A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails · HackerPapers discussions

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — HN submission

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 08:42:03 GMT

A study of Mac address randomization in mobile devices and when it fails

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — mentioned by cjnicholls

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 19:17:01 GMT

On probe requests this can be very often(< second or within 50 frames), especially in the case of IOS. On Android MAC randomisation is implemented only on a handful of specific devices and some vendors dont at all. Mac randomisation is flawed at the least and can still be used to identify an individual in some cases. The paper below lists techniques explored by the US Navy published in 2017. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.02874.pdf

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — mentioned by imhoguy

Wed, 07 Nov 2018 12:08:29 GMT

Confirmed, however there are/were flaws in MAC randomization, see A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874v1. Has it been addressed somehow recently?

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — mentioned by myopicgoat

Sun, 18 Feb 2018 09:57:08 GMT

MAC address randomisation has been proven to be essentially useless: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874v1

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — mentioned by thisacctforreal

Mon, 04 Dec 2017 19:02:56 GMT

Two other issues I'm worried about with iOS: - MAC address tracking (RTS packets thrwart MAC randomization[0], not immediately clear if WiFi is fully off[1]) - All-or-nothing access to photos on the phone (append-only for apps that request it) Discord in particular is bad for the photo permission, as I don't trust China's Tencent with access to all the photos on my phone (which can include lots of frequent location information!), but pasting images doesn't work in the app. I had assumed the "Photos" permission meant "permission to prompt this dialogue" and "permission to save to Camera Roll".…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — mentioned by Sephiroth87

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 13:33:13 GMT

The only source for this a could find was an old paper on iOS 8, while this more recent one https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.02874.pdf seems to suggest the randomisation works as intended for unknown networks...

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — mentioned by doctorsher

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 16:04:12 GMT

There are further examples that Apple takes privacy seriously: 1) end-to-end encryption of all iMessages 2) encrypted iCloud content 3) making password management accessible to a lot of people who would not pursue it otherwise (with Keychain) 4) attempting MAC address randomization to prevent WiFi tracking, though from this paper [1] it appears to be broken. Having worked there for a time, in my opinion privacy is deeply ingrained in the company culture. Much easier solutions are avoided if they sacrifice the customer's privacy. Further, it seems many of the decisions are made to minimize the…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — HN submission

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 18:00:18 GMT

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When It Fails

57 points; 1 discussion reply on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — mentioned by squeaky-clean

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 18:22:10 GMT

I'm just now learning about all this (I'd heard about stores tracking customers, but thought it only worked with Wifi enabled), but it seems many Android phones don't actually do randomization, and it can be easily fingerprinted even if they do. From a 2017 paper, https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.02874v1 > First, we show that devices commonly make improper use of randomization by sending wireless frames with the true, global address when they should be using a randomized address. We move on to extend the passive identification techniques of Vanhoef et al. to effectively defeat randomization in ~96%…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — HN submission

Fri, 24 Mar 2017 04:35:28 GMT

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When It Fails

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — HN submission

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 11:34:05 GMT

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When It Fails

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — HN submission

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 15:58:40 GMT

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When It Fails

112 points; 16 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When it Fails — HN submission

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 09:53:02 GMT

A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices and When It Fails

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.