Some companies collect data about what all the wifi broadcasting SSIDs are based on GPS location.One day, a guy was walking down my street carrying a large antenna and followed by a car with out-of-state plates. Someone speculated that this was a war driving operation. https://www.techtarget.com/searchmobile ... ar-driving
This allows them to sell the data (or access to an API), where a customer or computer program can make a query and basically ask the question "Hey, I am near WiFi Access points X, Y, and Z. Can you tell me what my likely GPS location is, based on what WiFi Access Points are in my range?" This can be very useful information for being able to locate your location, without having an actual GPS radio on that particular device.
However, this type of activity (collecting the data) does not cause any huge spikes in network traffic. This would not be the cause of the OP's issue.
Statistics: Posted by rantk81 — Sun Nov 17, 2024 6:39 am — Replies 37 — Views 2618