
Mozilla Stumbler 1.0 - crankycoder1975
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.mozstumbler
======
crankycoder1975
Hi all!

We cut a 1.0 release of the Mozilla Stumbler finally.

Have at it. File the bugs. Complain about battery life.

Help us make this thing not suck and build out a proper open location service.

~~~
hackuser
Congratulations; I hope this gives us a safe, effective, open location
service.

The privacy policy[1] could be clarified for less technical readers, and even
for others. I infer that collected data is anonymous because you write,

1) _We receive publicly observable data about WiFi access points and cell
towers around you, your estimated latitude and longitude, and the date_ \--
Not associated with anything else, that may be anonymous data -- though you
could guess my home network or home location by the most common/strongest wifi
signals. If you track data by submitter, you also would have a good idea of
their travels.

2) _we may receive certain temporary data such as your IP address. This data
is deleted after being used as follows ..._ \-- You seem to be implying that
you do receive non-anonymous data, and delete it after innocuous uses.

3) _You can send us data anonymously or under a nickname_ \-- Which implies
anonymity is possible.

If what I infer is correct, why not restate it directly and unequivocally with
something like the following:

 _Unless you choose otherwise, the data you send will be anonymous and not
associated with you in any way. We will not record who you are or what phone
sent the data. We do receive some non-anonymous data, but we delete it within
X hours /days after using it as follows ..._

And add more detail after that.

[1]
[https://location.services.mozilla.com/privacy](https://location.services.mozilla.com/privacy)

EDIT: Clarify a bit, and a correction to #1

~~~
justcommenting
"fact of life of web server logging" = screw you, we're not even going to
consider deleting our logs even as we talk a good line about how much we
respect your privacy

edit after downvote: also, mozilla engineering PMs will intimate on hackernews
that it won't internally correlate and potentially sell any of the location
and other information it most obviously could correlate about people, even
though it has already announced its intention to advertise.

~~~
crankycoder1975
We don't correlate your location data to ads. As a Canadian, that would
actually be illegal and a violation of the Privacy Act.

We never got authorization from individuals to do that correlation.

We aren't perfect, but I think we do a pretty good job of respecting and
protecting your privacy at Mozilla.

~~~
justcommenting
thank you for these clarifications.

one industry norm that makes these things tough (again, not Mozilla's fault)
is that at least under US law, Mozilla could change its privacy policies at
some point in the future and do a lot more than it currently does.

and... my parent comment was brash and probably deserved the downvote it
received.

~~~
lxt
Selling user data would be completely against our mission and values, and I
think it would be extraordinarily hard for such a change to make it through
the internal immune system for such things. I think Mozilla is less likely to
do bad things with your data than just about any other company (or government
for that matter) out there.

(Disclosure: I work for Mozilla. I am helping write an updated set of privacy
guidelines for engineering teams, to be as explicit as possible about how
careful and respectful we need to be with data.)

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tonylemesmer
As an Android user, is it possible to modify my phone to use this service
instead of Google's? Is it possible to upload the database directly to a phone
or replace an APK to achieve this?

~~~
ganomi
The NOGAPPS project lists Mozilla Location Service support as an upcoming
feature ([http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=1715375](http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=1715375)).

~~~
tonylemesmer
Great! And although that post was made June 2012 I note it has been maintained
and has recent updates.

~~~
hannosch
Hanno from Mozilla here. Marvin reached out to us about a month back and we
have been slow to respond. He just got an email back a week ago. So I think
this is still going to happen, but no concrete timeline yet.

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Aissen
Is the wifi AP database downloadable somewhere (OSM/Wikipedia style) or is it
"cloudlocked" (we can only query it through the API) ?

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pornel
I can't find the post, but I remember reading that they'd rather not expose
full raw data because of privacy concerns — there could be a way to mine this
data to de-anonymize users.

I'd love to play with the raw data too, but I understand their concern. So far
many "anonymous" large data dumps ended up exposing too much (e.g. recently NY
taxi data).

~~~
Aissen
Oh I know this might be very sensitive privacy-wise. People should just be
aware if they're contributing to a proprietary database (like Google Maps) or
an open one (like OSM) when using Mozilla Stumbler.

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chdir
Could someone explain the privacy implications of mapping Wifi networks to GPS
co-ordinates. Is it an opt-out thing?

~~~
cpeterso
A stumbler user's identity or location could be revealed by tracing routes
from published GPS data or maps. In areas without much stumbler data coverage,
you can see clear routes along highways and some residential streets.

Owners of Wi-Fi access points, including mobile phones with sharing Wi-Fi, may
not want their unique BSSID/MAC address and location published. This is not
exactly comparable to the Google Wi-Fi case in Germany. In addition to
recording BSSID/MAC addresses, Google was (inadvertently?) logging Wi-Fi
payload data that included cleartext user data.

btw, here's a zoomable map of the Mozilla Location Service's data coverage.
Please help fill in the blanks! :)

[https://location.services.mozilla.com/map](https://location.services.mozilla.com/map)

~~~
hippiehippo
About that map, a feature I would like is to fade spots which were scanned
long time ago because WiFi access points might not last as long as cell
towers. This way, as a contributor, I know in which areas to scan and, as a
regular user, I know that the data for a specific area might be too old.

~~~
cpeterso
That's a good idea. The Stumbler app shows the coverage map (as blue clouds)
on your mobile device, so you can see which individual streets are yet to be
stumbled. Right now, our database is small and young enough that rescanning
old data is not a high priority.

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ChrisGranger
Will this work with WiFi-only tablets? I'd like to contribute but my Kobo Arc
device is marked incompatible. I saw in the screenshot on Google Play that
there _is_ a WiFi-only report symbol.

~~~
crankycoder1975
YES.

We caught that bug just before release. :)

[https://github.com/mozilla/MozStumbler/issues/1137](https://github.com/mozilla/MozStumbler/issues/1137)

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towolf
Any info about how multiple fixes are integrated to approximate the true
location of a fix?

I remember reading how Wigle Wardriving calculated fixes and the method seemed
unsophisticated and lame.

For example, if I bike down a street then fixes would be detected 100m ahead
of me and always pinned to the road at my current location.

If I bike down the road in the other direction the next time, will be fix
become more accurate?

Normally higher SNR fixes should have more weight than weak fixes. Do they?

~~~
cpeterso
The server code is on GitHub, but I don't know offhand where the offline
geolocation scripts are. The Stumbler app's map will show your phone's GPS
position (blue dots) and Mozilla Location Service's estimate (red dots) so you
can compare the difference.

[https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea](https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea)

We store signal strength for possible future use, but our current location
algorithms don't use it. Wireless signal strength is notoriously flaky. From
some reports I've read, signal strength is more highly correlated with the
user's orientation (i.e. is their body blocking the signal to the source) than
with distance to the source.

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wooptoo
This is a lot like the Wigle wardrive app:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.wigle.wigl...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.wigle.wigleandroid)

~~~
ZirconCode
Wardriving is also the first thing I thought off (Wigle also being my app of
choice). Massive co-ordinated wardriving. I can't help but feel that this is a
bad idea.

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lgierth
Will 1.0 be available on the F-Droid store, like earlier versions?

~~~
crankycoder1975
I'm going to try getting an F-Droid build out today, but we've got some build
issues with the fdroidserver. In any case - it will get to F-Droid real-soon-
now.

~~~
lgierth
Cool, very good to hear!

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bajsejohannes
I've been waiting for something like this. Most other location services I know
about also crowd source data (after initially seeding it), but don't give the
data back to the user.

Kudos for giving back what people gave you.

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millzlane
Will this still collect hidden SSID's?

~~~
st3fan
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure hidden SSID's do not broadcast
their network name and thus will not be found by a scanner.

~~~
hackuser
Networks with hidden SSIDs can be detected many other ways. A little searching
quickly will turn up methods.

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Icybee
This seems similar to what Google did to receive massive fines a few years
back.

~~~
pserwylo
Correct me if I'm wrong, bug I believe the issue with Googles wifi collection
was because they had code which intentionally read (and stored?) all data
being transmitted over open wifi networks.

~~~
mdellabitta
[http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/12/google-street-view-
settle...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/12/google-street-view-settlement/)

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diaz
Tried this all of today and I don't think it is working on my Jolla phone.

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thristian
No Firefox OS port?

~~~
Clochix
I made a Firefox OS port:
[https://github.com/clochix/FxStumbler](https://github.com/clochix/FxStumbler)
But it was my first Firefox OS app, the code is awful and it would need a
complete rewrite. Nevertheless, if you have a FxOS device, don't hesitate to
try this port and give me some feedback.

