Which for openwrt means you don’t need to mess about with scripts. It has an option in the UI if your device supports it.
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Can you please tell more about this?
Works fine in my case
Good idea!
If no, you can use scripts. With Gl-INET my scripts work fine.
Basically you don’t want to be running scripts bringing interfaces up and down outside of the actual boot process otherwise you might quite likely end up with no interfaces up at all.
There is a reason distributions moved away from ifplugd style of managing interface its brittle and prone to failure.
Does your device not have the option in the above screenshot?
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That’s fair point. But I think it is the simplest way to do this (IMHO)
It has, but MAC changes after each reboot. My scripts allow you to set time to change it or even mimic to mobile hotspot.
Since you have a randomized mac for each reboot, why didn’t you consider just a script to reboot your router periodically (like at 3am) instead of manually changing the MAC address ?
Personally I wouldn’t randomize it each reboot. It’s going to cause your networks not to reconnect.
There isn’t really any privacy benefit for doing it each reboot either, they will still appear and it will be weird there is a concentrated area with a heap of BSSIDs. No device will do this by default so people will assume its all the same device anyway
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Fair enough, but the thing is I want to mimic my router to mobile device MAC (using prefix) so some person will think that it’s just mobile hotspot.
Not in my case. All phones (Android) and Laptop (Linux) connects like usual. Configuration with hidden SSID (maybe this makes it more stable?)
Android’s do this like always?
There really isn’t anything to gain from that because the AP doesn’t change location. The reason for randomizing on a phone is because if you have hidden networks saved in the phone it will periodically scan for those networks to see if they are in range. It is also possible to track a person’s movement by seeing what APs they access. The AP stays in the same place however so there isn’t any point in periodically randomizing the BSSID. It will just draw attention. In my opinion that makes it worse.
That is because NetworkManager doesn’t check BSSID by default. I’m pretty sure other OSes like Windows do however.
No device as in base station will change the BSSID randomly.
I’m not 100% sure but I think iOS checks BSSID, so an iphone user won’t be able to reconnect automatically to a network if the BSSID changes
Fair as fact, but how this will draw attention? The purpose is to make MAC invalid in databases, not to make you anonymous.
So it looks like: hidden SSID + random BSSID (SSID won’t be present in databases because it is hidden, BSSID is random)
That’s not my idea, this is the first thing I found with randomisation. But that software limited to only one device.
Also Android have such feature but it looks like on some devices it is enabled by default but on others it should be enabled manually
I ditched Microsoft, so can’t check.
Can someone with IPhone and Windows check? Just change MAC (BSSID) of your router from other device and check if your iPhone or Windows will reconnect automatically. It will be great if you will test it with and without hidden SSID option.
Because you will still have bssid and if anyone is recording those a million BSSIDs at exactly the same location is going to look weird. It gains you no privacy either as they are still there. If anything on a map it will make an even larger concentration of wifi networks which probably isn’t going to look realistic after a year or changing it every day or whatever.
In that situation the Mudi is a device that connects to a cellular network, its meant to be portable so that might make sense if you’re constantly moving around.
You won’t be buying any privacy though from the cellular network unless you have a way to anonymously get a SIM without any kind of identification. Also it’s 4G only.
If this is a fixed location you probably want something with a proper aerial instead of a travel device. Also you can connect to that with USB and not broadcast any BSSID to your local devices.
Android isn’t run on routers or access points which is what the post was about when you were talking about openwrt.
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Fair point, but previous ones not broadcasting though. So nobody can see that it is my router do so.
Why do I need SIM with default router? Or you are talking exactly about Mudi?
BTW, in my country SIM could be bought in supermarket 
Yeah! So that’s why in my comment above I wrote about mimicking to mobile hotspot (to make it look like you are sharing internet access through your phone)
You can still scan networks even if they’re “hidden” and not broadcasting the SSID. Beacon frames are still emitted from the AP, it just doesn’t include a name in the frame. Also anyone can see your SSID as soon a probe request/response happens, you don’t even need to authenticate. So unless you’re also constantly changing your SSID to make it something different there is going to be a traceable point.
A lot can be, but can you then activate it without handing over anything? If you can then you’re lucky. Again though the MAC address that the cellular network sees is not the one on the WiFi interface facing your devices.
Again though it only really makes sense to randomize if you’re trying to avoid tracking, and using the device in different locations. There isn’t a whole lot to gain if the device is stationary, like at someone’s house.
Yeah. In my country it is not a problem (Ukraine).
Ok, fair point. Maybe include in in privacy guides with recommendation to use only with mobile routers?
I have a question please : if I add _nomap at the end of my SSID my router will be removed from Google geo location database.
But what if I remove _nomap from the SSID after some time (let’s say a week), my router infos will be added back to Google database again ?
I hope my question is clear, English isn’t my first language.
Yes, but it likely has to have the same BSSID.
Probably.
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So the tldr for router setting changes is:
- Append _nomap to the end of SSID.
- Change the default MAC address to a random one (guide on which one to choose?) but not consistently changing one
- If wanted, hide the SSID if that is a concern.
That’s the most reliable way, as both Google and Microsoft and others adhere to that standard.
Yes, though it is a random hex number so changing it doesn’t really give you anything.
Constantly changing it draws more attention, think like this:
Which is probably how they find the Russian bot farms:
Yes, you can’t, so don’t put anything identifying in there. The most you can do is make it not appear in people’s list. (Not have it in beacon frames), but it will appear in probe frames which will show up with any sniffing tool.
What defines as identifying for an SSID? Personal information? Or just extremely uniquely named SSIDs.
Can OpenWRT be flashed on WAN routers? I have been told my router (Optus Huawei E5186s-61a) is WAN, it has been described as a “barebones basic 4G broadband router”.