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Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet

Cross-posted to 4 groups.

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> This question has absolutely nothing to do with IP addresses and VPNs.
> Where did you get the idea that the question had *anything* to do with the
> Internet?
> I'm sorry if I'm being too blunt, but I'm focused on getting the answer to
> a *simple* question.
>
> Q: When does an Android cellphone broadcast an SSID?
>
> NOTE: The SSID has nothing to do with the question but people get all hung
> up if I ask the question this way:
>
> Q: When does an Android cellphone broadcast a BSSID?

Oh, what the hell.  I'll give it a try.

In the following I tend to intersperse WAN and LAN as well as BSSID and
MAC.  The basic underlying concepts work in both environments (with some
fudging).

SSID has nothing to do with cellphones.  It has to do with wifi only.
The same is true for BSSID.

SSID is just a name.  There could be thousands of wifi access points
around the world with the same SSID.

A wifi access point consists of one or more radios to create a WAN.
Each radio is a BSS with a BSSID, which is also known as a MAC.  Each
network device/radio has (by design, but not always in fact) a unique
value for the MAC.

A device wishing to connect to a wifi access point looks for a broadcast
wifi packet with a particular SSID in the data field of the packet.  The
header to the packet contains the BSSID/MAC of the access point in
source field.  To connect to the access point the device sends a packet
back to the sender of the broadcast by putting the access point's BSSID
in the destination field of the packet and its own MAC in the source
field.  The rest of the connection protocol is left as an exercise for
the reader.

Until things get handed over to (presumably) DHCP there is no way to
communicate other than the use of MAC addresses in the appropriate
fields of the LAN packets.  Strictly speaking, even after an IP address
is assigned to the device, all communications on the LAN/WAN is still
through the use of BSSID/MAC.  It is only after a packet is recieved by
the router that higher levels of network communications kick in and a
packet will be repackaged with the necessary outer packet to make its
way to the internet.

So, "Q: When does an Android cellphone broadcast an SSID?"

A: Keying on the use of the word "broadcast" and ignoring the use of the
   word "cellphone" because it doesn't apply, only when it is acting as
   its own access point/hot-spot for other devices.  After all, an SSID
   is only a name.

And, "Q: When does an Android cellphone broadcast a BSSID?"

A: Again, keying on the use of the word "broadcast" and ignoring the
   word "cellphone" the answer is the same as for the previous question.
   However, as mentioned earlier, the MAC/BSSID is used in every packet
   that is sent back and forth with the access point, but is strictly
   usable only within the geographic area that the radio signals reach,
   which is pretty much limited to line of sight communications and for
   which walls are only semi-transparent at those frequencies.

Now, with all that said, there is in theory nothing to stop any program
running as part of the wifi access point or within the connecting device
to query its own networking internals to grab its own MAC address or the
MAC address of devices it is communicating with and send that info out
onto the internet to some recipient along with info from its own GPS, if
available.

So, while it is not part of the normal protocols to reveal that
information it is not inconceivable that some user level program could
be doing the nasty deed.

Furthermore, all of this is at best fleeting information because a
network device's MAC address is held in ROM on the device.  The network
software in a device reads the ROM to get the MAC, but is in no way
required to use that address when constructing packets that will go out
the device.  The device itself *DOES NOT* insert the address into the
outgoing packets.  That is all handled by software.  Therefore it is
trivial for the software to use whatever MAC address it wants for its
outgoing packets.  This is in fact how DECnet used to work, the two high
order bytes of the MAC were changed to reflect the fact that a packet
was a DECnet packet.

As was said before, just flip a few bits and you could suddenly appear
to be on the other side of the planet.

Whew!

Now, what has been left out?  Oh yes, the cellphone network.  How data
is sent over the cellphone network is probably off topic for most of the
newsgroups listed above.  Therefore, I suggest you redirect your
queries/confusions to more appropriate groups.

Bruce             .

-- 

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Thread

How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-13 06:00 +0000
  Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@invalid.es> - 2016-09-13 15:34 +0200
    Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-13 16:06 +0000
      Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@invalid.es> - 2016-09-14 00:20 +0200
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-14 04:41 +0000
      Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2016-09-14 00:27 +0000
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-14 04:41 +0000
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2016-09-14 07:35 +0100
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2016-09-14 07:54 +0000
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet "Kerr Mudd-John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2016-09-15 11:53 +0100
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet pamela <invalid@nospam.com> - 2016-09-17 14:28 +0100
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet "Kerr Mudd-John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2016-09-17 21:30 +0100
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> - 2016-09-15 08:45 -0700
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> - 2016-09-15 08:51 -0700
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-16 19:30 +0000
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-16 18:43 +0000
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2016-09-16 20:08 +0100
              Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2016-09-17 09:17 +0100
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2016-09-17 17:27 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-18 02:12 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2016-09-19 15:42 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-19 16:33 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2016-09-19 17:42 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2016-09-19 18:41 +0100
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-20 03:21 +0000
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> - 2016-09-16 13:04 -0700
              Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 20:23 +0000
      Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> - 2016-09-15 08:31 -0700
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet AL <noemail@none.invalid.com> - 2016-09-15 09:49 -0700
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-16 19:33 +0000
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@invalid.es> - 2016-09-19 19:22 +0200
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-16 19:30 +0000
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> - 2016-09-16 13:16 -0700
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 04:52 +0000
  Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2016-09-14 00:24 +0000
    Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-14 04:40 +0000
      Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet bruce <bruce@invalid.dyndns.tv.invalid> - 2016-09-14 18:41 -0400
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-16 19:56 +0000
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet bruce <bruce@invalid.dyndns.tv.invalid> - 2016-09-17 16:12 -0400
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Winston <wbe@UBEBLOCK.psr.com.invalid> - 2016-09-17 19:04 -0400
              Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-18 03:43 +0000
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-18 02:30 +0000
              Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-17 22:54 -0400
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-18 03:43 +0000
      Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Winston <wbe@UBEBLOCK.psr.com.invalid> - 2016-09-15 01:04 -0400
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-16 23:17 +0000
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-16 23:36 +0000
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 01:59 +0000
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 01:59 +0000
          Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> - 2016-09-16 22:22 -0700
            Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 06:17 +0000
              Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 06:32 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-17 10:08 -0400
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Peter Köhlmann <peter-koehlmann@t-online.de> - 2016-09-17 16:13 +0200
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-18 03:43 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-18 03:49 +0000
                Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-18 04:00 +0000
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 01:59 +0000
        Re: How to look up the GPS location of your MAC address or car on the Internet Horace Algier <horatio@horatio.net> - 2016-09-17 02:00 +0000

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