Creating an open database of wifi and cell networks all over the world

Creating an open database of wifi and cell networks all over the world(crowdflow.net)

48 points by aditya42 15 years ago | 20 comments

soult 15 years ago |

The problem with Crowdflow is the way they get the data. Instead of collecting their own data using GPS, WiFi SSIDs and Cell Tower IDs they ask users to submit their iPhone location data cache. This cache is filled from Apple's own location database and from the Skyhook database. So they are, in a way, scraping data from those two databases, which will probably lead to licensing issues.

Now, if there were an open database (open as in I can download it for my own use, not just query it via an API) for WiFi network <-> GPS coordinates and Cell Tower ID <-> GPS coordinates that would collect its data by letting contributors run a simple iPhone or Android app, that would be awesome.

aditya42 15 years ago | |

What licensing issues? It's your phone, your data. I don't think Apple gets to say what you get to do with your data on your phone. If it was on Apple's servers, maybe they would have a case.

Plus, it's data that Apple shouldn't have been storing (in its current state, anyway) in the first place.

caf 15 years ago | | |

The data on the phone isn't observations made by the phone of the location of base stations and access points. It's just a cached subset of access point / location (and base station / location) pairs from an existing, online database.

jaredsohn 15 years ago | | |

Then you could make a similar argument for Microsoft scraping Google search results via their browser toolbar.

Writing code that has users doing the scraping for you is still scraping.

gojomo 15 years ago | |

In the US, by the Feist precedent [1], strictly factual directory information isn't copyrightable. Now, Apple Legal could surely muster some case that Apple has creatively enhanced this data, but their strategic interests might be more helped by examples of legitimate user-embraced uses than a strong claim of proprietary ownership.

(To the extent that there is creative expression in the individual users' logs, it could be in their choice of travel routes, making the user the holder of some copyright interest in the time- and space-ordered paths.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural

aw3c2 15 years ago |

Gorgeous visualisations here: http://crowdflow.net/blog/2011/04/27/first-results/

I wish they would make the database available right here right now. Also I would like to contribute with my Android phone.

ortusdux 15 years ago | |

This app could get the job done.

https://market.android.com/details?id=ki.wardrive

donpdonp 15 years ago |

http://geomena.org does this too, with a creative commons license. Firefox can be configured to use Geomena as the geolocation provider (instead of google).

aw3c2 15 years ago | |

This looks like a nice project. I wish the Android client was available in the market or at least for download as .apk

Also a map would nice to see the current status of the whole database.

ratsbane 15 years ago | | |

Wardrive is available for Android and it's open source: https://github.com/topgenorth/wardrive-android

It uploads to WiGLE.

bjg 15 years ago |

Sorry... http://wigle.net/

m86 15 years ago | |

WiGLE is awesome.. but they are not completely open. Subsections of the DB will be if you use JiGLE or scrape it piece by piece over time.. and you can always do selective queries, but the entirety of the database is not freely available.

.. nor is it currently available from crowdflow at the moment (although it is in their stated goals). They also only accept consolidated.db uploads at the present.

ghotli 15 years ago |

Disclaimer: I work at American Roamer.

We actually track the marketed patterns that the carriers around the world say they have. In my analysis a lot of these open source ones are pretty messy datasets that wouldn't really add to our products. Although there are a few datasets here in the comments I haven't been exposed to before so I'm hoping they are more useful.

http://www.americanroamer.com/

jwatzman 15 years ago |

I was unable to get the Java application to create a valid gzip file on OS X -- it appeared to write the header but no data. Anyone else have any luck?

Maxious 15 years ago |

OpenSignalMaps? OpenBmap? Cellhunter? OpenCellID?

If you've got an android device, OpenSignalMaps and OpenBmap have clients to monitor wifi/cell towers although I prefer OpenBmap for making their data available for download again ("open"SignalMaps just makes maps for website/client).

sinak 15 years ago | |

Hey Maxious - I'm one of the opensignalmaps guys. We're working on opening up our data, we're just trying to figure out the best way to go about it.

sinak 15 years ago |

Hey all, we do something similar on http://opensignalmaps.com except by crowdsourcing the data from our Android app.

Yes, our name says "open" and we're not actually "open" yet...but we're working on it.

known 15 years ago |

http://client0.cellmaps.com/tabs.html#cellmaps_intl_tab does the same

ajays 15 years ago |

I'm leery of downloading and running an unknown applet.

Is there any other way for me to extract the data of interest and upload it myself?

michaelelliot 15 years ago |

They should ask Google for some of their data. Haha :)