How many Wi-fi signals can you receive at home?

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1

Please kindly take a screenshot of your phone WiFi screen, if you can. Like this, https://postimg.cc/BPQd69G8

I'm doing a simple study to see how many WiFis are around us. If you could, let me know your city or country.

2

Google could share a lot of information (if they only wanted ;- )

3

Most home devices won't report all the stations present, especially in crowded areas. They often have a limit on the number returned for a scan. There are many "wardriving" sites out there that likely have the kind of information you're looking for. One, for example is https://wigle.net/

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4

I checked two locations and they were highly inaccurate but surely this depends and surely this survey here will provide much worse results ;- )

5

Or if they legally could.

Mozilla says they have legal concerns about their WiFi data.

https://location.services.mozilla.com/downloads

While we would like to openly share the data about WiFi networks, we do not know of any way to do so that would not lead to an exposure of personal data and made it possible to track the movements of WiFi networks over time.

The first thing I though was about was the Personally Identifiable Information that can be gathered from the data.

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6
  • What is the purpose of such a study?
  • Also...how does this relate to OpenWrt?

WARNING TO THE COMMUNITY:

  • A PICTURE OF YOUR RUNNING MOBILE PHONE'S SCREEN WITH THE WIFIs LISTED, CAN POSSIBLY REVEAL A LOT OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION!
  • A LIST OF AVAILABLE ACCESS POINTS CAN PINPOINT YOU TO WITHIN METERS (OR LESS) OF THAT DEVICE'S PHYSICAL LOCATION!
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7

Forget about the screenshot. Just number of WiFi signals will do.

Just wanna know how many WiFi signals are around a person to understand how proliferated are WiFi routers in the world.

Here's a quiz, since you all said there's personal identifiable info from my screenshot, PLEASE tell me what you know about me. :slight_smile:

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8
  • You live in South Korea. :open_mouth:

...and there are ways to get more specific location (within meters).

And only I said said that about the PII.

9
  • 2.4 GHz APs - 16
  • 5.4 GHz APs - 24

From an AP higher above average terrain, I get more...

10

What are the ways to get close to me? Well country is not PII

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11

I dont believe u can get Pii from wifi screenshot online. U can only do it by social engineering and stalking me say for weeks or months.

But then, Google knows u a lot better than me having your screenshot cos they have alllllll I mean alllll of your pii but no one seems to care. And they are already using them for their own best interests

Talking about irony ..

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12

Holy cow! Thanks a lot! This is what I need

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13

Oh, yes it is (and I use PII in a general sense, e.g. Europe doesn't use the term much):

(BTW, I also expect some screenshots to additionally showed what email accounts are used, apps, etc...)

For example, a simple paid/arranged access to the: Google, Mozilla, etc. databases would reveal a lot more.

14

BTW, I did it from an OpenWrt device...not a phone, does that matter in your research?

(and it's PII because I can now combine your OpenWrt handle with Country information.)

16

It doesn't matter. Just wanna know the signals around regardless of device.

Yeah, that makes sense.

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17

Right, I guess if you combine country info with something else can be a PII. But I do feel postcode can be more deadly than country - imagine you're in China or India with 1bil++ population. With postcode, I could sit in the postcode area and chances are you might walk/drive past by. Oh, but then I need to be there at the area thus the term "combine". Makes total sense.

18

Btw, how to you quote someone in this forum? Can't find a button for it. Or must I manually copy your text?

19

Ok, got it. I gotta copy your text. Here I am, quoting myself :smiley:

20

There are options for an opt out if you add an _nomap / _optout to your SSID but perhaps as affective as "do not track" ;- ) (not accusing mozilla, but generally speaking)

Mozilla optout

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3g3xyu/for_wifi_ms_optout_and_google_nomap_does_anyone/

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21

In Germany it is totally fine to rotate the BSSID which could be unique.
Some time ago there was an option to get the long lat for a specific BSSID using the google geolocation API which was pretty precise - "fresh" data from google android devices. For me another reason to use OpenWrt because you can script the rotation easily. For the SSID you choose one that Kabel BW uses. Mine is UPC039D114
Haha lleachii, I live in SanFrancisco - PII within meeeeeeeters

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