Howmanypeoplearearound
Security and privacy
wifi sniffing
SHOW HN2017
How HN took it
0 positive, 16 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 4 critical, out of 20 comments about the project. Thread score -0.15.
Privacy: 0 for, 2 againstIdea: 0 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
Objections
Many people have smartphones, so the count is inaccurate or only covers part of the population
From 3 comments
Unrelated but how accurate is that 70% statistic? I would have expected that number to be much higher.
olalonde on HNPew Research Center says ~77% US adults own smartphones. [1] The director at Pew also tweeted a breakdown by country which shows a lot of variance. [2] Thus, this script won't…
qrv3w on HNProbably not very accurate, regardless of how many people have smartphones. Unless you know how big that "around" is.
helb on HN
MAC address randomization makes phones harder to detect
From 2 comments
what about about mac address randomization?????
mzakharo1 on HNFor iPhones this only happens when un-associated [1] so this script will probably underestimate the count in public spaces. Although, I'm not sure whether the randomization…
qrv3w on HN
Routers and common manufacturer OUIs are mistaken for phones
From 1 comment
Is there a better way to check if an OUI is being used by a mobile phone or a router? e.g. There are plenty of huawei/apple routers and if one of them is in your neighborhood,…
irfan on HN
Sniffing others' wifi traffic may be illegal and raises privacy concerns
From 3 comments
I think that'd be illegal under Misuse of Computers in the UK...
alexchamberlain on HNActually, it doesn't appear to be illegal (but IANAL). The UK act applies mostly to trying to gain unathorized access to a computer system or network. If you put up your own wifi…
peterwwillis on HNYes and no. Imho the issue at hand is that of a piece to a mosaic of over time and other sensor data. For example, an important piece of data to pharmaceutical companies is which…
adolph on HN
Requests
Add Bluetooth support and correlate Bluetooth and WiFi MACs
From 1 comment
Bluetooth equivalent would be cool, then pairing bluetooth and wifi MACs based on temporal correlation. If one changes you can infer from the other. Over time you could split it…
contingencies on HN
Distinguish routers from phones better
From 1 comment
Is there a better way to check if an OUI is being used by a mobile phone or a router? e.g. There are plenty of huawei/apple routers and if one of them is in your neighborhood,…
irfan on HN
Questions
Why no signals captured on some WiFi chips in monitor mode
From 2 comments
> $ howmanypeoplearearound > Specify WiFi adapter (use ifconfig to determine): wlp4s0 > [==================================================] 100% 0s left > Found no signals, are…
d33 on HNWhat kind of WiFi chip do you have? Make sure it supports monitor mode (if should list "monitor" when running `iw list`). Although, for reasons I don't understand, this may not…
qrv3w on HN
Does it scan all channels
From 1 comment
Does this script scan all the channels or just one?
notdang on HN