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bryancoxwell 28 minutes ago [-]
Worth noting that the coordinates for cell towers returned by the WLOC API are coarse enough to be just about useless for locating towers. For APs it’s much better but still not great.
For a while they had a paid program, I had a Windows Mobile app I could run with an external GPS dongle that would record wifi APs and location, upload to skyhook, who would occasionally cut me a check for my trouble. I made tens of dollars!
Mashimo 6 hours ago [-]
Ohhh, there was money to be made with war driving? I just got points on a German bb forum.
drnick1 8 hours ago [-]
I started rotating my BSSID weekly after I learned Apple and Google abused it to track the location of people and devices.
Permanent hardware or software IDs, such as the Windows GUID or machine-id on Linux (systemd) are inevitably abused for surveillance sooner or later.
S0und 8 hours ago [-]
You have all the good intentions, but since no one else does this around your location, I don't think you're achieving anything.
astrange 4 hours ago [-]
You mean, they used it so people trying to use their maps apps didn't have to wait several minutes for a cold GPS fix?
gpm 34 minutes ago [-]
> wait several minutes for a cold GPS fix
My phone doesn't take several minutes to get a GPS fix even when I'm in the middle of nowhere well beyond the range of cell towers let alone wifi routers...
I understand that in theory it could if it had no clue what time it was either for some reason... but in practice we're talking seconds (though more than 2) not minutes.
Fabricio20 14 minutes ago [-]
I feel like that's not a true cold GPS signal! Though I'm not arguing the parents scenario is realistic either. I got a GPS module for a drone I was building and it took 20 minutes to get a proper GPS lock from cold!!! I was sitting there watching betaflight doing it's thing wondering why the heck it takes so long when there's so many satellites in view!
gpm 5 minutes ago [-]
You're right that it's not a true cold GPS signal. I've connected to the network in the last 180 days (and thus have information on satellite information), I have a rough clock (time within 20s or so). The phone probably assumes it's closeish to where it last turned on. Etc.
It is the realistic scenario that people would face without using WiFi routers or cell towers though. True cold fixes aren't something phones need to deal with basically ever.
skinfaxi 5 hours ago [-]
How do you coordinate across all of your devices?
XorNot 3 hours ago [-]
The same physical location showing a different SSID every week but the surrounding ones not changing would be deanonymizing you much more aggressively.
People mostly don't change SSIDs or even move networking hardware - e.g. AirBnBs.
Edit: and also are you still carrying a smart phone while doing this? The device which has GPS and a cloud internet connection?
Basically except it's using an Apple service for the backend.
Which will likely get cut off at some point.
mcculley 6 hours ago [-]
Why would it be cut off? Doesn’t Apple use this on devices?
7 hours ago [-]
doublerabbit 9 hours ago [-]
Cool. This'll go nicely with my hackslab and tinfoil hat upgrade.
oulipo 9 hours ago [-]
Interesting, wondering why Apple doesn't restrict the queries to its server using a certificate that would be pinned on the devices, etc, so at least you would need a legit iPhone/Mac to be able to do a query?
mcculley 6 hours ago [-]
Are you imagining some certificate unique to each device? What would prevent someone copying it?
For a while they had a paid program, I had a Windows Mobile app I could run with an external GPS dongle that would record wifi APs and location, upload to skyhook, who would occasionally cut me a check for my trouble. I made tens of dollars!
Permanent hardware or software IDs, such as the Windows GUID or machine-id on Linux (systemd) are inevitably abused for surveillance sooner or later.
My phone doesn't take several minutes to get a GPS fix even when I'm in the middle of nowhere well beyond the range of cell towers let alone wifi routers...
I understand that in theory it could if it had no clue what time it was either for some reason... but in practice we're talking seconds (though more than 2) not minutes.
It is the realistic scenario that people would face without using WiFi routers or cell towers though. True cold fixes aren't something phones need to deal with basically ever.
People mostly don't change SSIDs or even move networking hardware - e.g. AirBnBs.
Edit: and also are you still carrying a smart phone while doing this? The device which has GPS and a cloud internet connection?
Which will likely get cut off at some point.