Append "_nomap" to your AP's SSID to opt out of Google Location Services (2011)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/greater-choice-for-wireless-access.html

by WD-42 • 12 years ago

26 61 12 years ago

googleblog.blogspot.com

bananas4• 12 years ago

How about simply "fuck off Google". We shouldn't have to do that and then reconfigure our piles of client devices.

Also isn't it about as useful as the do not track header? What about other vendors mapping it and data sense etc?

I moan on behalf of others as my network is ethernet due to things like this.

aviraldg• 12 years ago

Did you even read what this does? It's used to aid geopositioning. No data from the network is logged, other than its SSID/MAC address and its approximate location.

bananas4• 12 years ago

Yes I understand it entirely.

There are enough AP's around me for Apple Maps to know if I'm in bed or having a poo. You can see the marker move.

More services like this are bad.

They already know who I am.

What could possibly go wrong?

Edit: when I say more services are bad like this I mean we should be opt-in for both collection and usage rather than opt out.

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

No data from the network is logged

Nowadays it shouldn't, no, but Google's had some lawsuits where their Streetview cars accidentally scooped up random bits of data crossing over the wifi lines. This measure was added afterwards, iirc.

_wmd• 12 years ago

Except for that one small time in Europe when they "accidentally" captured live traffic en masse.. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/05/17/google-admits-s...

LukeB_UK2• 12 years ago

If you're so opposed to it, I hope you only ever use GPS and not A-GPS.

bananas4• 12 years ago

The only time I use GPS is with my Garmin and a landranger in hand.

qKyuu3• 12 years ago

How about you "fuck off". This opt-out shouldn't even be an option, listing public APs is well within everyone's rights.

ryanmcdonough• 12 years ago

Why should I have to ruin my naming standard for them? Personally I don't mind them mapping my SSID.

watty• 12 years ago

Why do you have to ruin anything? You aren't forced to use a technology that broadcasts your identification to everyone. If you do choose to use Wifi you can choose a name that Google won't track. Since the technology does broadcast it publically anyone else and every other company CAN track it.

eli4• 12 years ago

Is there something that makes this newly relevant? To be honest, I don't really understand the objection to mapping SSIDs.

nly• 12 years ago

Anyone know a way to query the API for your BSSID and see if you're in their database, or do they just respond to queries with a location rather than per-network confirmations?

SEJeff2• 12 years ago

How to do the queries yourself: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/business/ge...

How to look for access points near you (view this from a mobile): http://test-geolocation.appspot.com/

Or just use curl! Put in a mac address to query for:

curl -d '{version:"1.1.0",request_address:true,wifi_towers:[{mac_address:"00:00:00:00:00:00"}]}' www.google.com/loc/json

WD-42• 12 years ago

You need a Geolocaiton for Business API key which requires a credit card as far as I can tell.

lwh• 12 years ago

How about you only opt-in people who add "_map" to their SSID?

ddoolin• 12 years ago

My thoughts exactly.

joekrill• 12 years ago

Because that would make their service completely useless, because not enough people would opt-in. I think ideally they should have some easier way to opt-out -- maybe submit your SSID/BSSID for removal directly to Google.

dsr_• 12 years ago

Yes, I shall submit "linksys".

emeidi• 12 years ago

Shouldn't it be the other way around? Opt-in instead of Opt-out: Append "_map" to your AP's SSID! Idiots.

dragonwriter2• 12 years ago

Arguably, broadcasting an ID is opting in to people recording that they received the broadcast and where that occurred.

Hopka• 12 years ago

This post is already a few years old:

  Posted: Monday, November 14, 2011

r0h1n3• 12 years ago

That's a great catch and something all of us (in our default anti-Google mode) missed. Feel silly now.

ZoF• 12 years ago

Ehh... It's pretty fucking ridiculous that I should have to change my networks SSID in order to NOT be mapped.

What if I had some established nomenclature. My old SSID was Nikola with a password some variant of Tesla... Nikola_nomap just doesn't have the same spark.

sneak• 12 years ago

Stop broadcasting a unique identifier unencrypted on a public unliscensed band into the middle of your street, then.

Google is doing nothing wrong here.

droopybuns4• 12 years ago

No, they are. Sorry. The population of wifi users that overlaps with HAMs is pretty minimal. This shit is fucking evil.

oftenwrong• 12 years ago

Do they map wireless networks that do not broadcast an SSID?

daenney• 12 years ago

No.

scott_karana2• 12 years ago

Why wouldn't they, and how could we verify that they don't?

(I suspect they don't, but again, who knows?)

r0h1n3• 12 years ago

Once upon a time the default privacy model used to be "opt-in". Which then became "opt-out" thanks in large parts to Google. Of course it helped that very few "lay people" take active steps to opt-out.

It appears "rename and opt-out" is the latest model. I'm guessing even fewer lay users will take this step.

Technically this allows Google to claim it gives people an easy way to opt out, but in practice nothing much is likely to change as those who were worried about privacy were probably not broadcasting their SSID publicly to begin with.

eli4• 12 years ago

Should you have to opt in to having your street listed in Google Maps too? Some people think so. I think that's a little nutty.

qKyuu3• 12 years ago

Also once upon a time people knew what they were talking about before launching into a nonsensical speech filled with privacy cliches.

They are mapping public WiFi APs, public data, it's well within their right and that of other to do so. Offering an opt-out is just going over and beyond to appease the stubbornly misinformed.

droopybuns4• 12 years ago

Why are you slandering anyone who thinks google is a shitty company and doesn't want them profiting on their data?

r0h1n3• 12 years ago

You do know Google has a history of having helped themselves to much more data than just public SSIDs, right? The reason I bring these up is to point out that Google's past behavior in this space hasn't exactly fostered trust.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-adm...

http://searchengineland.com/its-official-google-settles-wisp...

furyofantares• 12 years ago

I assume you are referring to web crawling? When you put up a web page, your intention to make it public is pretty clear, barring a mistake. Your intention to have it crawled and indexed is a lot less clear, but you usually don't get a lot of say in how people consume things you make public. So I think opt-out makes sense for that.

When you put up a wireless network in your apartment, your intention to make it public is a lot less clear. You are putting it in public, so the argument for opt-out is at least coherent. But I don't buy it because it's clearly not most peoples' intention.

dspillett• 12 years ago

those who were worried about privacy were probably not broadcasting their SSID publicly to begin with

Though it seems unintuitive Not broadcasting your SSID is actually less secure than broadcasting it.

Those truly worried about privacy never use wireless transmission directly, instead using a VPN (only allowing the VPN wrapped traffic go out over the air) and set their own APs to block any traffic that isn't to/from the VPN end-point(s).

jr203fj2fuf• 12 years ago

Would it be possible to randomize the (non-vendor part of) the AP's MAC address periodically to defeat this? Perhaps getting AP manufacturers to add this as a feature would be difficult, though.

nwh• 12 years ago

Easy enough with DD-WRT I imagine, on most NICs you can set an arbitrary MAC. Sadly didn't work for the pile of Chinese ones I have that all use the same one.

SEJeff2• 12 years ago

That would be semi-trivial seeing as how changing your mac is easy with Linux and many of the access points run Linux. The hard part would be reconnecting all of the clients each time you change the mac address.

jacob019• 12 years ago

That's rediculous and ugly. How about a website where we can submit our BSSID to a blacklist.

silveira• 12 years ago

What about _mapmeplease to opt in.

billpg2• 12 years ago

No. If there's someone on the street outside my home whose lost and can't get a GPS signal, I want them to stay lost!

Even though I'm happy with my AP broadcasting it's identity in the clear, the idea that anyone else might find that useful is just wrong and infringes on my privacy or something.

Screw those guys!

HorizonXP• 12 years ago

I keep my SSID hidden. Not sure if that "blocks" Google from using it or not.

simias• 12 years ago

Heh, after "Do Not Track" we now have "Do Not Map".

This hack does not resolve the ethical conundrum of indexing a huge amount of publicly available data for private use. We already have technical solutions if we want to make hidden access point, not having to rely on the good faith of an outsider.

What's next, if I don't want google street view to photograph my house I paint "Do Not Photograph" on the wall?

I don't even understand why google took steps to implement that. It means that they acknowledge there's a potential privacy issue but at the same time offer a solution they must know won't satisfy anybody who's concerned about this issue.

chimeracoder• 12 years ago

I really dislike the new standard of making location tracking opt-out, not opt-in.

There's a startup that tracks the location of customers across stores using the MAC addresses of their cell phones, without their knowledge. In order to opt-out, you have to register your MAC address with them: http://nomi.com/privacy/

The key to both Nomi and (to a lesser extent) Google is that users don't even know when they are being tracked. Opt-out only makes sense when there is a reasonable expectation that the user knows that the tracking exists.

stox• 12 years ago

If you play your stereo loud enough to be heard on the next block, appending _nomap to it will not stop the police from coming to visit you.

LukeB_UK2• 12 years ago

Everyone who's saying it should be opt-in need to realise that the majority of people won't care that people can collect this publicly available data. I don't care either. It helps people navigate more accurately. If you really care, you wouldn't be broadcasting your SSID.

e: spelling

oakwhiz• 12 years ago

I'm pretty sure that SSIDs have a maximum length of 32 characters. If your SSID is already 32 characters long, then you can't append "_nomap" to the end of your SSID, since that would be too long.

Append "_nomap" to your AP's SSID to opt out of Google Location Services (2011)

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