

Creating an open database of wifi and cell networks all over the world - aditya42
http://crowdflow.net/

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soult
The problem with Crowdflow is the way they get the data. Instead of collecting
their own data using GPS, WiFi SSIDs and Cell Tower IDs they ask users to
submit their iPhone location data cache. This cache is filled from Apple's own
location database and from the Skyhook database. So they are, in a way,
scraping data from those two databases, which will probably lead to licensing
issues.

Now, if there were an open database (open as in I can download it for my own
use, not just query it via an API) for WiFi network <-> GPS coordinates and
Cell Tower ID <-> GPS coordinates that would collect its data by letting
contributors run a simple iPhone or Android app, that would be awesome.

~~~
aditya42
What licensing issues? It's your phone, your data. I don't think Apple gets to
say what you get to do with your data on your phone. If it was on Apple's
servers, maybe they would have a case.

Plus, it's data that Apple shouldn't have been storing (in its current state,
anyway) in the first place.

~~~
caf
The data on the phone _isn't_ observations made by the phone of the location
of base stations and access points. It's just a cached subset of access point
/ location (and base station / location) pairs from an existing, online
database.

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aw3c2
Gorgeous visualisations here: <http://crowdflow.net/blog/2011/04/27/first-
results/>

I wish they would make the database available right here right now. Also I
would like to contribute with my Android phone.

~~~
ortusdux
This app could get the job done.

<https://market.android.com/details?id=ki.wardrive>

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donpdonp
<http://geomena.org> does this too, with a creative commons license. Firefox
can be configured to use Geomena as the geolocation provider (instead of
google).

~~~
aw3c2
This looks like a nice project. I wish the Android client was available in the
market or at least for download as .apk

Also a map would nice to see the current status of the whole database.

~~~
ratsbane
Wardrive is available for Android and it's open source:
<https://github.com/topgenorth/wardrive-android>

It uploads to WiGLE.

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bjg
Sorry... <http://wigle.net/>

~~~
m86
WiGLE is awesome.. but they are not completely open. Subsections of the DB
will be if you use JiGLE or scrape it piece by piece over time.. and you can
always do selective queries, but the entirety of the database is not freely
available.

.. nor is it currently available from crowdflow at the moment (although it is
in their stated goals). They also only accept consolidated.db uploads at the
present.

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ghotli
Disclaimer: I work at American Roamer.

We actually track the marketed patterns that the carriers around the world say
they have. In my analysis a lot of these open source ones are pretty messy
datasets that wouldn't really add to our products. Although there are a few
datasets here in the comments I haven't been exposed to before so I'm hoping
they are more useful.

<http://www.americanroamer.com/>

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jwatzman
I was unable to get the Java application to create a valid gzip file on OS X
-- it appeared to write the header but no data. Anyone else have any luck?

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Maxious
OpenSignalMaps? OpenBmap? Cellhunter? OpenCellID?

If you've got an android device, OpenSignalMaps and OpenBmap have clients to
monitor wifi/cell towers although I prefer OpenBmap for making their data
available for download again ("open"SignalMaps just makes maps for
website/client).

~~~
sinak
Hey Maxious - I'm one of the opensignalmaps guys. We're working on opening up
our data, we're just trying to figure out the best way to go about it.

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sinak
Hey all, we do something similar on <http://opensignalmaps.com> except by
crowdsourcing the data from our Android app.

Yes, our name says "open" and we're not actually "open" yet...but we're
working on it.

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known
<http://client0.cellmaps.com/tabs.html#cellmaps_intl_tab> does the same

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ajays
I'm leery of downloading and running an unknown applet.

Is there any other way for me to extract the data of interest and upload it
myself?

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michaelelliot
They should ask Google for some of their data. Haha :)

