Re: [FoRK] Fwd: [ PFIR ] Google announces opt-out for wi-fi location database, but beware of possible side effects

I don't get it. Why would Google ever know anything about your Wifi? If you choose to make your ssid publicly broadcast, it's publicly broadcast. At least they admit to it unlike the tens of other people who discovered it. Is the complaint that they've just reduced the cost to centralized the info and made it searchable? Likewise, if you don't properly password protect that publicly broadcast ssid, you will have people using it. If you care anything about security, not to mention privacy, you shouldn't be broadcasting that at all. I have a better idea, we should have a campaign that everyone change their ssid to "wireless," "netgear," "linksys," or "default." Greg On 11/15/2011 1:50 AM, Bill Humphries wrote:

I'm going to suggest a different suffix for WiFi networks wanting to 'opt out' of Google's wifi mapping:

"_gfy_google"

Google's policy is exactly the Silicon Valley arrogance that Prokofy Neva's been talking about for years.

Begin forwarded message:

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From: "PFIR \(People For Internet Responsibility\) Announcement List" Date: November 15, 2011 1:10:52 AM PST To: pfir-list@pfir.org Subject: [ PFIR ] Google announces opt-out for wi-fi location database, but beware of possible side effects Reply-To: "PFIR \(People For Internet Responsibility\) Announcement List"

Google announces opt-out for wi-fi location database, but beware of possible side effects

http://j.mp/uWyC6Y (This message on Google+)

It's late, and I have to knock off for the night, but I wanted to quickly note a posting Google made on their official blog late Monday evening, relating to a new procedure for opting-out of their wi-fi location database:

http://j.mp/rROZ3F (Official Google Blog)

In brief, they're asking wi-fi owners who want to opt-out to change their SSIDs (essentially, the broadcast "name" of wi-fi access points) to include a suffix of "_nomap".

I understand why Google has chosen this route -- if an opt-in method were used only a tiny fraction of persons would likely ever adopt it, and wi-fi mapping does provide notable precision benefits to map users.

Oh, but of course Lauren, the end always justifies the means for you, as long as Google's doing it.

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Having said that, it isn't clear to me how practical it really is to expect significant numbers of people to be willing to change their SSID on this basis.

They don't. They've put one post on a blog and will now claim they've absolved themselves of any responsiblity.

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One problem, probably minor but worth noting, is that this actually could be seen as drawing attention to yourself. Anyone scanning the area and seeing certain SSIDs with the "_nomap" suffix might wonder *why* those particular persons were so interested in not being mapped. Like I said, probably not a big deal.

Yes, comrade, the innocent have nothing to hide and should welcome the Google bots.

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But a much more crucial issue is this. If you do change your SSID, you're likely going to have to reconfigure every client device you have that already knows that SSID, because your altered SSID is going to look like an entirely different access point. This will probably mean re-inputting your (hopefully WPA2, but perhaps WPA or even [ugh] WEP) passwords, and doing this for everything that previously knew that original SSID without the _nomap suffix.

More on this later.

Good night.

--Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com

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-- greg@bolcer.org, http://bolcer.org, c: +1.714.928.5476 _______________________________________________ FoRK mailing list http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE