Comments on: Securing wi-fi isn’t about price gouging

By: joseph

joseph — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 19:54:47 +0000

Thank you. This makes sense whereas the media report didn’t.

By: Dave Farquhar

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:19:46 +0000

In reply to joseph.

They’re recording the SSIDs (names) of the wireless networks, associating them with coordinates, and then they use that data to help Android phones figure out where they are. It’s faster to use known SSIDs for navigation than GPS coordinates, so the phones use that first, then fall back on GPS.

There’s a naming convention you can use and they’ll ignore your network.

By: joseph

joseph — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 04:48:22 +0000

I saw a story on TV last week about Google war driving all over the world and picking up everything that was being broadcast as they drove.
Is this happening on unsecured networks or are they actually hacking secured networks?
Thanks for your reply.