How Your Mobile Phone Gives Away Your Home Address

That seems a little dramatic, but it is a realistic prospect for individuals who are being targeted by stalkers, criminals or others looking to determine your home address - or even the local coffee shop you visit, or hotels you stay at.

So how does your phone actually allow someone to determine your home address? It is relatively simple process, but does require a certain amount of technical knowledge to complete. The following also applies to laptops and tablets, as well as phones.

Firstly, every time you connect to a wireless network, your phone stores the details of this network in a long list of safe networks it is allowed to connect to. Then, when you are out and about, your phone is constantly looking for those wireless networks by shouting out requests for them. These requests that your phone makes can be picked up by a simple device that looks for this information (essentially a modified router that identifies this information - although it could also be completed on a laptop with specific software).

Once this device ‘sniffs’ out the network names your phone is requesting, they can be identified on mapping software that shows the location of wireless network names - a bit like Google for WiFi networks.

So, for example, Mrs. Jones has a stalker who has not yet been identified. This stalker arranges a meeting with Mrs. Jones as part of her business routine. Whilst in the meeting, the stalker can ‘listen’ to all the network names that Mrs. Jones phone is trying to connect to. After the meeting, the stalker simply uses a popular website to plot the locations of those network names (also known as SSID addresses). Almost certainly, one of those network SSID’s will be Mrs. Jones home address. Even worse, this can identify leisure activities (gyms, restaurants, holiday locations etc), and realistically will give a full historical list of trusted locations visited.

How is this prevented? The simplest method would be to turn off WiFi on your phone when leaving home. That way, nobody can ‘listen’ to the WiFi requests coming from your phone. However, almost nobody does this - and if you are unaware you have a stalker, or that you are the target of a criminal group - then you may see no reason to implement this method. It is also worth changing the name of your home WiFi network (on your router) to something that is not unique (for example, ‘Netgear’ would be a good choice). This means that if someone does get a list of your usual WiFi networks, then it will be almost impossible to plot a location on a map, when that network name is used by millions of other people.

It might also be worth considering how you and your family use social media. Posting details of jewellery and cars online may encourage criminals to target you with the techniques described above. All of which could be achieved by simply sitting next to you or your family members in a restaurant, during a business meeting, or even in the street.

Finally, for victims of stalking who have moved to avoid a stalker, their router should be replaced with a new one. Using your old router will potentially give your new location away in a short period of time.

There are many situations where this technique can be used against you, and the simplest safety measure is to turn wireless off when you leave home, and rely on your mobile network instead.