SSID.
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Worse, nobody is respecting Google's _nomap appended to your Wi-Fi SSID!
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Because even when opted out, your location privacy is still not respected!
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If you are broadcasting your SSID, can I ask you a question? Do you use the _optout_ and/or the _nomap on your own router's SSID?
Am Sat, 20 Nov 2021 20:25:29 -0000 (UTC) schrieb soyon snipped-for-privacy@soyon.biz:
I don't use it and I won't, because I don't care about Mozilla's or Google's brain farts anymore. I don't use their services. If other devices see my SSID, they might collect that, but anybody walking down the street can see the SSID and create a map of the SSIDs via GPS. I see no direct problem for me here.
I don't use it and never used it. Nor do I see it in my neighbourhood or in other placed. And Google has stopped collecting SSID data and deleted what they had gathered. At least so they say. And this time I'm inclined to believe it, because it violated Eu's privacy laws and they would face another huge fine.
They can, but in a high-wifi-density neighbourhood it wouldn't be trivial to link all SSID's to specific addresses.
What goes for you doesn't neccessarily go for others too.
I expect google and microsoft still do, but it only takes one or two companies to *not* respect it, and there are plenty of companies out there whose sole purpose is to produce databases for wifi location.
That would be my biggest question, a web browser shouldn't see any details (MAC addr, SSID etc) of the connection it is using, if they still had their FirefoxOS then that might be involved, but as sfor "client apps" I can't think that anything they provide should have access.
as soon as once company requires you to add "_optout" an another requires "_nomap" then someone else might require "_dontmapmebro" the battle is lost due to length of SSIDs
People (I suspect my self included) don't pay sufficient heed to what permissions an app requests.
You mean not setting the "pretend you cant see this SSID" flag?
My home router's SSID is my address. It makes finding sources of interference much easier. Even without broadcasting my SSID, sniffing the traffic can identify my wireless router by MAC address. I don't care of Google finds my house by my router location. For my customers, I ask for their preference and explain the privacy issues. It usually ends up being their last name so that visitors can easily find the correct SSID to use.
I used to be a computer consultant and would occasionally run into _nomap appended SSID's. I've never seen _optout. Maybe 5 routers out of several hundred. I just greped some 2 year old sniffer logs, which contain about 5,000 unique SSID's, and found 15 _nomap and 0 _optout entries. Only one of my customers has ever asked to have _nomap added. He read some article on security which recommended it. I talked him out of it.
NOMAP is slang of a pedophile. In the three situations where the router SSID ended in _NOMAP, one of my tasks was to change it so something less offensive.
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Whether this has anything to do with it not being used is unknown.
Owners of home routers usually do not have a problem with an SSID ending in _optout or _nomap. However, house guests and visitors seem to have some difficulty dealing with the concept and would invariably ask why it's there. I've received a few questions asking if it could be safely removed. For a time, there was at least one local consultant or installer who was appending _nomap to his customers routers. That was just after the feature was announced by Google in about 2011. I saw such SSID's quite frequently. Then, about 4 years later, they slowly started to disappear. I could drive around town today, and probably would not find any. My guess(tm) is the reason they disappeared is the installer that was doing that went away or the routers were replaced.
"Control access point inclusion in Google's Location services"
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A friend is very much into the privacy, anonymous, hidden, etc thing. Over the years, it's been rather entertaining to watch all the privacy hacks and "solutions" he has tried. My favorite was a program he wrote that would change is SSID and MAC address every few minutes. A scan of available AP's resulted in hundreds of fake SSID's and took several minutes to connect, even if the correct SSID/pass-phrase combination had been saved. Security by obscurity perhaps. It lasted a few days.
Much or most slang is limited to a limited number of countries. And lots of words that are innocent in a language can be dirty or offending in other countries. I doubt if many people in the US or UK would take offfense to "nomap" in an SSID.
Why would they care about any "extension" in an SSID?
I agree as most people have never heard the term or used it. However, I did manage to find 3 local users, who knew the term, considered it offensive because it might be construed as an advertisement, and didn't know how to deal with a change in SSID. There may have been some association with Megan's Law but I don't recall the details:
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Difficult to type, looks strange, not sure about the meaning, etc. Anything online that looks odd these days is usually considered to be a potential security problem until it is explained. Paranoia of sorts. However, that was not the real problem. We have quite a few B&B (bed and breakfast) rentals in the area. Usually, it's a giant weekend party or these days, a super-spreader meeting. If only one attendee asked about the odd looking wi-fi SSID, it probably would not be considered a problem. However, when the host or owner of the B&B gets a multitude of near simultaneous requests for an explanation, it's a problem.
Yes. Really. I hate to break the bad news to you, but there are people out there that really don't need or want to know all the details of how wi-fi and the internet operate. In this case it's something simpler. They didn't want to do anything wrong that might break something and thought it best to ask about the SSID. It's much like asking before attempting to operate a Japanese toilet:
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The function is obvious, but the operating details can be tricky. Better to ask than to flood the house or worse.
If they claim to know anything whatsoever about SSIDs then (1) Every company (and person) knows the meaning of _optout & _nomap (2) Every company (and person) also knows the meaning of hidden broadcasts (3) The disreputable ones simply ignore the meaning of one, two, or three
There isn't a person or company who knows even the slightest bit about about Wi-Fi access point privacy that doesn't know what the meaning is of _optout & _nomap & hidden broadcasts.
If they don't know the meaning, they're simply clueless. They can't be helped.
The problem isn't that they don't know the meaning. The problem is they don't respect the meaning.
Bullshit. I own a Wireless ISP and I had no idea those strings conveyed anything. My towers are registered with the FCC so I had no need to do a google search on "How do I get google to not map my location". What would have been the f****ng point? The feds know exactly where my towers are to a resolution of about 6 inches.
Quit declaring you're omnipotent. You clearly aren't. You don't have the slightest f****ng clue what anybody else knows or does not know. Arrogant prick.
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