Re: Apple changed their documentation at my request but it proves they don't care about privacy

Jon Ribbens <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2026-09-07, Chris <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Jon Ribbens <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> To me it's fairly intuitive that if someone has taken the unusual step
>>> of explicitly marking their network as "hidden", then its location
>>> should not be included in these databases - especially given the fact
>>> that the "_nomap" SSID method doesn't work for "hidden" networks.
>> 
>> I guess the challenge here is how can they know not to add the MAC
>> address if the SSID with the "_nomap" request invisible. 
> 
> That's the core of the issue - I would guess that Android devices are
> only uploading BSSIDs to the Google database when they see that Access
> Point broadcast an SSID, and that SSID doesn't end with "_nomap".
> 
> iPhones on the other hand, I would guess are uploading BSSIDs to the
> Apple database as soon as they see that Access Point broadcasting
> anything, regardless of whether they have seen an SSID from it.
> 
> If it works the way I am suggesting, then it means that Google's
> database would automatically exclude "hidden" networks, and Apple's
> wouldn't - and not only that, Apple would have no way of immediately
> excluding them. They would need to issue updated iPhone software,
> and then wait until almost all iPhones in the world that were still
> in use were using the new software.
> 
>>>> Related: What did Arlen (aka Maria) achieve? That Apple agreed to
>>>> remove all hidden and _nomap entries, or that they removed only his
>>>> entry?
>>> 
>>> My impression is that as a result of Maria's communications with them,
>>> Apple updated their documentation to note that "hidden" networks are
>>> still listed in their database, and removed Maria's own BSSID(s) from
>>> the database.
>> 
>> That's purely a correlation. It could be a coincidence.  And is there
>> any evidence that the documentation did change? We only have his say so. 
> 
> We can't prove what prompted Apple to change their documentation, but
> we certainly can prove that it did indeed change, using archive.org.
> In December 2025 the page did not mention hidden networks, and today
> it does.
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20251221213139/https://support.apple.com/en-ie/102515
> https://support.apple.com/en-ie/102515

I agree. And I did the same. The fact that Arlen couldn't very easily
evidence his assertion, despite my challenge above, speaks volumes.