Facebook may be gathering residential WiFi networks | Hacker News Reader

Facebook may be gathering residential WiFi networks

wongmjane.com

44 pointsdzink9 comments

“ At least on Android, it is possible for apps to periodically scan the nearby Wi-Fi networks in the background and send it to servers. This functionality is often seemed important for companies that monetize data for advertisements”

Is this true? If so I hope it’s not true for iOS/other mobile OS

I'm not aware of any API in iOS that exposes the list of nearby WiFi networks to an app.

The ability to do this and all sorts of other stuff was sadly removed for precisely this reason.

No, this feature used to be there in iOS 4 I believe, but was removed in subsequent iOS versions.

To be honest, there is a private API for it. It is the one the AirPort Utility app uses for its built-in Wi-Fi Scan feature.

In iOS 13 you can only know the name of the current Wi-Fi network, and you require location permission for it.

Delenda carthago: we should ban advertisement. This is the root of all modern privacy invasions.

On Android (ie meaning the OS, not the android version of the FB app), the wifi and bluetooth perform periodic scanning in order to provide better location services, it's said.

I think this is helpful especially in urban environments where the raw GNSS position is very rough, but typically several wifi APs are broadcasting, so the RSSI of those APs beacons helps to reduce positional uncertainty.

Th scanning is performed even with BT/wifi turned off. You can explicitly turn the scanning off in some settings submenu.

That's something the system does internally. We are talking about exposing that list of networks to 3rd party apps.

Yes, it's allowed, but it requires location permissions which the user has to enable explicitly.

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi...

I'm wondering if they respect the "_nomap" thing that google's wifi gathering cars are suppose to use to not list networks?

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