WiFi Motion Detection

Edit: I mean, talk about flexibility, your code allows me to know my mailman's phone's MAC address. That's just impressive!

How do you get the MAC address of phones that don't attach to your wifi?

Edit: I mean, talk about flexibility, your code allows me to know my mailman's phone's MAC address. That's just impressive!

How do you get the MAC address of phones that don't attach to your wifi?

It’s crazy what gets broadcast by WiFi devices... for whatever reason, Unifi AP’s report the broadcast mac addresses for devices not on my network.

I’m playing around with schemas for Bluetooth and WiFi Mac addresses for iPhones, which are directly related. Fun stuff.

Whoah! I didn't realize that. I run Unifi gear, (USG, POE switch, AC points) but I've never seen non-connected devices.

I'm going to install the Unifi plugin now and see where that is. Can you point me in the right direction? Thanks!

How do you get the MAC address of phones that don't attach to your wifi?

That doesn't seem possible to get the MAC address of any device not connected to your network. I mean, just the basic network layer would require it because the MAC address has to broadcast on a network, so unless you have have an open Wifi in your house and someone is auto connecting to open Wifi's then that should be technically impossible.

That doesn't seem possible to get the MAC address of any device not connected to your network. I mean, just the basic network layer would require it because the MAC address has to broadcast on a network, so unless you have have an open Wifi in your house and someone is auto connecting to open Wifi's then that should be technically impossible.

If the mail carrier's WiFi is turned on and is constantly searching for broadcasting SSIDs, it is possible that interaction exposes the MAC address. I haven't looked into that process, but it wouldn't be unthinkable that in the probing of the SSID the address is exposed and the Unifi equipment logging it.

How do you get the MAC address of phones that don't attach to your wifi?

That doesn't seem possible to get the MAC address of any device not connected to your network. I mean, just the basic network layer would require it because the MAC address has to broadcast on a network, so unless you have have an open Wifi in your house and someone is auto connecting to open Wifi's then that should be technically impossible.

Agreed. More likely the person picking up the mailman's phone is using something like pibeacon that picks up bluetooth signals.. Which your phone broadcasts all the time including the bluetooth's mac address. You actually have to weed out all the garbage it picks up from people driving by in their cars. lol

That doesn't seem possible to get the MAC address of any device not connected to your network. I mean, just the basic network layer would require it because the MAC address has to broadcast on a network, so unless you have have an open Wifi in your house and someone is auto connecting to open Wifi's then that should be technically impossible.

If the mail carrier's WiFi is turned on and is constantly searching for broadcasting SSIDs, it is possible that interaction exposes the MAC address. I haven't looked into that process, but it wouldn't be unthinkable that in the probing of the SSID the address is exposed and the Unifi equipment logging it.

I am pretty certain It is only monitoring for broadcast SSIDs. The AP would only get the mac address if a join attempt was made. Otherwise the client device isn't actually broadcasting anything.

If the mail carrier's WiFi is turned on and is constantly searching for broadcasting SSID

Excellent point. If you consider that you can prevent someone from seeing your Wifi based on MAC filtering then this is quite valid, but it doesn't seem likely that would then appear in ARP, which is what the access point would be using to discover MAC addresses that didn't get a lease but exist on the network since ARP requires you to be actively connected.

I bet it's the Bluetooth MAC address since that will appear on a network even before it is paired so it can be identified to pair.

Excellent point. If you consider that you can prevent someone from seeing your Wifi based on MAC filtering

I am familiar with not Broadcasting your SSID to hide it and MAC filtering but I have never heard of being able to hide your SSID based on the MAC address of the device monitoring for it. Any documentation on that? I would love to look into it.

I am familiar with not Broadcasting your SSID to hide it and MAC filtering but I have never heard of being able to hide your SSID based on the MAC address of the device

I have only ever seen this on enterprise Cisco's where you could create rules at the network layer via OS programming, never on consumer devices. Given that it would surprise me if anything short of a $5K access point would open their OS to allow this type of filtering since it's not needed by 99.9% of the wifi consuming population.

Alright, so maybe I’m totally wrong here, but Unifi creates a folder of “neighbors”. It definitely has Mac addresses for other houses’ routers, and for cars which broadcast ssid’s, but I really thought it was showing individual devices searching for networks, perhaps devices that attempt to auto-connect to known networks.

An example I just grabbed:

This is NOT a pibeacon device, but good thought.

Wait-a-minute: MAYBE it’s only showing phones with their hotspots activated?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Neighbors are just other access points. So yes, if someone is walking around with their phone as a hot spot, it would show there. Or cars with hot spots, or your neighbors access points.

Neighbors are just other access points. So yes, if someone is walking around with their phone as a hot spot, it would show there. Or cars with hot spots, or your neighbors access points.

Sorry to cause unnecessary confusion!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk