We’ll want to use it for geolocation in the future.  There is already a 
stumbler application for http://location.services.mozilla.com/.  I do not think 
we’d ever want to expose this on the Web.


On Nov 3, 2013, at 8:15 PM, Paul Theriault <[email protected]> wrote:

> I have been thinking about what security & privacy risks are associated with 
> allowing 3rd party apps to access the WiFi manager API. One property this API 
> exposes is the MAC address of the wifi adapter. At first glance, exposing the 
> MAC address would seem to be a very significant privacy risk because a) its 
> guaranteed to be globally unique, and b) the user has no easy way to change 
> or cycle this identifier.  Currently the API is certified only (only Mozilla 
> and partner apps can get access to this API) but there is a desire to open 
> this up for various legitimate use cases (improved geolocation accuracy via 
> wifi scanning for example). 
> 
> How important is it to never allow disclosure of the MAC address to 3rd party 
> apps ? Am I overlooking other factors which mean the work in restricting 
> access to the MAC is not such a valuable control ? 
> 
> To me it's similar to [1] which currently is an Implicit Privileged 
> permission [2]. However in that case you can always eat your SIM card if you 
> worried that They are on to you.
> 
> -Paul
> 
> [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MozMobileNetworkInfo
> [2] This means only apps reviewed by Mozilla Marketplace can get this 
> permission, but users are not prompted before an app can read 
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