• [deleted]

  • Post #22

GrapheneOS
Found on news://news.aioe.org/comp.mobile.android

Note: I'm fully aware that hiding the SSID broadcast is not for security
reasons, but many people do not realize hiding it is for privacy reasons!

Specifically, most Android phones driving by your home will upload your GPS
location and your unique router BSSID even if you have "_nomap" appended to
the SSID (unique because you want your unique-as-possible SSID to stay out
of voluminous Internet butterfly/hash tables but that's a separate thing).

Even if Google/Mozilla respect the _nomap on the server side... notice that
distinction because it's the whole point that it's already uploaded even
if you have "_nomap" appended (where we can forget nowadays about
optout)... there's no guarantee that the others (e.g., Kismet, Wiggle,
etc.) will respect the _nomap optout request).

The solution is to prevent "most" Android phones from even seeing your
SSID, which can only be done by hiding the broadcast - where - if someone
knows what they're doing, of course they will see your (hidden) SSID -
but "most" phones will not upload a hidden ID to the Internet servers,
and that's why you hide it.
Of course, once you hide it, then you have to worry about your phone
constantly trying to reconnect to it (which shouts out your supposedly
unique SSID everywhere you go), so you also need to turn off the
auto-reconnection option in Android - which is very easily done.
...

      dirksche From what I understand (and I could be wrong), when your device's wifi communicates with a router, the mac address of both devices are constantly sent back and forth between the two devices as part of the communication protocal. So each packet of data transmitted contains the sender and recipients mac address (random mac or real). All other devices nearby also pick up all communication from those two devices, look at the macs, and if the message is not for them, then they ignore it.

      This means that your real mac address will be picked up by other devices and associated with your home address (can be done very accurately by google through other user devices). Your home address is already very likely compromised through various online sources (shopping sites, government emails, etc) and associated with your real identity already.

      Then should that mac address ever be seen anywhere else (by accident or otherwise), it will be recognize as you on the move.

      If this is true (And i'll leave it up to you to decide if this is true or not), then... why risk it to begin with? Why not just use random macs?

      There are occasions when you really have to use real mac address because of technical limitations. If not, best to just use random.

      If I'm not mistaken of course.

      There are also other scenarios that the real mac could be exposed and used against you, which for the sake of keeping this short I will not get into. So why build up a visible location history with that mac address to begin with?

        a month later

        [deleted] Not broadcasting the SSID doesn't hide the network. It's still completely visible whenever any network traffic is happening which it will be if any devices are connected, even just to maintain devices being connected. You're making it stand out more and are reducing the privacy of mobile devices connected to the network. Devices that are immobile are static landmarks like a tree in your yard. You have a misunderstanding of how Wi-Fi privacy works.

          a year later

          Hi everyone and sorry to open up this bloody topic again, but i have basically the same issue, just a different phone (Pixel 4a - 2024021100 build) (should i move it to the pixel4a subforum?)
          I already set my phone to use the devices mac adress, but it still reconnects to the access point all the time!
          The IP lease time of my router is 1 day and i actually set a fixed ip adress to my phone.
          Other networks, like university and public work just fine... HELP pls!
          Cheers

          • de0u replied to this.

            axelFLY Hi everyone and sorry to open up this bloody topic again, but i have basically the same issue [...] I already set my phone to use the devices mac adress, but it still reconnects to the access point all the time!

            The original poster was unable to connect due to an IP address problem. It's not immediately clear what "reconnects all the time" is describing, but offhand it does not sound very similar. I recommend starting a fresh topic. Try to provide as much detail as possible (the first two posts by the original poster in this thread might serve as examples).