XPost: misc.phone.mobile.iphone, alt.comp.os.windows-10, comp.mobile.android   
   From: marianjones@helpfulpeople.com   
      
   Chris wrote:   
   > Firstly, the _nomap is on your user-defined SSID. Secondly, what is   
   > collected is the BSSID/MAC which in most cases cannot be edited.   
   >   
   > You can choose to hide your SSID. So if you've hidden your SSID the nomap   
   > option is superfluous as it won't show up anyway.   
   >   
   > There isn't, as far as I can see, an obligation to *remove* a MAC from the   
   > WPS db if they *never see* the nomap request.   
      
   I've noticed you lack the kind of imagination that I have, so I may need to   
   explain for the thousandth time that there is a REASON for the hidden SSID.   
      
   Think about it.   
      
   1. If you HIDE the SSID, the goal is for passive scanners to get the hint.   
      A hidden SSID means you don't want to be in any of the databases.   
      It's very clear. And the Mozilla security team agrees with me.   
         
      "Mozilla's client applications do not collect information   
       about WiFi access points whose SSID is hidden or ends with   
       the string '_nomap' (e.g. 'Simpson-family-wifi_nomap')."   
      
   2. If you add "_nomap", then that means you want it to be scrubbed.   
      But that's a completely DIFFERENT concept than being uploaded.   
      
   Hiding it was intended to prevent the upload.   
   Adding _nomap was intended to have it scrubbed if it was ever uploaded.   
      
   You don't appear to own the imagination to figure out they're different.   
      
   >> the real issue is that our   
   >> rights are being undermined by systems designed without meaningful consent.   
   >   
   > A MAC like an IP or a physical address is public information. There's no   
   > requirement for consent.   
      
   You appear to fundamentally lack imagination which is required to   
   understand why the Apple WPS system is particularly egregious to personal   
   privacy given there are no controls whatsoever on scraping its content.   
      
   Your unimaginative argument that 'MAC addresses are public' completely   
   ignores the fact that when aggregated at scale, they become a powerful   
   tracking tool. A single MAC address is just a hardware identifier; but a   
   database of millions of them tied to GPS coordinates is essentially a map   
   of people's movements and residences.   
      
   Imagine this scenario:   
   1. A company collects BSSIDs (MACs) from Wi-Fi routers in a city.   
   2. Over time, they build a database:   
      a. MAC A -> seen at 123 Elm Street in 2022   
      b. MAC A -> seen at 456 Oak Avenue in 2023   
   3. From this, they infer the household at 123 Elm Street likely   
      moved to 456 Oak Avenue.   
      
   Now scale that up: Track migration patterns of entire neighborhoods.   
   Correlate MACs with census data, property records, or advertising IDs.   
      
   What was just public information becomes a de facto surveillance system,   
   without meaningful consent from the people being tracked.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)