* Posts by Gimmesomecoffee

1 publicly visible post • joined 25 Apr 2010

Google Street View logs WiFi networks, Mac addresses

Gimmesomecoffee

It's not a big deal, and it makes sense for Google to capture this.

Google wants to create a database of lat/lon coordinates, WiFi SSID, MAC address of the wireless interface, and whether or not the WiFi network is "open" or secured. This way, Google can have a "find an open wireless network" layer to their maps.

Several commercial companies have attempted, through various means, to create a similar database (GRIC, Boingo, iPass, etc.), and some user communities have tried to 'contribute' to an open database of this kind of info (such as Netstumbler). Would you all be complaining if only the SSID were being captured? The SSID alone does not qualify the network very well - having the MAC address improves the qualification a lot. Having the MAC address of the wireless interface isn't all that big of a deal, and to create a useful database like this, it makes good sense to capture the MAC address.

The MAC address is not all that secret - after all, you've been broadcasting it to all of your neighbors and to anybody who drives by anyway (netstumbler has been capturing this for years).

In fact, if you were like Google, spending the money to drive around with cameras and GPS receivers, you too would ask yourself "What other information can we capture during these unique drive-by opportunities?"

I bet they're also capturing cellular coverage signal strength for various carriers and spectrum also.

Chill out. Capturing the MAC address of your broadcast Wireless interface isn't all that big of a deal. You've been broadcasting it to your neighbors for years.