Google will ignore your Wi-Fi router ... if you rename it Google has magnanimously offered to ignore Wi-Fi hotspots that have been renamed with a trailing "_nomap" to let the snoops know what you don't want them to know. Google logs the location of Wi-Fi routers to aid its location pinpointing services, as knowing the nearest router can provide a coarse location as well as making it …
In theory SSIDs are unique, but I get the impression someone in Canada had changed theirs to the same as mine. For a few months Google maps on my phone would locate me somewhere over there when it couldn't get an GPS fix (in my house for example).
It hasn't happened for a while now, so if it was a clone, he's changed routers and mashed in another random collection of hex digits.
>> If you don't broadcast it, it won't show up.
Wrong, so very wrong !
If you turn off SSID broadcasts, you can actually increase the number of packets transmitted with the SSID in them. You also increase the workload on both your access point and attached devices as attached devices will keep actively looking for other bases with the same SSID rather than passively looking for broadcasts.
In short, "hiding" your SSID just doesn't, and it increases the amount of control traffic required to make the system work.
But I agree with the others, this is just typical Google - "we're going to do it, and as a breadcrumb tossed to refusenics we'll allow you to ask us to remove it if you actually find out there's a away to ask". In my case, I can confidently predict that if I changed my SSID as suggested then it would ... have absolutely no effect whatsoever for a good many years. Google streetmap cars have only been round here once, and I doubt if they'll come by again any time soon.
One fairly useful strategy would be to use a system where the MAC address can be changed, and script something to change it very frequently and randomly. Once you change the MAC address, then the data they have becomes useless. Not to mention, it increases their storage requirements keeping track of all the random base stations that do get reported by automated snitches.
This says Google bet right --- what little resistance there is is some powerless posturing. You leave fake surprise they come to this proposal? In what galaxy would they propose an opt-in policy without substantial outside pressure, as it would defeat the entire purpose (namely to use the ubiquity of signals to improve accuracy)?
If you worked there and proposed that you'd be fired for obvious stupidity, probably kindly phrased as naivity (kindly, because they're Not Evil).
Do you routinely cover up your house name and number (or anonymise your house) so that people passing looking for an address can't locate themselves?
It would also have the advantage of stopping those pesky new postmen/women from being able to trace you easier.
Google screwed up slurping up fragments of data when they drove around so rant about that for sure but getting your knickers in a twist over your publicly displayed WiFi details being used by every phone manufacturer (and others, such as skyhook) to assist in location tracking is just a bit too paranoid.
Are all the other companies going to respect this map tag, or have even offered some kind of opt out? Can you imagine what "Steve's" response would've been?
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Where is this magical IP address database then? Or were you just using a broad "if" that doesn't actually relate to the point at hand?
If so, then maybe go one step further "you might if they were running around the world killing everyone who lived at an even numbered house"... yes I would!
Every web site you visit has your IP, with addresses mapped to them it would be easy to build mailing lists and databases of the real people who visited. Your ISP, Google, and a few others can pretty much track ANY site you visit.
Its not very magical, and you seem ignorant of this, except I notice you post as an anonymous coward...
And as far as killing, yeah maybe in an extreme case, number and logging, then rounding up and then killing....gee that never happened before, oh wait it did and there still people alive who were there.
Besides I wasn't jumping to such extreme hyperbole, just pointing out that people may not display their house numbers so boldly if it linked them to sites that give away their political interests, religions etc. You can always take a rational comment, take it one step further and make it stupid.
The whole concept is to make mapping data for you easier. Sure there is a ton of other data which can be extrapolated but at the end of the day does the fact that they have acquired your locational information matter at all?
Opting out is a great alternative and is one which can be automated via a name change. If you're that paranoid then append the _nomap to your SSID and go nuts. For me I'd rather have a service that functions seamlessly and remain financially free to use and have a minimal cost of usage data.
I'm not. I can manage with cell tower assisted location which is between me and my network. But every time he comes round my house Google get a little bit more data confirming that yes, my router is still there.
Now I'm supposed to have to change my SSID to opt out of Google's spy vehicles (Android phones). However they're unlikely to do this at the client end as Android phones are updated once in a blue moon. That data goes to Google anyway and at Google's end is probably marked with a little flag saying 'don't use me for wi-fi assisted location for Android phones' but they've still got that data for other Googly purposes (e.g. linking BSSIDs to the ISP's address if the Android phone ever connects through that router so when you search in Google now you have a disturbingly accurate geo-IP location on the left hand side of the screen).
This news is going to reach about 0.0000001% of anyone with a router. Google takes the data they want, offers a half-hearted opt out years later, and wins again.
See the problem?
I f enough people arbitrarily swapped router names, wouldn't that create just a little confusion?
If I was near -say- three routers with specifc names, which had actually existed in different parts of the country when Google drove past, would that neatly screw up the value of thiose ID's?
The SSID is something I broadcast volutarily. I can't do much about the BSSID anyway. It doesn't actually identify my house or anything, and authentication is required to get onto my LAN.
Why do people want to deliberately sabotage what is actually quite a useful thing (aiding GPS for location) by making it harder? Sounds a bit like complaining that Google know where your house is based on your postcode.
Yes I expect to get downvoted.
Does knowing where you are really make the GPS calculations easier, or is that an El Reg invention? It doesn't seem all that likely, given the way GPS works (triangulation in 3D based on 4 sources at known location and known relative distance). Is there some iterative improvement going on in a GPS which would mean a good initial estimate helps?
It seems more likely that you just don't need GPS at all if the WiFi can tell you where you are to 100m and you're only looking for local restaurant reviews.
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