[Arm-netbook] Lemote misrepresented wifi is removable

[Derek LaHousse]

On Sun, 2012-07-29 at 05:13 -0700, freebirds at fastmail.fm wrote:
> Prior to purchasing a MIPS Lemote Yeeloong netbook, I asked Betty, an
> employee of Lemote, whether the wifi was removable. She replied yes.
> However, three of the screws in the back of the netbook are unscrewable.
> Lemote refuses to refund my money and refuses to ship a replacement
> without the wifi and antennae. Betty replied she had told me yes because
> she had told Richard Stallman yes. Richard Stallman had asked the same
> question. Betty wrote that the wifi card is underneath the SSD hard
> drive and memory. The screws to the panel to the hard drive are
> unscrewable. No wifi underneath hard drive. Lemote is not a reputable
> company. 
> 
> I paid $200 plus $50 shipping = $250 for a netbook I will not be able to
> use after my abuser's crackers procure the MAC address of the wifi.
> 
> Yesterday, I finally found evidence that the geolocation of MAC address
> of wifi cards is being tracked. Google, Microsoft, Apple and Skyhook are
> tracking the wifi of their customers' devices and every nearby wifi
> device. Consumers are unknowingly spying on all nearby wifi devices and
> transmitting all the MAC addresses. See:
> 
> http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/143800-public-tracking-of-your-phone-tablet-by-mac-address
> 
> http://samy.pl/androidmap/
> 
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20074571-281/google-curbs-web-map-exposing-phone-locations/
> 
> Due to negative publicity, Google ceased making the geolocation of the
> wifi devices publicly available. Google, Microsoft, Apple and Skyhook
> continue to use their consumers as spies to transmit the MAC address of
> all nearby wifi devices. This geolocation information is available to
> government, investigators, crackers and information brokers to resell it
> to whoever.
> 
> What the articles do not tell you is that the nearby wifi devices do not
> need to be connected to the internet for their MAC address to be
> transmitted.
> 
> I told you Jack's cracker geolocated the MAC address of a brand new USB
> network adapter that I took out of my storage unit and used for a few
> minutes offline. They broke into my storage unit several times and
> procured the MAC address. I had not connected my USB network adapter to
> the internet. It was only connected to my computer for approximately ten
> minutes to ascertain whether several linux distros could detect the wifi
> driver. Later that morning, one of Jack's spies parked in the middle of
> the street in front of my house. He stared at my car, my dog and me. I
> stared back. He drove one house further, parked again in the middle of
> the street and stared at me through his rear view mirror. That
> afternoon, Jack's henchmen commenced pesticiding near my house. They
> forced me to evacuate my home.
> 
> They broke into my car and broke into my storage unit. They inserted a
> wifi card into one of my MSI netbooks and changed the hard drive in two
> of my netbooks (one of my MSI and Asus 1015PE). Every time I turned on
> my MSI netbook, they geolocated the MAC address of the wifi card they
> had inserted. They repeated pesticided my car, storage unit, hotels,
> hostels and wherever else I went. I could not figure out how I was being
> traced. A month later, I needed to connect to the internet. I inserted a
> brand new USB network adapter into my netbook. Fedora's network manager
> detected two wifis. I opened the back and discovered the wifi card. I
> removed it
> 
> What the articles do not point out, is that MAC addresses of all of your
> wifi devices are being transmitted. For example, I alternate between
> netbooks. If I have both netbooks on at the same time, even if they are
> not both connected to the internet, each one will transmit the MAC
> address of the other. I have never owned a smartphone. I have considered
> purchasing one but now fear that it would transmit the MAC address of my
> netbooks and vice versa.
> 
> I would not be surprised if Google, Apple, Microsoft and Skyhook are
> also using their customers to transmit the MAC address of all nearby
> bluetooth devices. If they are not doing this now, it is foreseeable
> that they will in the future.
> 
> Disabling wifi and bluetooth in the OS did not preclude the wifi and
> bluetooth from being turned on by the BIOS when starting up my netbooks
> and did not preclude wifi and bluetooth from being turned on again when
> shutting down my netbooks. BIOS of newer netbooks no longer offer the
> option of disabling wifi and bluetooth. Why? Because government and
> corporations want to track the MAC addresses of wifi and bluetooth.
> 
> ARM and MIPS devices do not have a BIOS. Would disabling wifi and
> bluetooth in the OS preclude them from turning on during booting up and
> shut down? How?
> 
> I would greatly appreciate present and future recommendations of devices
> that either have no wifi and bluetooth or are "truly" removable. Feel
> free to email me privately if you prefer.
> 

You're being tracked by sight.  It would also be far easier to tag your
car with a GSP tracker, Cellular device, or even a paint that is only
visible in infrared or ultraviolet spectrum.

Google drove around and collected MAC addresses of APs.  Many android
apps have more permissions than they need, because capability management
"is hard".  But tracking an individual is much easier than looking for
your new wireless card.  It may be instructive for you to look into
Kismet and Wireshark and try to learn how tracking works.

As for removeable wifi devices...  Are you willing to take a dremel to
your device?  A dremel is a rotary tool to cut into your computer and
MAKE access.  Additionally, larger laptops are more modifiable laptops.