

Mozilla Ichnaea: geo-location from cellphone towers, wifi networks, etc - macdhuibh
https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea

======
rwg
The Mozilla location stuff has been around for a while now, and I've
contributed a fair amount of data via their MozStumbler Android application
for the past two or three months. I realize it's an experiment, but there are
a few problems I see with the data collection side of the project:

• All data is uploaded anonymously, so I can't download or save the raw data
I've collected. This means I can't look at it except aggregated together with
other users' data and fuzzed on a map Mozilla provides, I can't play with it,
I can't upload it to other similar projects, etc.

• In fact, nobody can download a dump of the data because of privacy concerns
for data contributors and access point operators. At best, you can consume a
derivative of the data by using the location API.

• In an attempt to protect the privacy of data contributors, Mozilla "fuzzes"
acquired data before displaying it on their map. Unfortunately, they've fuzzed
the data to the point that I can't tell which streets I've already been on and
which I haven't. (Half of the fun of this was seeing things on streets I'd
never been on before.)

It's mildly tempting to fork MozStumbler and have it also upload the data I
collect to a server I control, just so I have a copy of my data. (In
particular, it might be fun to throw together some code for algorithmically
locating cell sites and access points, just to see how well I can make it
work.)

~~~
_delirium
> It's mildly tempting to fork MozStumbler and have it also upload the data I
> collect to a server I control, just so I have a copy of my data.

You could use WiGLE's client if you want that; the client logs to a local file
in addition to (optionally) uploading to the main database:
[https://wigle.net/](https://wigle.net/)

