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Londoners Tracked By Advertising Firm's Trash Cans
schwit1 asks "How can I automatically have my wi-fi turn off when I leave the house unless I specifically turn it back on?" and provides this excerpt from Wired to illustrate why that would be useful: "Hundreds of thousands of pedestrians walking past 12 locations unknowingly had the unique MAC address of their smartphones recorded by Renew London. Data including the "movement, type, direction, and speed of unique devices" was recorded from smartphones that had their Wi-Fi on. First reported by Quartz, the data gathering appears to be a Minority Report-esque proof-of-concept project, demonstrating the possibility for targeted personal advertising. 'It provides an unparalleled insight into the past behavior of unique devices — entry/exit points, dwell times, places of work, places of interest, and affinity to other devices — and should provide a compelling reach data base for predictive analytics (likely places to eat, drink, personal habits etc.),' reads a blog post on the company's site. In tests running between 21-24 May and 2-9 June, over 4 million events were captured, with over 530,000 unique devices captured. Further testing is taking place at sites including Liverpool Street Station." (The name sounds a bit like a government project, but Renew London is actually an advertising / marketing firm.)
The 802.11 protocol does not require cell phones to broadcast their MAC addresses. Phones do it so that they can discover nearby networks faster, but it is completely optional.
There needs to be an update to iOS and Android that gives users the option to disable this feature (I can't remember the official name). Users should understand that it will take longer to find access points, but in exchange, they get vastly increased privacy.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
If you're carrying a cell phone around, you might as well surrender any idea that your movements are not being tracked by 3rd parties without your knowledge or consent. Retailers like Target are installing ANPR systems in surveillance cameras, their wifi routers are already watching for probe attempts from cell phones as a way of monitoring where you are in the store (how long did you spend in the women's section? Where on the floor did you stop to look at advertising?) and modules are also installed to track cell phone transmissions and ESNs to uniquely identify customers at checkout (you use a credit card, and now your ESN is linked to your name)...
Trash cans are watching you. Buses are equipped with similar sensors. If you are carrying a cell phone, someone, somewhere, knows exactly where you are and is going to sell this information. You are not carrying a cell phone these days: You're carrying a tracking beacon with two-way communication capability.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
What he meant was "The 802.11 protocol does not require cell phones to broadcast their MAC addresses when disconnected from an AP" Sure you need to send the MAC address to connect - he knows that. You don't need to send anything if you don't want to connect. It's not hard to write an app that turns off wifi outside of particular physical area. That addresses the concern they're talking about. They don't care about background data usage on the phone when they're not using it.
The 802.11 protocol does not require cell phones to broadcast their MAC addresses. Phones do it so that they can discover nearby networks faster, but it is completely optional.
Except, of course, that it does. In order to associate to an access point, you have to send your MAC address. [...]
To discover a nearby access point 802.11 only requires that you listen for the broadcast.
To connect to it, yes, you need to exchange MAC addresses - but this is only required if you actually want to connect to the AP.
The GP is correct, actively throwing your MAC address around to networks you have no desire to connect to is not required by the protocol and should be disabled by default.
Now, if your phone wants to go whoring around with every open AP just to save on wireless data transfer, that's a different problem...
Probably also something that should be disabled by default.