Our Machines, Their Map
_nomap Please Recently, I learned a bit about Wi-Fi Positioning Systems (WPS) that are used by major players like Apple and Google. These systems commonly use nearby Wi-Fi access points (APs) and their received signal strength indicator (RSSI) to locate a device. This technology is built into most flagship devices today and opting out usually means losing the ability for your device to know its own location 1. Owners of APs are able to opt-out of being tracked by appending _nomap to the end of their network’s name (SSID). Apple, Google, Mozilla, and some independent crowd-sourced projects like beaconDB, the self-described public domain wireless geolocation database, all support this suffix for opting out. This is, however, not a universal standard and some other major players like Microsoft, who enjoys their individuality, do not support this. ...