Many apps on your phone are entitled to read WiFi SSID's, mapping your location ... | Hacker News

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0daystock on May 3, 2022 | parent | context | favorite | on: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

Many apps on your phone are entitled to read WiFi SSID's, mapping your location as accurately as GPS - and indoors, too! Go ahead and google "where am I" with a native Android/iOS search app with your VPN enabled, you may be surprised by the results. Not to mention accelerometers and other sensors can reliably predict your movement and location, too.

topdancing on May 3, 2022 [–]

They do not have such an entitlement: https://grapheneos.org/faq#hardware-identifiers (edit: and also: https://grapheneos.org/usage#wifi-privacy )

And the only app that has access to GPS on my device is: https://organicmaps.app/

And Googling "where am I" indeed shows me at my VPN exit [with my always-on and enforced VPN].

0daystock on May 5, 2022 | [–]

Curious (since you mentioned grapheneOS) whether you have Play Services on your device? The results I expected assumed you would. Thanks.

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