Based on a recent post now deleted from !privacy@lemmy.ml, which was itself based on this article, it sounds like there’s some misunderstandings and misconceptions about how Wifi Positioning (WPS) works, and how to mitigate it to the best of one’s ability.

First off, Apple and Google are the primary culprits here. Every time someone who has not adjusted their settings on their phone and has location data on connects to a wireless access point of any kind, Apple and Google collect that data and location data.

This is 100% different than wardrivers, who go around scanning and mapping SSIDs and BSSIDs.

After research from the University of Maryland showed how deep the WPS database goes, they suggested the following ways to mitigate having your wifi mapped:

-Rename your network to end with _nomap, so like “FBISurveilanceVan_nomap” would be how to do that. Larger WPS operators honor it as an opt‑out because these are automated systems. This cuts you out of many crowdsourced location DBs. This is not foolproof, but it will handle 99.9% of any use cases from anyone here.

-> This doesn’t prevent wardrivers from indexing your wifi. This prevents your Mother in Law or cousin that has their iPhone or Android phone with all the original settings and bloatware from letting either company index you by using the location data on their phones.

Next…

-Turn off SSID broadcast if you can. This cuts down on lazy wardrivers scanning unhidden SSIDs.

-Change the name of your SSID and router’s MAC/BSSID regularly.

-> This doesn’t prevent sophisticated wardrivers from indexing your wifi. It prevents lazy ones from indexing it, as well as any personal devices that index wifi signals based on simply seeing the broadcast SSID, which is a thing.

If you plan on hosting family for the holidays, now is a great time to do this.

This NOT a 100% invisible wifi network solution. This is a “best as we can get” solution. If you want truly invisible internet connections, get shielded RJ45 cable like you live in a radio blackout zone.

How to check if your wifi has been indexed? https://wigle.net/ is a good starting point. I’ve never had a wifi network appear on there, so apparently I’m doing something right.