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OpenWLANMap: Free WLAN-Based GPS Replacement

Posted by timothy on from the another-side-to-crowd-mapping dept.

flok writes "There are a couple of commercial products which can tell you where you are by the MAC addresses of access points in your neighbourhood. E.g. the iphone uses a system like this. There's now an open offering for this: OpenWLANMap. With this website, you can enter your access point mac address with your GPS location and then others can use that to navigate. There is also an app for your mobile which automatically enters this data, and you can upload data from e.g. Airomap and other wardriving applications."

3 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Better project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's already a better project.
    http://wigle.net/

  2. Re:Google by Bearhouse · · Score: 4, Informative

    No; your SSID & MAC are broadcast, so you hardly claim it's private data. This was supposed to be the only data they collected.
    The idea was that - together with its GPS location, (that they supplied and recorded) - you would then be able to know approximately where you were just from the SSID & MAC.
    The problem was, they "accidently" collected a shitload of additional data, (from 'open' networks).

    http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/14/google-admits-to-accidentally-collecting-personal-data-with-street-view-cars/

  3. openbmap has done this since 2009 by ssam · · Score: 4, Informative

    and they offer full database dumps.
    http://openbmap.org/