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Let's assume that Scott Johnson was on the federal wanted list. The police knew everything or almost everything about him, but they could not catch him. He did not use bank cards or a smartphone.
He himself knew that if he went online from his device, law enforcement agencies would immediately know his location.
To do this, he threw away all the devices, but he still had a smart watch on his hand. They became the key moment in this story. One day, he was identified in a chain cafe, but when law enforcement arrived, there was no trace of him.
The officers began to study the cameras, and they also managed to find out that his smart watch was registered in the Wi-Fi network of the establishment. And they knew his MAC address. Naturally, the next time he did not go to this cafe. But he went to another.
And before that, law enforcement had already agreed with a company that collects and targets advertising. More precisely, there may be several companies. And as soon as his MAC address was registered on the network, a detention group was sent to the scene. So Scott Johnson was caught and successfully arrested.
Of course, this is improvisation to understand the scheme. But in real events and very often, MAC address data helps law enforcement officers identify the criminal.
How is this possible?
Yes, this took place in the USA, I could not find information about the experience of our law enforcement officers, maybe they do not write. But this does not mean anything. Now I will explain why. Almost every large public institution that gives people free Wi-Fi collects MAC addresses using a Wi-Fi radar. This is a regular router with special software installed.
A MAC address is a unique address of a network device, in this case a smartphone, smart watch, tablet. It looks like this: 00:23:52:00:1f:01. And what is most interesting is that in order to collect the MAC address of someone who passed by or entered the institution, the person does not even need to connect to the network. And Wi-Fi is enabled by default for many.
What is this for?
In this way, establishments:
- Understand how many people pass by a restaurant or cafe;
- How much time people spend in it;
- By MAC address, you can display advertising directly on the user's smartphone or "catch" this user later. Surely many have seen "Have you been to us? Come again, we are waiting for you." This is called advertising retargeting.
All this data is now successfully used to improve business processes in public establishments.
And if you have access to the entire MAC address database, you can even draw an approximate picture of the movement of a person with a Wi-Fi device on a map.
And by the way, the picture of movement will be much more accurate than tracking via a mobile network, because a person will pass by different establishments that will record the MAC address of the device.
Can law enforcement take advantage of this?
There is only one problem here - how the collection of addresses is carried out.
Large companies usually use the services of large firms that do this. And so, having access to such a database, you can easily figure out in which place in the city this or that MAC address appeared.
If you do not want to be tracked by establishments, then simply turn off Wi-Fi if you do not need it in the smartphone settings.
He himself knew that if he went online from his device, law enforcement agencies would immediately know his location.
To do this, he threw away all the devices, but he still had a smart watch on his hand. They became the key moment in this story. One day, he was identified in a chain cafe, but when law enforcement arrived, there was no trace of him.
The officers began to study the cameras, and they also managed to find out that his smart watch was registered in the Wi-Fi network of the establishment. And they knew his MAC address. Naturally, the next time he did not go to this cafe. But he went to another.
And before that, law enforcement had already agreed with a company that collects and targets advertising. More precisely, there may be several companies. And as soon as his MAC address was registered on the network, a detention group was sent to the scene. So Scott Johnson was caught and successfully arrested.
Of course, this is improvisation to understand the scheme. But in real events and very often, MAC address data helps law enforcement officers identify the criminal.
How is this possible?
Yes, this took place in the USA, I could not find information about the experience of our law enforcement officers, maybe they do not write. But this does not mean anything. Now I will explain why. Almost every large public institution that gives people free Wi-Fi collects MAC addresses using a Wi-Fi radar. This is a regular router with special software installed.
A MAC address is a unique address of a network device, in this case a smartphone, smart watch, tablet. It looks like this: 00:23:52:00:1f:01. And what is most interesting is that in order to collect the MAC address of someone who passed by or entered the institution, the person does not even need to connect to the network. And Wi-Fi is enabled by default for many.
What is this for?
In this way, establishments:
- Understand how many people pass by a restaurant or cafe;
- How much time people spend in it;
- By MAC address, you can display advertising directly on the user's smartphone or "catch" this user later. Surely many have seen "Have you been to us? Come again, we are waiting for you." This is called advertising retargeting.
All this data is now successfully used to improve business processes in public establishments.
And if you have access to the entire MAC address database, you can even draw an approximate picture of the movement of a person with a Wi-Fi device on a map.
And by the way, the picture of movement will be much more accurate than tracking via a mobile network, because a person will pass by different establishments that will record the MAC address of the device.
Can law enforcement take advantage of this?
There is only one problem here - how the collection of addresses is carried out.
Large companies usually use the services of large firms that do this. And so, having access to such a database, you can easily figure out in which place in the city this or that MAC address appeared.
If you do not want to be tracked by establishments, then simply turn off Wi-Fi if you do not need it in the smartphone settings.
