ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Simos Xenitellis <simos.lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 2:25 AM, Robert Park <robert.park@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At the end, the only action he suggests is to clear remembered
> networks from your phone so they don't scan for those networks.
>
> Can somebody explain to me why phones are scanning for networks in the
> first place? Isn't it the routers job to advertise its presence and
> then the phone can just passively listen for what signals it gets?
>

There is the case of Hidden (cloaked) WiFi networks, which would
require the phone
to send broadcasts for those SSIDs all the time.
On Windows Phone it says that adding Hidden WiFi networks would
decrease the battery life
(http://images.mobilityminded.com/2011/09/add.jpg) and imposes a limit
of three such networks.

I do not see broadcasts originating from my Android phone, whether it
is connected to a WiFi or not.
The Android UI does not seem to have a separate option for Hidden networks;
perhaps when you specify the SSID yourself (in contrast with selecting
it from the list of currently available networks),
Android assumes that those WiFi networks are hidden so it broadcasts the SSIDs?

For a hidden WiFi network, the access point broadcasts the BSSID (MAC
address), so an optimization
could be to only broadcast the SSID when a known corresponding BSSID
has been encountered.

Simos

>
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 4:14 AM,  <gwmfms06@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Wifi Privacy Police is a smartphone app that should exist on the Desktop.
>> Nice video that explains the privacy/security implications of how
>> Desktops/Smartphones handle Wifi networks:
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GpNhYy2l08
>>
>> Ubuntu should address these privacy/security issues, not just on
>> Ubuntu-Touch but also on the Desktop.
>>