• Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for pri

    From Jolly Roger@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 05, 2025 19:57:21
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-05, Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    No you don't. You said you could track me "if you were a bad guy". I gave >>> you permission and you could do nothing. Your paranoia is baseless.

    https://github.com/darkosancanin/apple_bssid_locator

    Let's say someone walks into the store to buy a router, and I watch them,
    knowing the router BSSID is printed on the box (so I write it down).

    Until they retire that router, I can find where they installed that router, >> and it will be most likely where they live.

    So you can only track me if you physically sell me the router in a shop and write down the MAC address?

    Even then it's not guaranteed to work. I just ran the script and plugged
    my BSSID in and got nothing. ?

    --
    E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
    I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

    JR

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 05, 2025 17:18:37
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-05 16:49, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    It still just boils down to knowing my home address. Which is already
    public knowledge.

    Hi Chris,

    You're smarter than that.

    I get it that all the Apple trolls are desperate to minimize the privacy implications of what has widely been reported as a privacy nightmare.

    You Apple trolls always defend everything Apple to the death.
    No matter what.

    So it's natural that you and Jolly Roger claim that Apple's invasion of our privacy is, in the words of Jolly Roger "a nothing burger".

    But you need to realize privacy professionals out there disagree with you.
    *Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag*
    <https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/05/why-your-wi-fi-router-doubles-as-an-apple-airtag/>

    For you Apple trolls to claim the security professionals are wrong is your own way of defending everything Apple does, to the death, no matter what.
    *Surveilling the Masses with Wi-Fi-Based Positioning Systems*
    <https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10540853>

    Luckily, of all the Apple trolls, you're one who sometimes can exercise critical thinking processes, so allow me to give you a local example.

    Since WaveDigger has a special query mode where you can enter a single SSID or BSSID, and instead of just returning that access point's location, it
    also pulls in the surrounding access points that Apple's Wi-Fi Positioning System has observed in the same area.... just... try this...

    Windows:
    1. Press Win+R
    2. Type: cmd
    3. In the command prompt, type:
    netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid
    4. Look for your SSID name
    5. Under it, find "BSSID" lines
    6. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    MacOS:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: airport -s
    3. Find your SSID in the list
    4. Copy the BSSID shown (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    Once you have the BSSID, you can paste it into WaveDigger lookup tool.
    1. Open the WaveDigger site:
    https://wavedigger.networksurvey.app/?tab=bssid
    2. In the "BSSID" field, type your MAC address:
    11:22:33:AA:BB:CC
    3. Click the "Lookup" or "Search" button.
    4. The map will show the location of that access point.
    If you enable "include surrounding access points",
    it will also list nearby BSSIDs Apple has observed.

    Once you have the BSSID of all your neighbors, if one of them moves to a
    new house, you can track them if they use their router at the new home.

    Except you won't know WHICH of the BSSIDs that are returned belong to
    your neighbours.

    From WaveDigger (the site you didn't know about until I told you):

    "Access points shown may be 1-2km away from your click location."

    So?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Char Jackson@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 05, 2025 22:59:35
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On Fri, 5 Dec 2025 11:06:25 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2025-12-05 06:06, Char Jackson wrote:

    <snip>

    I don't see anything complex there, but we don't all have the same
    background.

    Because that is the simple setup mode. You don't see there the virtual >networks (VLANS) it has, for instance.

    In the early 2000s I used to think that dd-wrt router firmware was
    complex, but the fog clears over time. It includes vlans, among many
    other things.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 13:08:19
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-06 05:59, Char Jackson wrote:
    On Fri, 5 Dec 2025 11:06:25 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2025-12-05 06:06, Char Jackson wrote:

    <snip>

    I don't see anything complex there, but we don't all have the same
    background.

    Because that is the simple setup mode. You don't see there the virtual
    networks (VLANS) it has, for instance.

    In the early 2000s I used to think that dd-wrt router firmware was
    complex, but the fog clears over time. It includes vlans, among many
    other things.



    When I say that my ISP setup of the router is complex, I mean things
    like that the setup includes 3 active VLANs, and more things. If I buy
    my own router, first I have to decode out the entire setup of the old
    router, and then replicate it in the new router. Ie, create again those
    3 VLANs, and every other thing they did, which are not documented. You
    have to reverse engineer the setup of the provided router.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 13:24:54
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-06 02:18, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-05 16:49, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    Since WaveDigger has a special query mode where you can enter a single
    SSID
    or BSSID, and instead of just returning that access point's location, it
    also pulls in the surrounding access points that Apple's Wi-Fi
    Positioning
    System has observed in the same area.... just... try this...

    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    iwlist scan | grep "Address:\|SSID"

    ...

    Once you have the BSSID, you can paste it into WaveDigger lookup tool.
    1. Open the WaveDigger site:
    ˙˙˙ https://wavedigger.networksurvey.app/?tab=bssid
    2. In the "BSSID" field, type your MAC address:
    ˙˙˙ 11:22:33:AA:BB:CC
    3. Click the "Lookup" or "Search" button.
    4. The map will show the location of that access point.
    ˙˙˙ If you enable "include surrounding access points",
    ˙˙˙ it will also list nearby BSSIDs Apple has observed.

    Once you have the BSSID of all your neighbors, if one of them moves to a
    new house, you can track them if they use their router at the new home.

    Except you won't know WHICH of the BSSIDs that are returned belong to
    your neighbours.

    From WaveDigger (the site you didn't know about until I told you):

    "Access points shown may be 1-2km away from your click location."

    So?

    It showed mine just 20 or 30 metres to the west. At the other side of
    the street.

    May be 1-2 km away... doesn't mean they all are off. Just that there is
    no warranty that it is accurate.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 12:58:52
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    It still just boils down to knowing my home address. Which is already
    public knowledge.

    Hi Chris,

    You're smarter than that.

    You're not, though.

    I get it that all the Apple trolls are desperate to minimize the privacy implications of what has widely been reported as a privacy nightmare.

    Only you are making out that it is a privacy nightmare and it drives you to change your behaviour.

    It has no negative impact on ordinary people.

    We now know from your inability to come up with a way to actually track me
    that what is required is knowledge of a WAP's MAC address. This is only
    known by being in direct contact with the WAP (to read the sticker) or connected to it. Both of which mean you'll find out the location when you
    are AT THE LOCATION.

    You're a moron if you think this is a problem.

    You Apple trolls always defend everything Apple to the death.
    No matter what.

    Incorrect. You're pushing an invalid narrative, which needs to be
    addressed.

    So it's natural that you and Jolly Roger claim that Apple's invasion of our privacy is, in the words of Jolly Roger "a nothing burger".

    But you need to realize privacy professionals out there disagree with you.
    *Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag*
    <https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/05/why-your-wi-fi-router-doubles-as-an-apple-airtag/>

    That's a clickbait article. Nowhere does it explain how a domestic, mains powered router is like a battery powered device that fits on a keychain.

    To many people Airtags and the like are a *good* thing. Mullins have been
    sold.

    The only real scenario they demonstrate as being a genuine risk is being in
    a warzone like Ukraine and Gaza. Again, of no relevance to 99.999% of
    people. Am pretty sure the Santa Cruz mountains aren't awarzone.

    For you Apple trolls to claim the security professionals are wrong

    Incorrect. No-one is saying that. We're saying you're wrong. As per usual.

    is your
    own way of defending everything Apple does, to the death, no matter what.
    *Surveilling the Masses with Wi-Fi-Based Positioning Systems*
    <https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10540853>

    Luckily, of all the Apple trolls, you're one who sometimes can exercise critical thinking processes, so allow me to give you a local example.

    Since WaveDigger has a special query mode where you can enter a single SSID or BSSID, and instead of just returning that access point's location, it
    also pulls in the surrounding access points that Apple's Wi-Fi Positioning System has observed in the same area.... just... try this...

    Windows:
    1. Press Win+R
    2. Type: cmd
    3. In the command prompt, type:
    netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid
    4. Look for your SSID name
    5. Under it, find "BSSID" lines
    6. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    Untested.

    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    "enp0s1 Interface doesn't support scanning"

    MacOS:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: airport -s
    3. Find your SSID in the list
    4. Copy the BSSID shown (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    "zsh: command not found: airport"

    Looks like chatgpt has let you down again. lol.

    For someone who claims to test so many things on a daily basis and is a self-proclaimed expert you don't half fail an awful lot.

    Amazon should ask for their money back for your "reviews". Oh wait they
    can't, because you give away your time to a multi-billion dollar company
    for free!! What an utter moron.

    Once you have the BSSID, you can paste it into WaveDigger lookup tool.
    1. Open the WaveDigger site:
    https://wavedigger.networksurvey.app/?tab=bssid

    Crashes Firefox in my ubuntu VM. <sigh>

    2. In the "BSSID" field, type your MAC address:
    11:22:33:AA:BB:CC
    3. Click the "Lookup" or "Search" button.
    4. The map will show the location of that access point.
    If you enable "include surrounding access points",
    it will also list nearby BSSIDs Apple has observed.

    Once you have the BSSID of all your neighbors, if one of them moves to a
    new house, you can track them if they use their router at the new home.

    My neighbours are in their 70s and 80s. They aren't moving anywhere with
    their routers. Given I get on with my neighbours they would *tell* me where they're going anyway with no need for any subterfuge.

    Honestly, your world sounds *exhausting*.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 14:31:14
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-06 13:58, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    "enp0s1 Interface doesn't support scanning"

    This Linux command is correct, except that it tries all network
    interfaces, including some that work for the purpose and some that do
    not. And on those it prints that informative error message.

    XXX:~ # iwlist scan
    lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

    eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

    wlan1 Scan completed :
    Cell 01 - Address: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
    Channel:116
    Frequency:5.58 GHz (Channel 116)
    Quality=70/70 Signal level=-28 dBm
    Encryption key:on
    ESSID:"Some name"
    ...
    ...




    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 17:52:02
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 13:58, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    "enp0s1 Interface doesn't support scanning"

    This Linux command is correct, except that it tries all network
    interfaces, including some that work for the purpose and some that do
    not. And on those it prints that informative error message.

    XXX:~ # iwlist scan
    lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

    eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

    wlan1 Scan completed :
    Cell 01 - Address: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
    Channel:116
    Frequency:5.58 GHz (Channel 116)
    Quality=70/70 Signal level=-28 dBm
    Encryption key:on
    ESSID:"Some name"
    ...
    ...


    Ah, thanks. That'll be because in the VM there isn't a wlan.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 20:51:57
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Except you won't know WHICH of the BSSIDs that are returned belong to
    your neighbours.

    From WaveDigger (the site you didn't know about until I told you):

    "Access points shown may be 1-2km away from your click location."

    So?

    It showed mine just 20 or 30 metres to the west. At the other side of
    the street.

    May be 1-2 km away... doesn't mean they all are off. Just that there is
    no warranty that it is accurate.

    Where I live, it's so accurate as to make my heart palpitate in shock.

    However, I see what Alan Baker wrote based on your inclusion of his post,
    but he's dead wrong (as always), but I can't fault Alan Baker for being
    dead wrong about everything as his IQ is well below anything normal.

    For people like you, Chris,

    Again, you're replying to Carlos. Read your own posts, why don't you?

    I can point out that when I look at the
    database, given our homes are far apart, it's trivial to identify the exact neighbor with the exact BSSID.

    So while you must be aware I don't advocate tracking your neighbors, one answer to your question of how I could track YOU is if you were one of my neighbors.

    You would do better actually looking out the window. You would then see if
    the lights are on or not. That's more useful information than knowing my
    MAC.

    If YOU were one of my neighbors, that query would show me exactly where YOU live and exactly what your BSSID is, which I could use to track you for as long as you use that particular router.

    Can you genuinely not see how ridiculous this sounds?

    You're trying claim that using an internet database of anonymous
    information is a more serious risk than looking out of your own window.
    You're claiming that the telephone books we all used to have are a serious privacy risk worth of a class action suit. LMAO.

    For example, if you moved away, but if you re-used your router, then I
    would know EXACTLY where you lived, if you moved to another sparse location such as mine is.

    That's a lot of "ifs".

    I did NOT check for access points in the middle of Los Angeles though,
    where I'd suspect Alan Baker's comment is more apropos given the density of access points would be far greater than it is out here in the boonies.





    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 16:10:07
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-06 04:24, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 02:18, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-05 16:49, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    Since WaveDigger has a special query mode where you can enter a
    single SSID
    or BSSID, and instead of just returning that access point's location, it >>> also pulls in the surrounding access points that Apple's Wi-Fi
    Positioning
    System has observed in the same area.... just... try this...

    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    iwlist scan | grep "Address:\|SSID"

    ...

    Once you have the BSSID, you can paste it into WaveDigger lookup tool.
    1. Open the WaveDigger site:
    ˙˙˙ https://wavedigger.networksurvey.app/?tab=bssid
    2. In the "BSSID" field, type your MAC address:
    ˙˙˙ 11:22:33:AA:BB:CC
    3. Click the "Lookup" or "Search" button.
    4. The map will show the location of that access point.
    ˙˙˙ If you enable "include surrounding access points",
    ˙˙˙ it will also list nearby BSSIDs Apple has observed.

    Once you have the BSSID of all your neighbors, if one of them moves to a >>> new house, you can track them if they use their router at the new home.

    Except you won't know WHICH of the BSSIDs that are returned belong to
    your neighbours.

    ˙From WaveDigger (the site you didn't know about until I told you):

    "Access points shown may be 1-2km away from your click location."

    So?

    It showed mine just 20 or 30 metres to the west. At the other side of
    the street.

    May be 1-2 km away... doesn't mean they all are off. Just that there is
    no warranty that it is accurate.


    Which means you cannot trust that any information returned is accurate.

    Makes for a pretty bad way to track someone...

    ...assuming you had some way to associate someone's identity with the
    BSSID of their WiFi in the first place.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Char Jackson@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 06, 2025 20:03:58
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On Sat, 6 Dec 2025 13:08:19 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2025-12-06 05:59, Char Jackson wrote:
    On Fri, 5 Dec 2025 11:06:25 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
    <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    On 2025-12-05 06:06, Char Jackson wrote:

    <snip>

    I don't see anything complex there, but we don't all have the same
    background.

    Because that is the simple setup mode. You don't see there the virtual
    networks (VLANS) it has, for instance.

    In the early 2000s I used to think that dd-wrt router firmware was
    complex, but the fog clears over time. It includes vlans, among many
    other things.



    When I say that my ISP setup of the router is complex, I mean things
    like that the setup includes 3 active VLANs, and more things. If I buy
    my own router, first I have to decode out the entire setup of the old >router, and then replicate it in the new router. Ie, create again those
    3 VLANs, and every other thing they did, which are not documented. You
    have to reverse engineer the setup of the provided router.

    I don't see anything complex about setting up consumer networking gear,
    but I'll take your word for it.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 11:05:14
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    Only you are making out that it is a privacy nightmare and it drives you to >> change your behaviour.

    <https://www.cs.umd.edu/~dml/papers/wifi-surveillance-sp24.pdf>
    "In this work, we show that Apples WPS implementation
    can easily be abused to create a serious privacy threat
    on a global scale."


    As you well know the scenarios shown are disasters or warzones. Which
    aren't of relevance to civilians as they have far more serious issues to
    worry about.

    They also report that 0.06% of all APs moved month to month. That's a
    really poor hit rate for "tracking" people.

    It has no negative impact on ordinary people.

    I get it that you Apple trolls always defend Apple to the death, no matter what, but all I will ask of you (given the listing above) is for you to...

    *Find even a single security researcher who agrees with you.*

    <https://www.govinfosecurity.com/surveillance-risk-apples-wifi-based-positioning-system-a-25330>
    "The attack risk stems from Apple's WiFi-based Positioning System"

    We now know from your inability to come up with a way to actually track me >> that what is required is knowledge of a WAP's MAC address. This is only
    known by being in direct contact with the WAP (to read the sticker) or
    connected to it. Both of which mean you'll find out the location when you
    are AT THE LOCATION.

    Notice that, where I live, in the mountains high above Silicon Valley, the query we discussed prior shows EXACTLY the EXACT BSSID of all my neighbors.

    It's EXACT, Chris.
    It's horrifyingly exact, Chris.

    I almost had a heart attack when I saw how clearly I could identify each
    and every one of my neighbors by their exact location and BSSID, Chris.

    That is the exact point of it. It would be a pretty terrible service if it couldn't identify unique buildings within 40 acre plots. lol.

    What's worse, since Apple's WPS database has no security control
    whatsoever, anyone in the world can do easily what I just did, Chris.

    All of us can be tracked. And it's not just me saying it.
    Read the papers, Chris. Read them.

    Literally says 0.06% of APs move . That's nowhere near "all of us".

    *Find even a single security researcher who agrees with you.*

    <https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14975>
    "In this work, we show that Apple's flawed WPS can too easily be abused"

    You're a moron if you think this is a problem.

    It's a given

    You remove context and distort.


    But you need to realize privacy professionals out there disagree with you. >>> *Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag*
    <https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/05/why-your-wi-fi-router-doubles-as-an-apple-airtag/>

    That's a clickbait article. Nowhere does it explain how a domestic, mains
    powered router is like a battery powered device that fits on a keychain.

    Well, Brian Krebs is a well-known well-respected researcher, is he not?

    Argument to authority. Invalidates everything else you say.

    Please explain how the title isn't clickbait?






    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 13:29:01
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
    Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:

    Andy Burns wrote:

    In the UK (and I assume wider within Europe) many ISPs do remote
    provisioning using TR-069 protocol.

    Do you know the extent of that "provisioning", i.e. what they can and
    can not do?

    quite likely change all settings and do firmware updates, reboots

    They only have to access to WAN side settings or global things like
    firmware updates or full resets.

    Also of the router part, i.e. router settings, passwords, IP settings, etc.?

    If so, how is the user's ('LAN') still his/hers and still secure? How
    about the user being liable for any abuse/misuse from the ISP's side/ personel?

    The LAN is still yours and separate.

    Over time (some 20+ years), my modem/router devices have either been
    installed by an on-site technician (probably two times) or by myself,
    i.e. they ship a replacement modem/router (sometimes with things like
    cables, adapters, outlets, etc.) and I install it (probably three or
    more times).

    I generally start with the ISP's device, then migrate to my own device,
    but the I've stayed with same ISP since 2004

    Over time, I have used two of my own routers. The first one was
    needed, because the modem only had one hardwired connection. The second, because the first was too slow (bps). After that, I've used the ISP's built-in routers because they offered sufficient functionality. And yes,
    also since about that time (March 2003 actually).





    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 20:44:10
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-07 17:51, Marian wrote:
    Char Jackson wrote:
    In the early 2000s I used to think that dd-wrt router firmware was
    complex, but the fog clears over time. It includes vlans, among many
    other things.



    When I say that my ISP setup of the router is complex, I mean things
    like that the setup includes 3 active VLANs, and more things. If I buy
    my own router, first I have to decode out the entire setup of the old
    router, and then replicate it in the new router. Ie, create again those
    3 VLANs, and every other thing they did, which are not documented. You
    have to reverse engineer the setup of the provided router.

    I don't see anything complex about setting up consumer networking gear,
    but I'll take your word for it.

    I agree with Char Jackson, who has helped me over the years to set up old Linksys & Netgear routers on DD-WRT as bridges (and as bridge repeaters).


    It is simple if someone takes the effort of describing what you have to configure in the new router. Not that easy if you have to reverse
    engineer the old router and it has no comments nor help. Just the
    obscure short name of a setting.


    ...

    In all those years, I haven't explicitly run into VLANs but implicitly many guest networks and repeater bridges make use of VLANs as far as I'm aware.

    Nothing implicit. One VLAN is for the phone land line, another is for
    TV, another is for internet (my guess).

    This is just a small part of what my router calls:

    Network Setting
    Bridging Setup
    Bridging
    Filtering
    Marking

    https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/7c7fef46eaef https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/9acdc9974acd https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/88d9c37538af https://paste.opensuse.org/1aece5657e7a
    https://paste.opensuse.org/872479cefbdb
    https://paste.opensuse.org/a827cc71d713


    just try to explain what that does. A mistake, and my phone stops
    working. And there are maybe hundreds of screens like that.


    No, I am not actually interested. It is just an example of why I say
    that the setup of my router by the ISP is complex.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 20:54:30
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-07 01:10, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 04:24, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 02:18, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-05 16:49, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    Since WaveDigger has a special query mode where you can enter a
    single SSID
    or BSSID, and instead of just returning that access point's
    location, it
    also pulls in the surrounding access points that Apple's Wi-Fi
    Positioning
    System has observed in the same area.... just... try this...

    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    iwlist scan | grep "Address:\|SSID"

    ...

    Once you have the BSSID, you can paste it into WaveDigger lookup tool. >>>> 1. Open the WaveDigger site:
    ˙˙˙ https://wavedigger.networksurvey.app/?tab=bssid
    2. In the "BSSID" field, type your MAC address:
    ˙˙˙ 11:22:33:AA:BB:CC
    3. Click the "Lookup" or "Search" button.
    4. The map will show the location of that access point.
    ˙˙˙ If you enable "include surrounding access points",
    ˙˙˙ it will also list nearby BSSIDs Apple has observed.

    Once you have the BSSID of all your neighbors, if one of them moves
    to a
    new house, you can track them if they use their router at the new home. >>>
    Except you won't know WHICH of the BSSIDs that are returned belong to
    your neighbours.

    ˙From WaveDigger (the site you didn't know about until I told you):

    "Access points shown may be 1-2km away from your click location."

    So?

    It showed mine just 20 or 30 metres to the west. At the other side of
    the street.

    May be 1-2 km away... doesn't mean they all are off. Just that there
    is no warranty that it is accurate.


    Which means you cannot trust that any information returned is accurate.

    Makes for a pretty bad way to track someone...

    Much better than looking on the entire world. That's pretty good, actually.


    ...assuming you had some way to associate someone's identity with the
    BSSID of their WiFi in the first place.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 12:47:35
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-07 11:54, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-07 01:10, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 04:24, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 02:18, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-05 16:49, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    Since WaveDigger has a special query mode where you can enter a
    single SSID
    or BSSID, and instead of just returning that access point's
    location, it
    also pulls in the surrounding access points that Apple's Wi-Fi
    Positioning
    System has observed in the same area.... just... try this...

    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    iwlist scan | grep "Address:\|SSID"

    ...

    Once you have the BSSID, you can paste it into WaveDigger lookup tool. >>>>> 1. Open the WaveDigger site:
    ˙˙˙ https://wavedigger.networksurvey.app/?tab=bssid
    2. In the "BSSID" field, type your MAC address:
    ˙˙˙ 11:22:33:AA:BB:CC
    3. Click the "Lookup" or "Search" button.
    4. The map will show the location of that access point.
    ˙˙˙ If you enable "include surrounding access points",
    ˙˙˙ it will also list nearby BSSIDs Apple has observed.

    Once you have the BSSID of all your neighbors, if one of them moves >>>>> to a
    new house, you can track them if they use their router at the new
    home.

    Except you won't know WHICH of the BSSIDs that are returned belong
    to your neighbours.

    ˙From WaveDigger (the site you didn't know about until I told you):

    "Access points shown may be 1-2km away from your click location."

    So?

    It showed mine just 20 or 30 metres to the west. At the other side of
    the street.

    May be 1-2 km away... doesn't mean they all are off. Just that there
    is no warranty that it is accurate.


    Which means you cannot trust that any information returned is accurate.

    Makes for a pretty bad way to track someone...

    Much better than looking on the entire world. That's pretty good, actually.
    Except you first have to find a way to associate the BSSID with a
    particular individual.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From J. P. Gilliver@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 21:11:12
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025/12/7 16:6:36, Andy Burns wrote:
    Marian wrote:

    Here is how to opt out of the following databases

    Going chinese? You've swapped into charset="big5" and the weird ital
    ic
    font that usually uses.

    I did wonder; his posts are appearing here (in Thunderbird) in a
    different font to everyone else's. It's not italic, and I think it is monospaced; other than that it looks maybe a bit like Times but
    stretched vertically.

    --
    J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

    "Scheisse," said Pooh, trying out his German.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 22:27:00
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-07 21:47, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-07 11:54, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-07 01:10, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 04:24, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-06 02:18, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-05 16:49, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    Since WaveDigger has a special query mode where you can enter a
    single SSID
    or BSSID, and instead of just returning that access point's
    location, it
    also pulls in the surrounding access points that Apple's Wi-Fi
    Positioning
    System has observed in the same area.... just... try this...

    Linux:
    1. Open a terminal
    2. Type: sudo iwlist scan
    3. Find your SSID in the output
    4. Look for "Address:" lines
    5. Copy the MAC address (format: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF)

    iwlist scan | grep "Address:\|SSID"

    ...

    Once you have the BSSID, you can paste it into WaveDigger lookup
    tool.
    1. Open the WaveDigger site:
    ˙˙˙ https://wavedigger.networksurvey.app/?tab=bssid
    2. In the "BSSID" field, type your MAC address:
    ˙˙˙ 11:22:33:AA:BB:CC
    3. Click the "Lookup" or "Search" button.
    4. The map will show the location of that access point.
    ˙˙˙ If you enable "include surrounding access points",
    ˙˙˙ it will also list nearby BSSIDs Apple has observed.

    Once you have the BSSID of all your neighbors, if one of
    them moves to a new house, you can track them if they use
    their router at the new home.

    Except you won't know WHICH of the BSSIDs that are returned belong
    to your neighbours.

    ˙From WaveDigger (the site you didn't know about until I told you):

    "Access points shown may be 1-2km away from your click location."

    So?

    It showed mine just 20 or 30 metres to the west. At the other side
    of the street.

    May be 1-2 km away... doesn't mean they all are off. Just that there
    is no warranty that it is accurate.


    Which means you cannot trust that any information returned is accurate.

    Makes for a pretty bad way to track someone...

    Much better than looking on the entire world. That's pretty good,
    actually.
    Except you first have to find a way to associate the BSSID with a
    particular individual.

    Sure.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 07, 2025 22:51:05
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-07 22:11, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
    On 2025/12/7 16:6:36, Andy Burns wrote:
    Marian wrote:

    Here is how to opt out of the following databases

    Going chinese? You've swapped into charset="big5" and the weird italic
    font that usually uses.

    I did wonder; his posts are appearing here (in Thunderbird) in a
    different font to everyone else's. It's not italic, and I think it is monospaced; other than that it looks maybe a bit like Times but
    stretched vertically.

    No, the font used is chosen locally by your client, which I take to be Thunderbird. TB can use a different font for each different charset.

    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="big5"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
    Content-Language: en-GB

    I'm not familiar with this choice.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 08, 2025 03:36:58
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-08 03:14, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    I agree with Char Jackson, who has helped me over the years to set up old >>> Linksys & Netgear routers on DD-WRT as bridges (and as bridge repeaters). >>>

    It is simple if someone takes the effort of describing what you have to
    configure in the new router. Not that easy if you have to reverse
    engineer the old router and it has no comments nor help. Just the
    obscure short name of a setting.

    I must exclaim that I AGREE with Carlos, since I never disagree with
    anyone, no matter who they are, who presents a logically sensible view.

    We've all struggled to understand what a given switch meant when setting up
    a router, where I remember, I even struggled when I moved into the
    mountains to figure out which port of a POE goes to the radio versus
    router. After scores of POEs, over time, we forget we had to learn it.

    However...

    There is one really good thing that came up only in the last year or so.
    You can now ask AI/LLM how to set up your router & it will help you do it.

    In all those years, I haven't explicitly run into VLANs but implicitly many >>> guest networks and repeater bridges make use of VLANs as far as I'm aware. >>
    Nothing implicit. One VLAN is for the phone land line, another is for
    TV, another is for internet (my guess).

    This is just a small part of what my router calls:

    Network Setting
    Bridging Setup
    Bridging
    Filtering
    Marking

    https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/7c7fef46eaef
    https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/9acdc9974acd
    https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/88d9c37538af
    https://paste.opensuse.org/1aece5657e7a
    https://paste.opensuse.org/872479cefbdb
    https://paste.opensuse.org/a827cc71d713


    just try to explain what that does. A mistake, and my phone stops
    working. And there are maybe hundreds of screens like that.


    No, I am not actually interested. It is just an example of why I say
    that the setup of my router by the ISP is complex.

    The RTF8225VW Router Smart WiFi 6 Go is Movistar's latest
    Askey-manufactured router whose configuration guide is here.
    <https://itigic.com/movistar-router-smart-wifi-6-manual-configuration-guide/>

    That's the normal user setup (which I already know), it doesn't explain anything about the non documented setup of things like those in the
    photos I posted above. There are hundreds of non documented settings
    needed to adapt a generic router to work for them.



    The bridge mode support apparently lets you connect a neutral router (like TP-Link or Asus) to manage your network, avoiding double NAT.
    <https://algoentremanos.com/como-configurar-router-movistar-smart-wifi-6-go-rtf8225vw-modo-bridge/>

    Sure.


    Moviestart can push the firmware updates if you don't want to do it.
    <https://comunidad.movistar.es/discussions/soporte-fibra-optica/ultimo-firmware-router-smart-wifi-go-router-askey-rtf8225vw/5181231>

    You appear to be using bridge mode which is optional.
    a. Advanced Settings > Internet > Bridge Mode.
    b. Then connect your home router to the RTF8225VW.


    No, I am not using bridge mode. I'm using the normal default mode as it
    comes out of the box, prepared to work with telef˘nica, then added a few things, like my SSID/Password, dhcp range to use, what ports I want translated, etc.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 08, 2025 07:54:09
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    They also report that 0.06% of all APs moved month to month. That's a
    really poor hit rate for "tracking" people.

    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a database
    of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    Let's just say California wanted to find all the people who moved from California to Florida who retired to ask them to pay their 401K taxes.

    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any
    given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Go on then. If it's so trivial, why don't you do it?

    Show us with step by step instructions how many *people* - as you claim -
    moved to FL from CA in the last six months.

    You have a week. If you can't then I call bullshit.

    I know what will happen, however. You won't even try. You will cry, shout
    and stomp your feet blaming everyone else apart from yourself. Just like a
    big baby.

    You'll not hear from me until next week so as to not direct you from this important privacy risk study.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 09, 2025 16:08:35
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-08 03:32, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:> No, the font used is chosen locally by your client, which I take to be
    Thunderbird. TB can use a different font for each different charset.

    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="big5"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
    Content-Language: en-GB

    I'm not familiar with this choice.

    Andy found a flaw in my newsreader, which is a custom unique newsreader.

    In that newsreader, there's one thing I've never figured out, which is
    how fonts work in Usenet (since most lines in my header are completely random).

    As you know, I have a unique newsreader which is simply telnet with gVim.
    The scripts don't care what fonts are used. It's just a line to telnet.

    The header lines not added by the nntp server are added by my scripts.
    But they're essentially random.

    I got the lines, long ago, from scraping Usenet for header lines.
    So some newsreaders tended to have one set of font lines, while other newsreaders tended to have a different set of font lines. It's random.

    They change whenever I flip a switch to the next dictionary lookup.
    I'll do that right now so that you can see different header lines.

    I have no idea how the header lines look to the recipient though.
    Nor how the fonts are interpreted as they're always sent the same.

    But nothing has changed in that I'm still using telnet with gVim.

    But you have to be careful about what your random headers do to us. You
    should not use random headers in things like the charset.



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 00:09:23
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-08 00:10, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Which means you cannot trust that any information returned is accurate. >>>>>
    Makes for a pretty bad way to track someone...

    Much better than looking on the entire world. That's pretty good,
    actually.
    Except you first have to find a way to associate the BSSID with a
    particular individual.

    Sure.

    I just want the people here to understand that when your BSSID is in
    Apple's database, and if you live in a rural area (such as I do),
    then your GPS coordinates returned to 8 decimal places... is you.

    If you move, then they can track where you moved.

    Sure.


    For example, an enterprising coder could query the Apple WPS database for
    all routers that moved between locations to put them into a database.

    Then they could sell that database to professionals who target people who just moved. That's only one example, as I'm not that type of person.

    It could be more nefarious in that with Apple's insecure WPS database, you can *target* individuals, which again, I don't advocate but it can be done.

    But the fact is you can be tracked anywhere in the world if you use the
    same router, which very often people who have moved will easily do.

    Considering that here the router is often provided by the Telco, when
    you move you have to hand over the old router, and get a new one with
    the new contract at the new destination.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 00:13:08
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-08 08:54, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    They also report that 0.06% of all APs moved month to month. That's a
    really poor hit rate for "tracking" people.

    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a database >> of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    Let's just say California wanted to find all the people who moved from
    California to Florida who retired to ask them to pay their 401K taxes.

    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any
    given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Go on then. If it's so trivial, why don't you do it?

    Show us with step by step instructions how many *people* - as you claim - moved to FL from CA in the last six months.

    You have a week. If you can't then I call bullshit.

    I know what will happen, however. You won't even try. You will cry, shout
    and stomp your feet blaming everyone else apart from yourself. Just like a big baby.

    You'll not hear from me until next week so as to not direct you from this important privacy risk study.

    His point is correct, though. An interested party could dig out this information, even if Arlen doesn't come out with code to do it.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 08:07:46
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-08 08:54, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    They also report that 0.06% of all APs moved month to month. That's a
    really poor hit rate for "tracking" people.

    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a database >>> of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    Let's just say California wanted to find all the people who moved from
    California to Florida who retired to ask them to pay their 401K taxes.

    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any
    given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Go on then. If it's so trivial, why don't you do it?

    Show us with step by step instructions how many *people* - as you claim -
    moved to FL from CA in the last six months.

    You have a week. If you can't then I call bullshit.

    I know what will happen, however. You won't even try. You will cry, shout
    and stomp your feet blaming everyone else apart from yourself. Just like a >> big baby.

    You'll not hear from me until next week so as to not direct you from this
    important privacy risk study.

    His point is correct, though. An interested party could dig out this information, even if Arlen doesn't come out with code to do it.

    I disagree. Just because a router moves doesn't mean a particular person
    has moved . Or vice versa.

    Trying to infer this kind of information is also not as trivial as Donald claims.

    In addition, in the above scenario, the tax authorities would have far
    better information at their disposal on actual people rather than some
    vague technical proxy. A MAC is not a person. Not yet at least ;)


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 08:49:38
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a database >>> of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    My AP BSSID is me. It's nobody else. It's me. To 8 decimal places, it's me. They have my name. My address. Everything. My BSSID is me.

    Lol. Your name is a MAC address? I can see why you'd not want to disclose
    that.

    Your zip code is also "you". Is a database of zip codes that all online retailers have access to equally a serious privacy risk?

    Why do you think I redacted my BSSID in the screenshots I provided you? <https://i.postimg.cc/C5Pcb6RQ/decimal.jpg>

    Understandably, you don't want to share your home address to the wider internet. We have additional information so can link you with the address.

    I even published a tutorial for how you can track BSSID's, Chris.
    I published that tutorial on Saturday. To prove the point it's easy.

    Your "tutorial" was simply a lock-up table. There is no tracking involved.
    Like the majority of your tutorials, it was superfluous. Sufficient instructions already existed on the github.


    Let's just say California wanted to find all the people who moved from
    California to Florida who retired to ask them to pay their 401K taxes.

    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any
    given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Go on then. If it's so trivial, why don't you do it?

    Show us with step by step instructions how many *people* - as you claim -
    moved to FL from CA in the last six months.

    You have a week. If you can't then I call bullshit.

    You are nuts. It's so trivial that you must be nuts to not realize it is.
    I did it already. I already wrote the code. I already published the code.

    Ha ha ha! This is a new low for you. You're plagiarising other people's
    code now?


    I published the code on Saturday already.
    It takes any number of BSSIDs and tracks them.

    No it doesn't. The github script (not your code) only reports the location currently in the db. There is no history.

    I am a bit dismayed that your argument defending Apple to the death,
    no matter what, is so baseless, that I already published the code.


    I know what will happen, however. You won't even try. You will cry, shout
    and stomp your feet blaming everyone else apart from yourself. Just like a >> big baby.

    You are nuts. I already posted the code long ago to this very newsgroup.
    I wrote the tutorial for God's sake. You're nuts, Chris. Seriously. Nuts.

    You claim I won't do what I already did for God's sake. You're nuts Chris.

    Thanks for confirming your babyish attitude. Rather than rise to the
    challenge, you deflect and attack.

    What you don't understand, because you're not a scientist, is that a study worthy of publication - albeit as a preprint - is a serious amount of work. Just because they were able to do it, as a proof of concept, does not mean
    any Shmo can do the same "trivially".

    Unless you can demonstrate in detail a search of all floridians who moved
    from california in the last six months only using their BSSIDs, I call
    bullshit on your claims. You're fear mongering.

    Having said that, it is crazy that Apple don't limit calls to their WPS db
    like google do.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 08:58:29
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    But the fact is you can be tracked anywhere in the world if you use the
    same router, which very often people who have moved will easily do.

    Considering that here the router is often provided by the Telco, when
    you move you have to hand over the old router, and get a new one with
    the new contract at the new destination.

    I agree with anyone, no matter who they are, who posits a sensibly logical statement, where I would heartily agree with you that if you hand back the router to the telco, then you can't be tracked by subsequent use of it.

    However...

    The argument made by the security researchers is valid that they tracked "longitudinal" movements over the course of a year using Apple WPS. <https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10540853>

    Unfortunately, they give almost no details on what this year-long
    longitudinal study was. Unlike their month-long study which was sampled
    daily.

    They also make reference to a six-month study for mobile routers with no specific details.

    In their month-long they find that 15% of APs were "unstable" or
    disappeared, 0.06% moved more than 1km and the median distance travelled
    was 4km. That means 50% of APs 4km or less over the month.

    Am obvious thing they should have done was to remove the mobile routers
    from the global analysis. Makes interpretation harder.

    Unlike you they acknowledge the APs aren't people, despite the poor
    grammar.

    "While there is not necessarily a 1-to-1 relationship
    between Wi-Fi routers and users, home routers typically only have several."

    The researchers argue that Apple makes it trivial to collect millions of router locations which they can track on a massive scale because there are
    no security controls whatsoever (not even a login!) for the Apple WPS db.

    Yeah, that's a daft design decision.

    It doesn't take much of an imagination to understand how dangerous that is.

    Likewise an overactive imagination can catastrophise. A sense of proportionality is useful, here.

    If Apple honored the "_nomap" & the "hidden SSID" it wouldn't be so bad.
    But Apple clearly does not honor their own rules (which I can prove).

    You have n=1. That's barely an anecdote.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 19:25:14
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-08 00:10, Marian wrote:
    [...]
    But the fact is you can be tracked anywhere in the world if you use the same router, which very often people who have moved will easily do.

    Considering that here the router is often provided by the Telco, when
    you move you have to hand over the old router, and get a new one with
    the new contract at the new destination.

    And the old router might be re-used by someone else, which would lead
    'Arlen' to the erroneous conclusion that you had moved to the place
    where that someone lives. Way to go!

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 19:29:51
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a database
    of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    My AP BSSID is me. It's nobody else. It's me. To 8 decimal places, it's me. They have my name. My address. Everything. My BSSID is me.

    Lol. Your name is a MAC address? I can see why you'd not want to disclose that.

    I thought that 'Arlen' had a wife, but apparently she is insignificant
    and hence his BSSID is him. Fits right in with his administration's
    agenda.

    I'll ask my wife which half of our BSSID is mine

    [...]

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 21:36:04
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-10 13:26, Marian wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    But the fact is you can be tracked anywhere in the world if you use the >>>> same router, which very often people who have moved will easily do.

    Considering that here the router is often provided by the Telco, when
    you move you have to hand over the old router, and get a new one with
    the new contract at the new destination.

    ˙ And the old router might be re-used by someone else, which would lead
    'Arlen' to the erroneous conclusion that you had moved to the place
    where that someone lives. Way to go!

    If Frank is trying to intimate that this news about Apple's highly insecure WPS system can't track people, then I'm going to have to disagree with him.

    Frank hates me,
    LOL!

    That's so cute!

    You think anyone cares enough about you to hate you!

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 21:37:32
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-09 15:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-08 08:54, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    They also report that 0.06% of all APs moved month to month. That's a
    really poor hit rate for "tracking" people.

    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a
    database
    of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    Let's just say California wanted to find all the people who moved from
    California to Florida who retired to ask them to pay their 401K taxes.

    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any
    given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Go on then. If it's so trivial, why don't you do it?

    Show us with step by step instructions how many *people* - as you claim -
    moved to FL from CA in the last six months.

    You have a week. If you can't then I call bullshit.

    I know what will happen, however. You won't even try. You will cry, shout
    and stomp your feet blaming everyone else apart from yourself. Just
    like a
    big baby.

    You'll not hear from me until next week so as to not direct you from this
    important privacy risk study.

    His point is correct, though. An interested party could dig out this information, even if Arlen doesn't come out with code to do it.


    Tell us how an "interested party" associates a particular person with a
    BSSID in the first place.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 10, 2025 21:38:26
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-09 18:22, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a
    database
    of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    My AP BSSID is me. It's nobody else. It's me. To 8 decimal places, it's me.

    But no one but you knows which BSSID belongs to you.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Tyrone@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 05:46:06
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On Dec 11, 2025 at 12:38:26?AM EST, "Alan" <nuh-uh@nope.com> wrote:

    On 2025-12-09 18:22, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a
    database
    of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    My AP BSSID is me. It's nobody else. It's me. To 8 decimal places, it's me.

    But no one but you knows which BSSID belongs to you.

    You should know by now that you should not confuse Arlen with facts.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 08:29:53
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    My AP BSSID is me. It's nobody else. It's me. To 8 decimal places, it's me. >>> They have my name. My address. Everything. My BSSID is me.

    Lol. Your name is a MAC address? I can see why you'd not want to disclose
    that.

    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct

    Irony overload. So when friends and family come over, are they "you" as
    well given all their phones will be using your wifi?

    Your zip code is also "you". Is a database of zip codes that all online
    retailers have access to equally a serious privacy risk?

    Jesus Christ.

    Deflection and ad hominem noted.


    Why do you think I redacted my BSSID in the screenshots I provided you?
    <https://i.postimg.cc/C5Pcb6RQ/decimal.jpg>

    Understandably, you don't want to share your home address to the wider
    internet. We have additional information so can link you with the address.

    All you'd need is my BSSID and you'd have the coordinates to my bedroom.

    Don't keep your Apple devices in your bedroom?

    I even published a tutorial for how you can track BSSID's, Chris.
    I published that tutorial on Saturday. To prove the point it's easy.

    Your "tutorial" was simply a lock-up table. There is no tracking involved. >> Like the majority of your tutorials, it was superfluous. Sufficient
    instructions already existed on the github.

    Huh? Again & again, I admit I have trouble dealing with people like you

    That's painfully obvious. You can't deal with people making reasonable criticisms of your flawed logic or blatant lies.


    I published the code on Saturday already.
    It takes any number of BSSIDs and tracks them.

    No it doesn't. The github script (not your code) only reports the location >> currently in the db. There is no history.

    The script is trivial, Chris.

    Your IQ is too low to understand that "tracking" is just running the script
    a few times. It's shocking that I have to explain something that trivial.

    A poor communicator always blames their audience when it's them at fault.

    Here's a wrapper to track the moving location of any given set of BSSIDs. This is a permanent record a malefactor can sell over & over to bad guys.

    # bssid.py
    import sys
    import time

    # Example "BSSID database" with changing locations
    bssid_database = {
    "AA:BB:CC:11:22:33": [
    {"name": "BSSID", "location": "GPS A"},
    {"name": "BSSID", "location": "GPS B"},
    {"name": "BSSID", "location": "GPS C"},
    ]
    }

    def lookup_bssid(bssid_id, step):
    # simulate movement by returning different locations over time
    if bssid_id in bssid_database and step < len(bssid_database[bssid_id]):
    return bssid_database[bssid_id][step]
    return None

    def main():
    bssid_ids = sys.argv[1:]
    log = []

    # open a log file for writing
    with open("bssid_log.txt", "w") as logfile:
    for step in range(3): # simulate 3 queries over time
    timestamp = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
    for bssid_id in bssid_ids:
    result = lookup_bssid(bssid_id, step)
    if result:
    entry = {"id": bssid_id, "time": timestamp, "location": result["location"]}
    log.append(entry)
    line = f"[{timestamp}] Found {result['name']} at {result['location']}\n"
    print(line.strip())
    logfile.write(line)
    else:
    line = f"[{timestamp}] bssid {bssid_id} not found\n"
    print(line.strip())
    logfile.write(line)
    time.sleep(1) # pause to simulate time passing

    # Diff successive locations
    logfile.write("\n--- Movement Diff ---\n")
    print("\n--- Movement Diff ---")
    for bssid_id in bssid_ids:
    locations = [entry["location"] for entry in log if entry["id"]
    == bssid_id]
    for i in range(1, len(locations)):
    if locations[i] != locations[i-1]:
    diff_line = f"{bssid_id} moved from {locations[i-1]} to {locations[i]}\n"
    print(diff_line.strip())
    logfile.write(diff_line)

    if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()


    A-ha! That's a start. However, of course, sharing code like this is brain
    dead. Especially python where spacing matters so much. There are so, so
    many code sharing websites out there.

    From a quick scan I can see some issues. In particular, this code scales
    n^2 which is very inefficient. Why are you outputting everything to text
    files? How do you compare results between runs? That's really poor
    practice. Use a database.

    Then there's the lack of error checking...

    You claim I won't do what I already did for God's sake. You're nuts Chris. >>
    Thanks for confirming your babyish attitude. Rather than rise to the
    challenge, you deflect and attack.

    You're nuts Chris. Your IQ is so low that you claimed if I won't track people, nobody can. Who is that stupid, Chris? Seriously? Who?

    Why do you feel so threatened?

    Let's remember your claim. You said:

    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any
    given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Your code is nowhere near this.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 08:29:54
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:

    Unlike you they acknowledge the APs aren't people, despite the poor
    grammar.

    "While there is not necessarily a 1-to-1 relationship
    between Wi-Fi routers and users, home routers typically only have several."

    Again I get it that you're an Apple troll so you're desperate to make
    absurd claims which make sense only to you, in that you claim "APs aren't people" (which nobody would disagree with).

    You literally said your AP/BBSID is you and your name. lol.


    Hint: No professional on the planet agrees with you. And we know that.

    Argument to authority fallacy noted.

    If Apple honored the "_nomap" & the "hidden SSID" it wouldn't be so bad. >>> But Apple clearly does not honor their own rules (which I can prove).

    You have n=1. That's barely an anecdote.

    I get it you Apple trolls are desperate

    Deflection and ad hominem noted.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:04:34
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-10 04:18, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You appear to be using bridge mode which is optional.
    a. Advanced Settings > Internet > Bridge Mode.
    b. Then connect your home router to the RTF8225VW.


    No, I am not using bridge mode. I'm using the normal default mode as
    it comes out of the box, prepared to work with telef?nica, then added
    a few things, like my SSID/Password, dhcp range to use, what ports I
    want translated, etc.

    Thanks for letting us know, as bridge mode isn't something most of us have used frequently, although I've set up routers as bridges when I have a desktop that doesn't have a Wi-Fi card but which only has an RJ45 port.

    1. The Windows 10 PC "thinks" it's using the Ethernet port.
    2. But that is connected to the router which is set up as a bridge.
    3. Then the router bridges to the Wi-Fi access point far away from the PC.

    It's been a while and people like Char Jackson know this stuff way better than I do, but bridges do "funny things" sometimes.
    As far as I can figure out, in my situation with a desktop & bridge
    1. My PC sees only a wired Ethernet connection. ˙ It has no concept of
    Wi-Fi SSIDs or BSSIDs because it's not running
    ˙ through a Wi-Fi NIC driver.

    2. The bridge router acts as a wireless client to the upstream Wi-Fi access point. It associates with the AP using the AP's SSID and BSSID,
    ˙ just like a laptop would.

    3. On the Ehernet side of the bridge, it appears to be a standard
    Ethernet ˙ interface to the PC. It does not expose the SSID/BSSID to the wired ˙ client as the PC can see only MAC-level Ethernet frames.

    Nowadays I use a USB dongle as the Wi-Fi to the Windows 10 PC.
    It acts differently than the bridge did because the USB Wi-Fi dongle acts
    as a Wi-Fi NIC.

    So I haven't used bridges in a while and I never really understood them.

    Bridge means different thing on each router type, even on which section
    of the router we are talking about.

    Bridge mode in my router means that the router is transparent and there
    is another router behind it that is doing the actual job. Or a computer,
    which thinks it is directly connected to the fibre.


    AI Overview

    What Is Bridge Mode On A Router? | Router Bridge Mode
    Bridge mode turns a router into a simple pass-through device (like a
    switch or modem), disabling its routing functions (NAT, DHCP) so another primary router can manage the network, which is ideal for extending
    Wi-Fi, avoiding "double NAT" issues, or connecting to a main router for
    better coverage within a single network. Essentially, it lets the
    secondary device share the internet connection from the main router
    without creating network conflicts, acting as an access point.

    This video explains what bridge mode is and how it works:
    Related video thumbnail
    1m <https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+bridge+mode+on+a+router&client=firefox-b-e&sca_esv=a1c87ef6032d7104&channel=entpr&ei=kqQ6aarFHPrq7_UPqtaMSA&oq=What+is+bridge+mode+&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFFdoYXQgaXMgYnJpZGdlIG1vZGUgKgIIADIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgARIjzxQvg1Y8DJwAngBkAEAmAG5AaABtA-qAQQxNi40uAEDyAEA-AEBmAIWoALeEMICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAg0QABiABBiwAxhDGIoFwgIKEAAYgAQYQxiKBcICChAuGIAEGEMYigXCAhAQLhiABBjRAxhDGMcBGIoFwgILEC4YgAQY0QMYxwHCAgUQLhiABMICCxAAGIAEGJECGIoFmAMAiAYBkAYKkgcEMTMuOaAHuX-yBwQxMS45uAfOEMIHBjItMjAuMsgHgAGACAA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f89b2cbb,vid:Vjv5DuWHdbc,st:73>

    Computer Knowledge Base (by cobuman)
    YouTube ? 9 Jul 2022
    How it works

    Disables Router Functions: Turns off DHCP (IP address assignment)
    and Network Address Translation (NAT).
    Becomes a Pass-Through: Acts like a simple network switch, letting
    data flow from the main router to connected devices (wired or wirelessly).
    Uses Main Router's IP: Relies on the primary router for IP
    addresses and network management, creating a single, unified network.

    When to use it

    Extend Wi-Fi: Connects wirelessly to a main router to boost signal
    in dead zones.
    Eliminate Double NAT: Avoids conflicts when using multiple routers, improving performance for gaming or certain applications.
    Use Your Own Router: Allows you to use your own advanced router
    with an ISP-provided modem/router combo.

    This video demonstrates how to use your own router in bridge mode:
    Related video thumbnail <https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+bridge+mode+on+a+router&client=firefox-b-e&sca_esv=a1c87ef6032d7104&channel=entpr&ei=kqQ6aarFHPrq7_UPqtaMSA&oq=What+is+bridge+mode+&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFFdoYXQgaXMgYnJpZGdlIG1vZGUgKgIIADIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgARIjzxQvg1Y8DJwAngBkAEAmAG5AaABtA-qAQQxNi40uAEDyAEA-AEBmAIWoALeEMICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAg0QABiABBiwAxhDGIoFwgIKEAAYgAQYQxiKBcICChAuGIAEGEMYigXCAhAQLhiABBjRAxhDGMcBGIoFwgILEC4YgAQY0QMYxwHCAgUQLhiABMICCxAAGIAEGJECGIoFmAMAiAYBkAYKkgcEMTMuOaAHuX-yBwQxMS45uAfOEMIHBjItMjAuMsgHgAGACAA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:6ad07953,vid:lwuLOkr9xTc,st:39>
    58s
    Device Casting Couch - Tech Podcast
    YouTube ? 17 Feb 2023
    Key differences from Router Mode

    Router Mode: Assigns IPs, performs NAT, has firewall, manages
    subnets; creates separate networks.
    Bridge Mode: Passes traffic through, no NAT/DHCP; extends a single network.



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:10:12
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-10 20:25, Frank Slootweg wrote:
    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-08 00:10, Marian wrote:
    [...]
    But the fact is you can be tracked anywhere in the world if you use the
    same router, which very often people who have moved will easily do.

    Considering that here the router is often provided by the Telco, when
    you move you have to hand over the old router, and get a new one with
    the new contract at the new destination.

    And the old router might be re-used by someone else, which would lead 'Arlen' to the erroneous conclusion that you had moved to the place
    where that someone lives. Way to go!

    Oh, yes. Absolutely true.

    The BSSID would be the same, but the SSID would change (I would be
    careful to do a factory reset to the router before returning it).

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:13:06
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-11 06:37, Alan wrote:
    On 2025-12-09 15:13, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-08 08:54, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    They also report that 0.06% of all APs moved month to month. That's a >>>>> really poor hit rate for "tracking" people.

    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a
    database
    of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    Let's just say California wanted to find all the people who moved from >>>> California to Florida who retired to ask them to pay their 401K taxes. >>>>
    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any >>>> given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Go on then. If it's so trivial, why don't you do it?

    Show us with step by step instructions how many *people* - as you
    claim -
    moved to FL from CA in the last six months.

    You have a week. If you can't then I call bullshit.

    I know what will happen, however. You won't even try. You will cry,
    shout
    and stomp your feet blaming everyone else apart from yourself. Just
    like a
    big baby.

    You'll not hear from me until next week so as to not direct you from
    this
    important privacy risk study.

    His point is correct, though. An interested party could dig out this
    information, even if Arlen doesn't come out with code to do it.


    Tell us how an "interested party" associates a particular person with a BSSID in the first place.

    I did not say a person. A household.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:12:31
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-10 09:07, Chris wrote:
    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-08 08:54, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:


    They also report that 0.06% of all APs moved month to month. That's a >>>>> really poor hit rate for "tracking" people.

    Any imaginative person can think of many instances where having a database >>>> of all the people who moved and exact where from and to, is useful.

    Not people. WAPs.

    Let's just say California wanted to find all the people who moved from >>>> California to Florida who retired to ask them to pay their 401K taxes. >>>>
    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any >>>> given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Go on then. If it's so trivial, why don't you do it?

    Show us with step by step instructions how many *people* - as you claim - >>> moved to FL from CA in the last six months.

    You have a week. If you can't then I call bullshit.

    I know what will happen, however. You won't even try. You will cry, shout >>> and stomp your feet blaming everyone else apart from yourself. Just like a >>> big baby.

    You'll not hear from me until next week so as to not direct you from this >>> important privacy risk study.

    His point is correct, though. An interested party could dig out this
    information, even if Arlen doesn't come out with code to do it.

    I disagree. Just because a router moves doesn't mean a particular person
    has moved . Or vice versa.

    This is also true.

    Trying to infer this kind of information is also not as trivial as Donald claims.

    In addition, in the above scenario, the tax authorities would have far
    better information at their disposal on actual people rather than some
    vague technical proxy. A MAC is not a person. Not yet at least ;)



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:16:54
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-10 22:17, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    My AP BSSID is me. It's nobody else. It's me. To 8 decimal places,
    it's me.
    They have my name. My address. Everything. My BSSID is me.

    Lol. Your name is a MAC address? I can see why you'd not want to disclose
    that.

    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct.
    You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name.


    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because they
    do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:21:20
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-10 03:22, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    But nothing has changed in that I'm still using telnet with gVim.

    But you have to be careful about what your random headers do to us.
    You should not use random headers in things like the charset.

    Hi Carlos,

    I appreciate that you explained that the charset header, which I've never really ever looked at in earnest, may affect what it does to your
    newsreader.

    I have a dictionary for every header line, where it's a mix-and-match
    affair to pair the character-set header line with the rest of the header.

    What is a good single character set line that will be friendly to you? Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    This one is the most universal. If you are using vi and telnet in Linux
    it will be certainly true. If you are using Windows, maybe not.



    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

    This one, for instance, is nuts.



    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    Also possibly correct.




    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    This one would be true on Windows.


    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

    unsure.


    etc.


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:25:05
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-11 05:53, Marian wrote:
    Andy Burns wrote:
    It's not particularly important by now, but if you look at your message

    <https://al.howardknight.net/?ID=176540312200>

    it does contain big5, that's what triggered fonts, if it remains a
    mystery, that doesn't bother me ...

    Hmmm... thanks for looking since I was so sure I didn't add it that I
    didn't even bother to look. Now I'm looking at your reference <https://al.howardknight.net/?ID=176540312200>
    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="big5"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    The server to which you upload the post can do its own changes.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 13:28:05
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-11 05:58, Marian wrote:
    Marian wrote:
    Like I said, I never understood the Usenet character set directive.


    This is a test of Chinese characters...
    From: yourname@example.com
    Newsgroups: alt.test
    Subject: ????T?? <---chinese characters are here
    Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:56:00 -0800
    Message-ID: <12345@news.example.com>
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=big5
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
    Lines: 12

    ?o?O?@???? Big5 ?s?X??????T???C<---chinese characters are here

    Unreadable, because your charset headers are random and faked, they do
    not correspond to the contents of the text. This is a bug in your
    scripts, they should send the charset headers that are true and
    correspond to your actual text encoding. Otherwise, our readers will try
    to display your posts and fail to do the correct rendering.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 15:19:40
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    But the fact is you can be tracked anywhere in the world if you use the >>> same router, which very often people who have moved will easily do.

    Considering that here the router is often provided by the Telco, when
    you move you have to hand over the old router, and get a new one with
    the new contract at the new destination.

    And the old router might be re-used by someone else, which would lead 'Arlen' to the erroneous conclusion that you had moved to the place
    where that someone lives. Way to go!

    If Frank is trying to intimate that this news about Apple's highly insecure WPS system can't track people, then I'm going to have to disagree with him.

    Frank hates me, which is fine, since this is Usenet and we all have a thick skin. Frank even declares everyone he happens to hate, happens to be me.

    Frank doesn't hate you. Frank hates very, very few people. For you,
    the needle doesn't even move.

    He does it all the time (and I just sit back and let it run off my skin).

    Yeah, *right*! That's why you insult and lie as soon as someone proves
    you wrong, "you just sit back and let it run off your skin". Sure!

    Frank told us years ago he was never able to get into a college,

    Frank never told you or anybody that, because it's false [1]. Frank repeatedly challenged you to provide proof and of course you never did,
    you just continue to lie.

    BTW, did I already mention that, like you often allege, I also had "a
    high profile job in Silicon Valley"? :-)

    so I
    should treat him gently when he makes his absurd statements to attack me.

    Proving you wrong is not an attack.

    All I will ask of Frank, on behalf of everyone he is trolling right now,
    is for Frank to simply find just one security researcher who agrees with
    him.

    Again the appealing to authority fallacy. Anyway, no real 'security researcher' would say or imply that a BSSID is effectively pointing to
    an individual. As has already been repeatedly mentioned, that you
    misinterpret what your 'security researchers' say is nobody's problem,
    but yours.

    [1] Not that it matters. Apparently "excellent education" and "high
    IQ" isn't all that meaningful.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, December 11, 2025 15:29:42
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    and hence his BSSID is him.

    Your IQ is too low to understand that "tracking" is just running the script
    a few times. It's shocking that I have to explain something that trivial.

    Apparently *your* IQ is too low to realize that I never said anything
    about tracking, nor about "the script".

    I advise you to stock up on your army of straw men, you don't want to
    risk running out, do you!?

    [...]

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From J. P. Gilliver@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 12, 2025 13:37:26
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025/12/11 15:19:40, Frank Slootweg wrote:

    [Huge argument, in which I have no interest, snipped]

    Proving you wrong is not an attack.

    _That_ line has gone straight into my quotes file!

    [more snip]
    --
    J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

    Q. Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip?
    A. To get to the same side.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 12, 2025 19:55:54
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

    so I
    should treat him gently when he makes his absurd statements to attack me.

    Proving you wrong is not an attack.

    It is to those with thin skins.


    [1] Not that it matters. Apparently "excellent education" and "high
    IQ" isn't all that meaningful.

    Oh, but it is. Anyone using those terms is likely highly superficial and
    vain.




    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 12, 2025 20:47:27
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    Hint: No professional on the planet agrees with you. And we know that.

    Argument to authority fallacy noted.

    Request of both Chris & Frank...

    If you truly believe your oft-stated opinion that a BSSID:GPS pair is "just
    a number" when we're talking about privacy, please find just one security researcher on the planet who agrees with your strongly held privacy claim.

    And what would that achieve? It's the equivalent of a playground argument dissolving into "my dad is bigger than your dad."

    Being dependent on someone else's opinion is weak.

    Why don't you engage with the criticism and defend your own argument with evidence? You like to call yourself a scientist. Now's your chance to act
    like one.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 13, 2025 08:37:29
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    Let's remember your claim. You said:

    It would be trivial, using Apple's WPS system, to find everyone in any
    given county in Florida who recently moved there from California.

    Your code is nowhere near this.

    Your lack of intelligence shows up in your lack of imagination.

    For example, the fact I do not feel like tracking people, somehow, to you, means that people can't be tracked.

    You said it was "trivial". So far your efforts show it's far from it, which
    is my point. You make such grandiose claims, Donald, and then you TACO from backing them up.

    This is yet another example.



    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 13, 2025 08:59:06
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct.
    You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name.


    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because they
    do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.

    His claim is I'm a "Trump supporter" because I want privacy from Apple.

    Please evidence where that happened anywhere than inside your head.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 13, 2025 08:59:08
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    In addition, in the above scenario, the tax authorities would have far
    better information at their disposal on actual people rather than some
    vague technical proxy. A MAC is not a person. Not yet at least ;)

    To equate the government with random companies selling your identification for a buck is probably something most people wouldn't directly do.

    I wouldn't put it past the government, but I wonder what kind of repressive regime Chris must be living under to equate the government with Apple?

    You're the one who brought up identifying recently moved californians to
    pay their 401k taxes.

    There's a huge difference in the government's power over you versus
    Apple's. Well, at least for a normal person. Maybe not for Chris. :)

    Ah but you said this was "trivial" and used sheriffs as another example.



    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 13, 2025 09:09:07
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    If you truly believe your oft-stated opinion that a BSSID:GPS pair is "just >>> a number" when we're talking about privacy, please find just one security >>> researcher on the planet who agrees with your strongly held privacy claim. >>
    And what would that achieve?
    Being dependent on someone else's opinion is weak.
    Why don't you engage with the criticism and defend your own argument with
    evidence? You like to call yourself a scientist. Now's your chance to act
    like one.

    I get it you Apple trolls always defend Apple to the death, no matter what.

    Alan Baker, Alan Browne, Chris, Haemactylus, -hh, Jeorg Lorenz,
    JF Mezei, Jolly Roger, Lewis, nospam, Tom Elam, Tyrone, Your Name

    All I'm asking you to do is what I've done, which is quote reliable references that back up your claim that a BSSID:GPS pair is, to you,
    *Just a Number*

    Name just one security reseaqrcher on the planet who agrees with you.
    *Name Just One*

    HINT: You Apple trolls always fail this simple credibility test.

    This subthread tells you all you need to know about our Donald.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 13, 2025 12:47:17
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:

    [Lies, false claims, etc. deleted.]

    HINT: The fact that Franks' (and Chris') only defense of their own
    illogical view of the BSSID:GPS pair not locating a household

    Acknowledgement of *our* argument duly noted.

    QED.

    [More of the same lies, etc. deleted.]

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan Browne@3:633/10 to All on Saturday, December 13, 2025 10:53:57
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-13 04:09, Chris wrote:
    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    If you truly believe your oft-stated opinion that a BSSID:GPS pair is "just

    Alan Baker, Alan Browne, Chris, Haemactylus, -hh, Jeorg Lorenz,
    JF Mezei, Jolly Roger, Lewis, nospam, Tom Elam, Tyrone, Your Name

    Bizarre that I'm mentioned on a topic that I've never opined on!

    This subthread tells you all you need to know about our Donald.

    They used to put such into appropriate wards with big hefty men and
    syringe equipped nurses to keep under control. Play dreary classical
    music, etc...

    --
    "It would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarism overlaid
    the culture and independence of the ancient States of Europe."
    Winston Churchill


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 10:58:34
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Marian wrote:
    Note that we can plot those ~400 entries on a map with Python's folium
    library so you can visually explore the cluster instead of scrolling.

    It's trivial to display all the results.txt BSSID:GPS pairs on a local map!

    Download the folium source archive <https://pypi.org/project/folium/#files> <https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/c7/76/84a1b1b00ce71f9c0c44af7d80f310c02e2e583591fe7d4cb03baecd0d3f/folium-0.20.0.tar.gz>
    Name: folium-0.20.0.tar.gz
    Size: 109932 bytes (107 KiB)
    SHA256: A0D78B9D5A36BA7589CA9AEDBD433E84E9FCAB79CD6AC213ADBCFF922E454CB9

    C:\app\archiver\7zip\7z.exe xfolium-0.20.0.tar.gz
    C:\app\archiver\7zip\7z.exe x folium-0.20.0.tar
    xcopy /E /I folium-0.20.0\folium C:\app\os\python\Lib\site-packages\folium
    53 files copied
    C:\app\os\python\python.exe -c "import folium; print(folium.__version__)"

    Download the latest branca release from PyPI: <https://pypi.org/project/branca/#files> https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/32/14/9d409124bda3f4ab7af3802aba07181d1fd56aa96cc4b999faea6a27a0d2/branca-0.8.2.tar.gz
    Name: branca-0.8.2.tar.gz
    Size: 27890 bytes (27 KiB)
    SHA256: E5040F4C286E973658C27DE9225C1A5A7356DD0702A7C8D84C0F0DFBDE388FE7 C:\app\archiver\7zip\7z.exe x branca-0.8.2.tar.gz
    C:\app\archiver\7zip\7z.exe x branca-0.8.2.tar

    xcopy /E /I branca-0.8.2\branca C:\app\os\python\Lib\site-packages\branca

    10 files copied
    C:\app\os\python\python.exe -c "import branca; print(branca.__version__)"

    Download Jinja2 source archive
    <https://pypi.org/project/Jinja2/#files> https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/df/bf/f7da0350254c0ed7c72f3e33cef02e048281fec7ecec5f032d4aac52226b/jinja2-3.1.6.tar.gz
    Name: jinja2-3.1.6.tar.gz
    Size: 245115 bytes (239 KiB)
    SHA256: 0137FB05990D35F1275A587E9AEE6D56DA821FC83491A0FB838183BE43F66D6D C:\app\archiver\7zip\7z.exe x Jinja2-3.1.6.tar.gz
    C:\app\archiver\7zip\7z.exe x Jinja2-3.1.6.tar
    xcopy /E /I Jinja2-3.1.6\src\jinja2 C:\app\os\python\Lib\site-packages\jinja2 26 files copied
    C:\app\os\python\python.exe -c "import jinja2; print(jinja2.__version__)"

    Since this is getting tedious, I'll install pip:
    C:\app\os\python\python.exe -m ensurepip

    And then I'll install the rest of the dependencies. C:\app\os\python\python.exe -m pip install markupsafe C:\app\os\python\python.exe -m pip install numpy
    C:\app\os\python\python.exe -m pip install xyzservices

    Test:
    C:\app\os\python\python.exe -c "import folium; print(folium.__version__)" C:\app\os\python\python.exe -c "import folium; m =
    folium.Map(location=[0,0], zoom_start=2); m.save('test_map.html'); print('OK')"

    python plot_bssid.py
    Map saved to bssid_map.html

    start msedge "C:\app\os\python\apple_bssid_locator\bssid_map.html"
    Voila! Up to 400 nearest access points on the map in a single query.

    I mean, it's great you're really getting into this and enjoying sharing
    your workings, however, this doesn't address your original "trivial" claim. You're still only exploring one (known) BSSID at a time. Even on a loop.

    The truly non-trivial bit is expanding to all of california and all of
    florida unknown BSSIDs then doing a temporal mapping between the two.

    I get it. It's very easy to underestimate the complexity of data questions.


    Professionally I work with a lot academic researchers and they always get a real shock at how time consuming (and therefore expensive) doing real-world data analyses is. They often think coming up with the question is the
    difficult bit. It really isn't.

    The UOM paper,, for example, collected data over 22/23 and was published in
    May 24. That'll give you an idea of how long this stuff takes.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 21:13:58
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-13 03:52, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    In addition, in the above scenario, the tax authorities would have far
    better information at their disposal on actual people rather than some
    vague technical proxy. A MAC is not a person. Not yet at least ;)

    Please use correct attribution lines. It was not me who said that.


    To equate the government with random companies selling your identification for a buck is probably something most people wouldn't directly do.

    I wouldn't put it past the government, but I wonder what kind of repressive regime Chris must be living under to equate the government with Apple?

    There's a huge difference in the government's power over you versus
    Apple's. Well, at least for a normal person. Maybe not for Chris. :)


    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 21:30:31
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-13 04:14, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct.
    You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name.


    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because
    they do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.

    His claim is I'm a "Trump supporter" because I want privacy from Apple.
    Frank Slootweg made the same claim.

    I've never said a good word about ANY politician (let alone Trump), but
    even if I had, what does privacy from Apple's WPS have to do with Trump?

    You tell me.

    Is that Chris & Frank trolling or not?
    And, how does their "Trump supporter" argument sit with you, Carlos?

    Remember, I'm arguing that they can track households via the BSSID:GPS pair and they're saying it's "just a number".

    Even if you disagree with my argument, how can you possibly agree with theirs?

    Why don't you question them calling me a "Trump supporter"?

    Sorry, I haven't noticed a reference to Trump before, although I don't
    read every message completely. I did a quick search, manually, on the
    three messages directly up the tree from this one for the word "Trump"
    and I did not find it. I can not easily do a text search on the content
    of messages on the nntp group. Do you have a message-id?

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 20:57:32
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-13 04:14, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct. >>> You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name.

    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because
    they do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.

    His claim is I'm a "Trump supporter" because I want privacy from Apple. Frank Slootweg made the same claim.

    I've never said a good word about ANY politician (let alone Trump), but even if I had, what does privacy from Apple's WPS have to do with Trump?

    You tell me.

    Is that Chris & Frank trolling or not?
    And, how does their "Trump supporter" argument sit with you, Carlos?

    Remember, I'm arguing that they can track households via the BSSID:GPS pair and they're saying it's "just a number".

    Even if you disagree with my argument, how can you possibly agree with theirs?

    Why don't you question them calling me a "Trump supporter"?

    Sorry, I haven't noticed a reference to Trump before, although I don't
    read every message completely. I did a quick search, manually, on the
    three messages directly up the tree from this one for the word "Trump"
    and I did not find it. I can not easily do a text search on the content
    of messages on the nntp group. Do you have a message-id?

    Don't hold your breath for 'Arlen' to come up with proof of his
    claims.

    There is no such post. He's just emitting another series of straw men.
    I didn't say what he claims and what I *did* say, I said in a different context. So zero points.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 22:18:16
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-11 18:51, Marian wrote:
    Marian wrote:
    What I can do is scrub each message via the XML substitution below.

    I wrote a tutorial and posted it to the Windows newsgroups, for
    substituting all the funky characters to the 95 keyboard characters.


    Sorry, this is a very bad idea, in the XXI century.

    Modern computers use unicode.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 22:22:35
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-11 18:59, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    it does contain big5, that's what triggered fonts, if it remains a
    mystery, that doesn't bother me ...

    Hmmm... thanks for looking since I was so sure I didn't add it that I
    didn't even bother to look. Now I'm looking at your reference
    <https://al.howardknight.net/?ID=176540312200>
    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="big5"
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

    The server to which you upload the post can do its own changes.

    Thanks for your help and from the help of Andy, where I want to be very
    clear that I've never really understood this charset header stuff. :(

    What I'll do, moving forward, is when I copy from another source, I will
    run it thru my macro (see other post with the macro) to clean it up.

    That way the text I post will always be clean ASCII using only the 95 keyboard characters, so the charset header line won't matter.

    That's a very bad idea.

    That's akin to saying you will light your fire with a flintstone instead
    of using matches or a lighter.

    Please, just use unicode, in any of the versions used by Windows or
    Linux. Your vi is using unicode, 99.9% sure.

    And then use the correct header, not a random one.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 21:37:08
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-13 04:14, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct. >>>> You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name.


    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because
    they do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.

    His claim is I'm a "Trump supporter" because I want privacy from Apple.
    Frank Slootweg made the same claim.

    I've never said a good word about ANY politician (let alone Trump), but
    even if I had, what does privacy from Apple's WPS have to do with Trump?

    You tell me.

    Is that Chris & Frank trolling or not?
    And, how does their "Trump supporter" argument sit with you, Carlos?

    Remember, I'm arguing that they can track households via the BSSID:GPS pair >> and they're saying it's "just a number".

    Even if you disagree with my argument, how can you possibly agree with
    theirs?

    Why don't you question them calling me a "Trump supporter"?

    Sorry, I haven't noticed a reference to Trump before, although I don't
    read every message completely. I did a quick search, manually, on the
    three messages directly up the tree from this one for the word "Trump"
    and I did not find it. I can not easily do a text search on the content
    of messages on the nntp group. Do you have a message-id?

    He likes to have a pretend name so I call him "Donald". It is in reference
    to a well-known Donald who he shares psychological traits. It has nothing
    to do with being a supporter or otherwise.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Paul@3:633/10 to All on Sunday, December 14, 2025 22:57:26
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On Sun, 12/14/2025 3:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-13 04:14, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct. >>>> You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name.


    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because they do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.

    His claim is I'm a "Trump supporter" because I want privacy from Apple.
    Frank Slootweg made the same claim.

    I've never said a good word about ANY politician (let alone Trump), but
    even if I had, what does privacy from Apple's WPS have to do with Trump?

    You tell me.

    Is that Chris & Frank trolling or not?
    And, how does their "Trump supporter" argument sit with you, Carlos?

    Remember, I'm arguing that they can track households via the BSSID:GPS pair >> and they're saying it's "just a number".

    Even if you disagree with my argument, how can you possibly agree with
    theirs?

    Why don't you question them calling me a "Trump supporter"?

    Sorry, I haven't noticed a reference to Trump before, although I don't read every message completely. I did a quick search, manually, on the three messages directly up the tree from this one for the word "Trump" and I did not find it. I can not easily do a text search on the content of messages on the nntp group. Do you have a message-id?


    You can use Offline Mode and sync the server content with your client, so
    the client has a copy of all the messages currently on the server.
    Then when you search the group, you get a more realistic sample
    of the message bodies and claims about what somebody said.

    Fri, 11/17/2023 478,483,218 comp.lang.c <=== only created for offline mode (whole messages)
    Thu, 10/05/2023 27 comp.lang.c.dat <=== (filter definitions) Sat, 12/13/2025 50,425,664 comp.lang.c.msf <=== Mork Summary File (headers only)

    I've only done this the one time, as a demo of the file sizes.

    Paul


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 15, 2025 15:09:48
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    I'm renovating a home for a relative so I won't have a lot of time to
    devote to patiently teaching you, at least for the next few weeks.

    Sure you are. You're simply weaselling out of your "trivial" exercise.

    Do you really want to see how trivial it is so "snowball" from your own
    home router, to every home router in the world in increasing circles?

    That wasn't your "trivial" exercise. It was finding every AP is california
    and tracking them to florida. Remember?


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 15, 2025 20:03:31
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-15 04:57, Paul wrote:
    On Sun, 12/14/2025 3:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-13 04:14, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would concoct. >>>>> You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name.


    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because they do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.

    His claim is I'm a "Trump supporter" because I want privacy from Apple.
    Frank Slootweg made the same claim.

    I've never said a good word about ANY politician (let alone Trump), but
    even if I had, what does privacy from Apple's WPS have to do with Trump? >>>
    You tell me.

    Is that Chris & Frank trolling or not?
    And, how does their "Trump supporter" argument sit with you, Carlos?

    Remember, I'm arguing that they can track households via the BSSID:GPS pair >>> and they're saying it's "just a number".

    Even if you disagree with my argument, how can you possibly agree with
    theirs?

    Why don't you question them calling me a "Trump supporter"?

    Sorry, I haven't noticed a reference to Trump before, although I don't read every message completely. I did a quick search, manually, on the three messages directly up the tree from this one for the word "Trump" and I did not find it. I can not easily do a text search on the content of messages on the nntp group. Do you have a message-id?


    You can use Offline Mode and sync the server content with your client, so
    the client has a copy of all the messages currently on the server.
    Then when you search the group, you get a more realistic sample
    of the message bodies and claims about what somebody said.

    Fri, 11/17/2023 478,483,218 comp.lang.c <=== only created for offline mode (whole messages)
    Thu, 10/05/2023 27 comp.lang.c.dat <=== (filter definitions)
    Sat, 12/13/2025 50,425,664 comp.lang.c.msf <=== Mork Summary File (headers only)

    I've only done this the one time, as a demo of the file sizes.

    My Thunderbird is set to not cache the bodies of messages. As a
    consequence, body search is greyed out or not in the list at all.

    This is because I an using leafnode, an nntp proxy server. It stores
    locally all messages, so thunderbird effectively gets a copy sent from
    the local disk, fast.

    Setting TB to cache bodies would mean having two copies on my disk of
    every message.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 15, 2025 20:14:07
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-15 20:03, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-15 04:57, Paul wrote:
    On Sun, 12/14/2025 3:30 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
    On 2025-12-13 04:14, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You trolls make the most absurd arguments that only you would
    concoct.
    You actually believe someone said their MAC address was their name. >>>>>

    You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because
    they do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue.

    His claim is I'm a "Trump supporter" because I want privacy from Apple. >>>> Frank Slootweg made the same claim.

    I've never said a good word about ANY politician (let alone Trump), but >>>> even if I had, what does privacy from Apple's WPS have to do with
    Trump?

    You tell me.

    Is that Chris & Frank trolling or not?
    And, how does their "Trump supporter" argument sit with you, Carlos?

    Remember, I'm arguing that they can track households via the
    BSSID:GPS pair
    and they're saying it's "just a number".

    Even if you disagree with my argument, how can you possibly agree with >>>> theirs?

    Why don't you question them calling me a "Trump supporter"?

    Sorry, I haven't noticed a reference to Trump before, although I
    don't read every message completely. I did a quick search, manually,
    on the three messages directly up the tree from this one for the word
    "Trump" and I did not find it. I can not easily do a text search on
    the content of messages on the nntp group. Do you have a message-id?


    You can use Offline Mode and sync the server content with your client, so
    the client has a copy of all the messages currently on the server.
    Then when you search the group, you get a more realistic sample
    of the message bodies and claims about what somebody said.

    Fri, 11/17/2023˙˙˙˙˙˙ 478,483,218 comp.lang.c˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ <=== only
    created for offline mode (whole messages)
    Thu, 10/05/2023˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ 27 comp.lang.c.dat˙˙˙˙ <=== (filter
    definitions)
    Sat, 12/13/2025˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ 50,425,664 comp.lang.c.msf˙˙˙˙ <=== Mork
    Summary File (headers only)

    I've only done this the one time, as a demo of the file sizes.

    My Thunderbird is set to not cache the bodies of messages. As a
    consequence, body search is greyed out or not in the list at all.

    This is because I an using leafnode, an nntp proxy server. It stores
    locally all messages, so thunderbird effectively gets a copy sent from
    the local disk, fast.

    Setting TB to cache bodies would mean having two copies on my disk of
    every message.

    I can search messages using grep on the files stored under "/var/spool/news/comp/mobile/android/", which currently contains
    291,776,554 B in 91514 files. I would use Midnight Commander to do it,
    but it is a very slow operation. And it would have many false positives
    in this case. Thousands (I tried).

    Once (if) I find the message, I obtain the message-id, and can quickly
    find the same message in TB.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Paul@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 15, 2025 16:42:56
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On Mon, 12/15/2025 2:23 PM, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Setting TB to cache bodies would mean having two copies on my disk of every message.

    Below are the message IDs which anyone can look up for Usenet messages. <http://al.howardknight.net/>

    Howard appeared busted today when I tried it.

    I don't know if the owner has given up (lack of
    resources for searches) or what the story is.
    He had some sort of search capability with
    the Google collection to help previously.

    Paul


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 15, 2025 15:09:52
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-09 19:18, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    You appear to be using bridge mode which is optional.
    a. Advanced Settings > Internet > Bridge Mode.
    b. Then connect your home router to the RTF8225VW.


    No, I am not using bridge mode. I'm using the normal default mode as
    it comes out of the box, prepared to work with telef?nica, then added
    a few things, like my SSID/Password, dhcp range to use, what ports I
    want translated, etc.

    Thanks for letting us know, as bridge mode isn't something most of us have used frequently, although I've set up routers as bridges when I have a desktop that doesn't have a Wi-Fi card but which only has an RJ45 port.

    1. The Windows 10 PC "thinks" it's using the Ethernet port.
    2. But that is connected to the router which is set up as a bridge.
    3. Then the router bridges to the Wi-Fi access point far away from the PC.

    It's been a while and people like Char Jackson know this stuff way better than I do, but bridges do "funny things" sometimes.
    As far as I can figure out, in my situation with a desktop & bridge
    1. My PC sees only a wired Ethernet connection. ˙ It has no concept of
    Wi-Fi SSIDs or BSSIDs because it's not running
    ˙ through a Wi-Fi NIC driver.

    2. The bridge router acts as a wireless client to the upstream Wi-Fi access point. It associates with the AP using the AP's SSID and BSSID,
    ˙ just like a laptop would.

    3. On the Ehernet side of the bridge, it appears to be a standard
    Ethernet ˙ interface to the PC. It does not expose the SSID/BSSID to the wired ˙ client as the PC can see only MAC-level Ethernet frames.

    Nowadays I use a USB dongle as the Wi-Fi to the Windows 10 PC.
    It acts differently than the bridge did because the USB Wi-Fi dongle acts
    as a Wi-Fi NIC.

    So I haven't used bridges in a while and I never really understood them.

    Wow.

    Honesty from Arlen!

    You "never really understood them"...

    ...but set them up anyway?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 03:06:45
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-15 20:23, Marian wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:
    Setting TB to cache bodies would mean having two copies on my disk of
    every message.

    Below are the message IDs which anyone can look up for Usenet messages. <http://al.howardknight.net/>

    What Chris & Frank are doing, Carlos, is attacking me by calling me
    a Trump supporter, simply because they hate the technical point I proved.

    They have no other defense since I proved their claims wrong that
    a BSSID:GPS pair is not trackable. So they call me a Trump supporter.

    Chris is constantly calling me Trump using "The Donald" euphemism, which
    is simply his childish way of attacking me since I've never said a good
    word about any politician, let alone Trump.
    My posts on Usenet are apolitical.

    My point to you, Carlos, is why don't you lecture Chris?
    Frank supported him because he too attacks in his childish ways.

    You lectured me. Why don't you lecture them Carlos?
    a. I'm writing the code proving the point. b. They're claiming I'm a
    Trump supporter for doing so.

    WTF?
    What kind of person does that?

    Chris and Frank are denying they did it, but they did it.

    Chris repeatedly used the euphemism "Donald", so I was simply asking you
    why don't you chastise him for bringing that up instead of chastising me
    for writing code that proves Chris' claim wrong that it's hard to do?



    Mostly because I am trying to follow a conversation with you, not with them.

    When you you said he was calling you a "Trump supporter" I did not
    recognize that idea. I do have a remembrance of someone calling you
    Donald, but not why. I was thinking of the Walt Disney character Donald
    the duck. If you ask me what is the first name of Mr Trump, off hand I
    don't know. So your claim of someone calling you a Trump supporter in
    some past message did not ring a bell.

    His argument that he is not calling you a supporter has some feasibility.

    You people calling names one another constantly distracts me. I don't
    follow those conversations. To many insults and I drop out, I ignore
    those messages. If I am trying to follow a conversation and find too
    many insults, I either grumble or switch off.


    You may have noticed that I have agreed with several of your points,
    then also to some of their arguments making modify some of my agreement.
    I just do not want to be too much distracted with flying insults or
    attacks on the persons instead of the ideas.



    From: Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com>
    Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone,alt.comp.os.windows-10,comp.mobile.android,alt.internet.wireless
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router
    for privacy/security
    Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:07:46 -0000 (UTC)
    Message-ID: <10hb9oi$1c6js$1@dont-email.me>


    A technical reply, nothing insulting in it.


    Frank supported Chris by insulting me and by insulting my own wife.
    From: Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
    Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone,alt.comp.os.windows-10,comp.mobile.android,alt.internet.wireless
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router
    for privacy/security
    Date: 10 Dec 2025 19:29:51 GMT
    Message-ID: <10hcl7l.b3s.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

    Mmm.


    You even directly responded to Chris' post Carlos:
    From: "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid>
    Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone,alt.comp.os.windows-10,comp.mobile.android,alt.internet.wireless
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router
    for privacy/security
    Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:12:31 +0100
    Message-ID: <f2pq0mx0bi.ln2@Telcontar.valinor>

    A technical reply, about moving a router, nothing about supporting Trump
    or not. I did not reply to the paragraph with Donald in it.


    In addition to lecturing me, why don't you also lecture Chris & Frank?



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Alan@3:633/10 to All on Monday, December 15, 2025 18:36:23
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-12 19:24, Marian wrote:
    Chris wrote:
    should treat him gently when he makes his absurd statements to
    attack me.

    ˙ Proving you wrong is not an attack.

    It is to those

    You and Frank both called me a "Trump supporter" because I care about
    privacy and because I understand the power of a BSSID:GPS pairing.
    No, neither of them did that.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 08:37:45
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Carlos E.R. wrote:


    What you don't comprehend (and you likely never will understand), is I
    treat people EXACTLY like they treat me.

    It's never me throwing the first punch.
    You saw me respond to them. So you chastised me.

    That's laughably incorrect and can be evidenced on an almost daily basis.
    You always call anyone who challenges you to back up your ridiculous claims "stupid", "low IQ", "troll". You NEVER engage with the actual argument.

    It is only you who starts threads with insulting titles. Do you deny
    starting this one: "Apple trolls like Alan Baker are so incredibly stupid".


    Check the mirror before crying about others' behaviour.


    You people calling names one another constantly distracts me.

    STOP THAT. JUST STOP IT.
    Chastize THEM. Not me.

    They threw the first punch.
    Stop blaming the victim, Carlos.

    Another Donald trait: playing the victim.

    Just stop it.
    I'm not going to put up with your extreme bias against the victim.

    Chastise them, Carlos.
    Be fair.

    Aww bless. Are you going to storm off and slam the door?

    I prove how insecure Apple's WPS database is, but I found that
    Apple isn't following it's own published rules. And I wrote scripts to
    prove it.

    You proved nothing. At best you confirmed the paper's findings. Your
    anecdote wasn't confirmed by anyone else let alone Apple. So, given your history, it's clear you fucked up.


    Why don't you chastise Frank & Chris for throwing all those insults?

    Please evidence. Carlos can't see it either.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From J. P. Gilliver@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 14:51:26
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    (Now off original topic)

    On 2025/12/16 2:6:45, Carlos E.R. wrote:

    [big snip]

    You people calling names one another constantly distracts me. I don't
    follow those conversations. To many insults and I drop out, I ignore
    those messages. If I am trying to follow a conversation and find too
    many insults, I either grumble or switch off.

    []

    I use the feature "ignore sub-thread" that Thunderbird has, when a
    branch has degenerated into name-calling and similar; OK, I may miss
    useful content, but on the whole once a thread has so descended, little
    further useful content ensues - in that branch. (My previous client -
    Turnpike - could do the same, though you had to manually "split thread"
    and then mark the split one as ignore.)

    I find it very useful, especially in certain 'groups.

    Of course, just killing certain posters works as well, until they morph
    of course.
    --
    J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

    ...Every morning is the dawn of a new error...

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 15:01:19
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    There is no such post. He's just emitting another series of straw men.
    I didn't say what he claims and what I *did* say, I said in a different context. So zero points.

    Frank is lying.

    Nope, Frank isn't. As I said, 'Arlen' is emitting another series of
    straw men.

    The proof Frank is lying is in his own post:
    From: Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
    Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone,alt.comp.os.windows-10,comp.mobile.android,alt.internet.wireless
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security
    Date: 10 Dec 2025 19:29:51 GMT
    Message-ID: <10hcl7l.b3s.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

    *If* the proof was is that post, you would have quoted it. As you
    didn't quote, the conclusion is obvious.

    Both claim I'm a Trump supporter simply for caring about our privacy.

    I did no such thing, it's just your misinterpreation/misreprentation.
    And what I *did* say, has nothing to do with the 'reason your give
    ("simply for caring about our privacy"). You *really* should stop
    stating what people mean, based upon what you *think*, instead of what
    they actually write. It gets rather boring and embarrasing.

    [More of the same straw men deleted.]

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 15:12:25
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-15 20:23, Marian wrote:
    [...]

    Frank supported Chris by insulting me and by insulting my own wife.

    Frank did not 'support' Chris, he responded too something Chris
    posted. Try to grasp the difference.

    And Frank did not insult your wife, quite the contrary.

    *If* you had any honour, you would have *quoted* what he *actually*
    said, instead of implying malice towards your wife.

    From: Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
    Newsgroups: misc.phone.mobile.iphone,alt.comp.os.windows-10,comp.mobile.android,alt.internet.wireless
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security
    Date: 10 Dec 2025 19:29:51 GMT
    Message-ID: <10hcl7l.b3s.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 15:35:04
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-15 04:57, Paul wrote:
    [...]
    You can use Offline Mode and sync the server content with your client, so the client has a copy of all the messages currently on the server.
    Then when you search the group, you get a more realistic sample
    of the message bodies and claims about what somebody said.

    Fri, 11/17/2023 478,483,218 comp.lang.c <=== only created for offline mode (whole messages)
    Thu, 10/05/2023 27 comp.lang.c.dat <=== (filter definitions)
    Sat, 12/13/2025 50,425,664 comp.lang.c.msf <=== Mork Summary File (headers only)

    I've only done this the one time, as a demo of the file sizes.

    My Thunderbird is set to not cache the bodies of messages. As a
    consequence, body search is greyed out or not in the list at all.

    This is because I an using leafnode, an nntp proxy server. It stores
    locally all messages, so thunderbird effectively gets a copy sent from
    the local disk, fast.

    Hmm!? Strange! I assume Thunderbird can search IMAP servers/folders
    without local caching, so I would expect it to be able to do the same
    with NNTP.

    I use a similar setup as you, but on Windows instead of on Linux and
    with Hamster instead of leafnode and with tin instead of Thunderbird.

    With tin, I can do body searching both in locally cached (by Hamster)
    groups and in remote groups on the real news server (NIN, in my and your
    case).

    So this seems a - somewhat strange - limitation in Thunderbird.

    Setting TB to cache bodies would mean having two copies on my disk of
    every message.

    AFAICT, Paul meant this as a one time operation: Fetch *all* the
    messages from the server, do your search and then dispose of the fetched messages. 'Even' :-) in Thunderbird, you could do that with an *extra*
    News account - i.e. in addition to the one which you've already
    configured in Thunderbird - and fetch all the messages directly from the
    server - i.e. not via leafnode - directly into Thunderbird's local
    storage.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 22:56:26
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-15 20:28, Marian wrote:
    Why doesn't Carlos chastise them in addition to lecturing me on etiquette?

    Lightly.

    I simply said (Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:16:54 +0100):

    "You will not convince anyone by calling people trolls just because they
    do not agree with you. It rather makes us abandone the issue."

    It is you who is interested in convincing us of a point. With those
    manners, no matter what other people do, you will not convince anybody.


    The thread started on Mon, 1 Dec 2025 11:50:18 -0700

    Message-ID: <10gn4qe$b3f$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>
    On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 09:40:46 -0700 you mentioned "Apple trolls".

    Message-ID: <10gqp22$2s24$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>
    On Wed, 3 Dec 2025 18:44:34 -0700 you demeaned somebody by talking about
    his low IQ.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, December 16, 2025 22:57:41
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On 2025-12-16 16:35, Frank Slootweg wrote:
    Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-12-15 04:57, Paul wrote:
    [...]
    You can use Offline Mode and sync the server content with your client, so >>> the client has a copy of all the messages currently on the server.
    Then when you search the group, you get a more realistic sample
    of the message bodies and claims about what somebody said.

    Fri, 11/17/2023 478,483,218 comp.lang.c <=== only created for offline mode (whole messages)
    Thu, 10/05/2023 27 comp.lang.c.dat <=== (filter definitions)
    Sat, 12/13/2025 50,425,664 comp.lang.c.msf <=== Mork Summary File (headers only)

    I've only done this the one time, as a demo of the file sizes.

    My Thunderbird is set to not cache the bodies of messages. As a
    consequence, body search is greyed out or not in the list at all.

    This is because I an using leafnode, an nntp proxy server. It stores
    locally all messages, so thunderbird effectively gets a copy sent from
    the local disk, fast.

    Hmm!? Strange! I assume Thunderbird can search IMAP servers/folders without local caching, so I would expect it to be able to do the same
    with NNTP.

    No, it can't.

    It causes the entire post database to be downloaded, all posts, so that
    it can scan them. This is a large load on a server, not polite.

    On imap, TB does a search on the cache. It can download missing posts
    and store them on the cache. Or, it can ask the server to do the search internally.

    I have not tried imap without local cache. However, I also use Alpine,
    an ancient mail client in text mode, which does not keep a cache, and
    body text search if the server doesn't support search is not supported,
    except with a trick, and then it is very slow.


    I use a similar setup as you, but on Windows instead of on Linux and
    with Hamster instead of leafnode and with tin instead of Thunderbird.

    With tin, I can do body searching both in locally cached (by Hamster) groups and in remote groups on the real news server (NIN, in my and your case).

    So this seems a - somewhat strange - limitation in Thunderbird.

    Setting TB to cache bodies would mean having two copies on my disk of
    every message.

    AFAICT, Paul meant this as a one time operation: Fetch *all* the
    messages from the server, do your search and then dispose of the fetched messages. 'Even' :-) in Thunderbird, you could do that with an *extra*
    News account - i.e. in addition to the one which you've already
    configured in Thunderbird - and fetch all the messages directly from the server - i.e. not via leafnode - directly into Thunderbird's local
    storage.

    Oh, I could do that pulling the messages from the local leafnode, it
    would run faster than from the remote.

    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 17, 2025 11:07:39
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    And what I *did* say, has nothing to do with the 'reason your give
    ("simply for caring about our privacy").

    Selective quoting, arguments snipped. You lose, as usual.

    Clue-by-four: That you can't (read: don't want to) read for
    comprehension, doesn't mean the adience can't.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Frank Slootweg@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, December 17, 2025 15:21:58
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Marian <marianjones@helpfulpeople.com> wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    Frank Slootweg wrote:
    And what I *did* say, has nothing to do with the 'reason your give
    ("simply for caring about our privacy").

    Selective quoting, arguments snipped. You lose, as usual.

    Clue-by-four: That you can't (read: don't want to) read for comprehension, doesn't mean the adience can't.

    What you need to comprehend, Frank, are two very simple concepts:

    1. Keep discussion of my wife out of your filthy mouth, and,

    Foot stamping and continuously lying won't get you anywhere.

    I was not "discussing" your wife. I noted *your* apparent value
    judgement of her [1]. *You* said "My BSSID is me.", not me, nor anyone
    else.

    2. Stop trolling this newsgroup with your disgusting trolls.

    I can't stop what I'm not doing.

    [More frothing at the mouth deleted.]

    [1] Message-ID: <10hcl7l.b3s.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Paul@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 19, 2025 00:20:37
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    On Thu, 12/18/2025 4:29 PM, Marian wrote:
    Marian wrote:
    ˙ BSSID: 8c:85:80:d1:be:37
    ˙ Latitude: 32.45985031
    ˙ Longitude: -93.81759643000001
    ˙ ˙ BSSID: 8e:76:3f:f8:5d:cd
    ˙ Latitude: 32.4594841
    ˙ Longitude: -93.8175888
    ˙ ˙ BSSID: 92:76:3f:f8:5d:cd
    ˙ Latitude: 32.4594841
    ˙ Longitude: -93.81756591
    ˙ ˙ BSSID: 92:95:51:b5:b6:ae
    ˙ Latitude: 32.45910644
    ˙ Longitude: -93.81759643000001

    Does anyone have any idea why the highly insecure Apple WPS database
    contains GPS entries to this illogically numerous set of decimal places?

    It's a lab accident. Beakers hair is on fire now.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/Beaker_%28Muppet%29-en.jpg

    If the database does not sanitize inputs, a thing like that could happen. (Storing data as strings, not as numbers.)

    If multiple BSSID reports with slightly varying GPS coords come in,
    some sort of math could average the coordinates or so.

    It's just as likely to be a not-representable-number problem, but
    you would need to find a better "calc" to work on that aspect.

    It really amounts to some sort of sloppy workmanship.

    Paul


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris@3:633/10 to All on Friday, December 19, 2025 10:08:35
    Subject: Re: Discussion: How to set up your mobile devices & home router for privacy/security

    Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
    On Thu, 12/18/2025 4:29 PM, Marian wrote:
    Marian wrote:
    ˙ BSSID: 8c:85:80:d1:be:37
    ˙ Latitude: 32.45985031
    ˙ Longitude: -93.81759643000001
    ˙ ˙ BSSID: 8e:76:3f:f8:5d:cd
    ˙ Latitude: 32.4594841
    ˙ Longitude: -93.8175888
    ˙ ˙ BSSID: 92:76:3f:f8:5d:cd
    ˙ Latitude: 32.4594841
    ˙ Longitude: -93.81756591
    ˙ ˙ BSSID: 92:95:51:b5:b6:ae
    ˙ Latitude: 32.45910644
    ˙ Longitude: -93.81759643000001

    Does anyone have any idea why the highly insecure Apple WPS database
    contains GPS entries to this illogically numerous set of decimal places?

    It's a lab accident. Beakers hair is on fire now.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/Beaker_%28Muppet%29-en.jpg

    If the database does not sanitize inputs, a thing like that could happen. (Storing data as strings, not as numbers.)

    If multiple BSSID reports with slightly varying GPS coords come in,
    some sort of math could average the coordinates or so.

    It's just as likely to be a not-representable-number problem, but
    you would need to find a better "calc" to work on that aspect.

    It really amounts to some sort of sloppy workmanship.

    Correct. Which has been highlighted to Donald. The GPS coords are converted
    to floats thereby introducing imprecision and he reports them unrounded.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)