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Don’t like Google maps renaming “Lake Ontario” → “Lake America”? Show your objection by changing your SSID (support.google.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by to c/degoogle@discuss.tchncs.de
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cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/51680197

Append “_nomap” to the end of your SSIDs to instruct Google not to use your wi-fi access point for their mapping services.

To do the same for Apple, add “_optout” to the end of your SSIDs¹.

To boycott both, the rumor is that Google’s “_nomap” must be last, but Apple’s “_optout” flag must be in the penultimate position if and only if Google’s token is at the end. So you might have an SSID like “boycottCloudflare_optout_nomap” to boycott the baddies, for example. But note that “boycottCloudflare” is merely symbolic, to raise awareness of the web’s most harmful enshitifier.

¹ sorry to say I have no reference to cite for the Apple rules. It’s just a rumor.

update

The Apple opt-out procedure has apparently changed to align with Google. Someone refers to this page for Apple.

update 2

Mapquest is suddenly gaining popularity.

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[–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago*

Saw this in the article:

This is the biggest drawback of hidden SSIDs. When a network is hidden, your phone or laptop has to constantly shout, "Are you there, [Hidden Home Network]?" everywhere you go.

There is a paper that describes how an iOS device listens to everyone else’s phones as they broadcast all the SSIDs they connect to (regardless of where the two phones intersect). It gave the impression that phones also reveal non-hidden SSIDs when looking to connect, as it’s uncommon for people to have hidden SSIDs.

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