Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

2 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Google by LordNightwalker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, this is voluntary.

    From the summary:

    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.

    So yes, it's voluntary for the person collecting and uploading this data, just as it was a voluntary decision on Google's part. It is however not at all voluntary for the people who own the AP's whose data are being collected.

    --
    Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
  2. This is useless mental masturbation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1) It won't work when there is a local electrical power outage.

    2) When people move ( they do this, and quite often these days )
              their AP will no longer be "there".

    3) A real GPS which uses both GLONASS and the US GPS sats is
              trivially cheap to buy and will work in any situation short of all out
              nuclear war.