StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

PO
text
Body
copied!<p>The data sent by Firefox to Google is for <em>all visible access points, public or private</em>. For each access point detected, it sends the following data to <code>https://www.google.com/loc/json</code>:</p> <pre><code> "mac_address": "01-23-45-67-89-ab", "signal_strength": 8, "age": 0, "SSID": "MyAccessPoint" </code></pre> <p>where </p> <ul> <li><strong><code>mac_address</code></strong> is the mac address of the WiFi node.</li> <li><strong><code>signal_strength</code></strong> is current signal strength measured in dBm.</li> <li><strong><code>age</code></strong> is the number of milliseconds since the WiFi node was detected.</li> <li><strong><code>SSID</code></strong> is the name or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_set_%28802.11_network%29#Extended_service_set" rel="noreferrer">ESSID</a> of the WiFi node.</li> </ul> <p>The georeferenced WiFi data used to geocode your request was <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=google+wireless&oe=utf-8&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&ncl=d-p4X8_7mGH0L9MG_tFhP2xl1g0lM&ei=Fb0WTO7bM9GHkAWX6dSQCw&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&cd=1&resnum=4&ved=0CFAQqgIoADAD" rel="noreferrer">collected when Google was driving around taking pictures for StreetView</a>.</p> <p>It is important to note that, however, that this is how the HTML5 geolocation API is implmeneted on Firefox using Google's Geolocation Services. <strong>This is an implementation, not a specification.</strong> If your device has a built-in GPS, it is probably desirable that your HTML5 implementation queries the GPS directly, rather than using a geolocation service.</p> <p>Even firefox implements this feature differently on Windows and Linux. Using a current Firefox on Windows, details of all visible WiFi nodes are sent to Google. Using a current Firefox on Linux, only details of the currently connected WiFi node is sent, due to the <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=499666" rel="noreferrer">reliance on <code>libiw</code></a> for access point data.</p> <p>As another answerer noted, Safari uses <a href="http://www.skyhookwireless.com/" rel="noreferrer">Skyhook Wireless</a>'s service which does much the same thing as Google's Location Services.</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload