Most WiFi chipsets use hardware based MAC layer, so promiscuous monitoring / sniffing is not possible on virtually every embedded module. There were a few chipsets, known as SoftMAC where linux drivers did the MAC layer, in which you could truly sniff the air for all traffic and capture a whole lot of MAC addresses. That was much more useful, but requires more CPU and specific older hardware. If you have a permanent power source like in a ALPR that isn't as much of a concern. I don't know of any companies that really did this though. Almost all our competitors used solutions that only supported the usual device discovery, which relies on BT being discoverable, or AP mode WiFi in order to track a MAC address. It's really easy to market though, it sounds great on paper. In practice the results are less than stellar and with time got even worse as vendors stopped being discoverable by default, and handsets started using used dynamic MAC addresses
Hah! I wish this were true. The overwhelming majority of BLE widgets don't use resolvable random private addresses. They could, they just don't. A huge share of the industry is just copy-pasting Nordic sample code until they have a shippable product, and last I checked, exactly one (1) Nordic sample project enables RRPAs. Nordic treats it as an edge case, and everyone else follows along.
And that's besides the issue that the RRPA rotation algorithm is pretty contrived. I'd be shocked if some three-letter hasn't already built a tool for tracking devices that use it.
Right, but the mac is randomized every 15 min, which makes tracking hard to pull off.
Probably do the same thing when you go into retail stores. just flood the place with every possible identification.
Maybe an easier solution is just write something that spoofs hundreds of fake ids and sends them out constantly where ever you go; bonus points if you can create IDs that can break the devices when they try to parse it.
It's illegal in most states to place a listening device in public that captures private conversations, this is basically no different.
I can remember in the late 1990's Berkeley Public Library was considering adding RFID tags to the books as asset tags. The public push-back was significant and surprising at the time. Freedom-loving library patrons were concerned about nefarious tracking. Proponents of the new tags thought that the concept of tracking people or the books they read was rooted in paranoia.
Unless they're hoping my AirPods are in pairing mode all of the time and they're going to track the name "mikeocool's AirPods."
If I’m away from my car later, I’m just a guy walking around with 3 Apple devices (or two if I forget my phone in the car).
Sure, but now you can track someone from their car through public transport, shops and god knows wherever else someone placed a sniffer.
And no, randomization doesn't help, because in the end the Find My beacons have to resolve down to some common identifier otherwise the "an unknown device has been following you for 2 hours" warning would not work.