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Comment by dangoodmanUT | Hacker News Reader

The author doesn't seem to have an open source mobile app or anything that would allow them to source the data from devices themselves. I'm curious where the data was collected from, esp. if it was opt-in (at the collecting device)

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I haven't built any apps for contributing to beaconDB as of yet. The website links to NeoStumbler and TowerCollector, which are Android apps that can be used to collect this data.

> TowerCollector

The developer might be open to add other services since MLS is being retired: https://github.com/zamojski/TowerCollector/issues/223

Doesn't hurt to contact them/make suggestions on this issue.

Just commented on that issue, thanks!

Thanks, based on the copy I thought it was recently opened to contribution, and the original dataset had come from somewhere else.

I am curious what would cause such a distributed user base to contribute to this though?

Distributed referring to the community not yet recognising one specific software as "the go to"? Or distributed physically?

Physically! Like how so many users from all over the place decided to contribute to this

It is rather surprising how many people have started contributing already. I believe that people want to support alternatives to big tech so they aren't completely reliant on these providers, and beaconDB is currently the only database not owned by big tech. Not 100% sure that answers your question :)

Gotcha, I guess I was asking whether people specifically opted in to contributing to beaconDB, sounds like that's the case

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