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Comment by pontifier | Hacker News Reader

I was thinking recently about the inverse of this attack. I have many thieves coming to my warehouse, and was thinking I could broadcast bunch of local ssids to try to see which ones their phones try to autoconnect to.

I could then use that info to figure out where they are likely to hang out, and either give it to police or take matters into my own hands.

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Their phones search for known WiFi networks whenever they’re not currently connected to WiFi. You can monitor and log this traffic. Many (most?) modern smartphones randomize their MAC address when not connected, but a few years ago you could look for repeat visitors this way, too.

How much have you had stolen in monetary value just out of curiosity? I went schizo myself for a few months after having like $60k worth of stuff stolen from me when the cops did nothing. But you sound like this is just happening continually -- having this daily stress that's gonna get you or someone else killed -- and you probably don't deserve the prison time.

At some loss value it seems like hiring off duty cops is ev+.

Yeah I think everyone tells this guy that, and it'd probably be a good start to try and get himself back in the good graces of Pine Bluff's political types, but for whatever reason it doesn't look like an option and he posts on twitter that he's still getting bulgarized on something like a weekly basis... From my experience I know there's nothing more frustrating than these useless government bureaucrats that can't be bothered to do their jobs until something or someone explodes.

Suppose you found that they auto connected to mcdonald's wifi. Now what? Are you going to stake out the local mcdonald's on the off chance that the thieves hangs out there? Given how long people keep their phones (years) and never clear their wifi network lists, all this would tell you is that they visited the given business at some point in time. It doesn't tell you whether they frequent that place.

No but you may sell that location data to send them Fast Food eDream on their Tesla AI VR Crypto Quantum Unit

Beacons take up a fair bit of radio space so if you're going to have a lot then have it on a channel you're not using yourself.

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