Statistical Approach to Estimating Audience from MAC-Randomized WiFi Probe Requests

In the past few years, the ability of wireless network operators to monitor audience using control frames emitted by client devices has been compromised, both by legislation treating client MAC addresses as private information and by the difficulty of distinguishing genuine client frames from those...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-11, Vol.22 (22), p.8679
Main Authors: Yang, Feifei, Ahriz, Iness, Denby, Bruce
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
audience monitoring
Audiences
Cities
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Datasets
Engineering Sciences
GDPR
Internet of Things
Investigations
IoT
MAC randomization
Operating systems
Privacy
probe request
Services
Telecommunication systems
Television viewers
Trends
Wi-Fi
WiFi
Wireless communication systems
Wireless networks
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Summary:In the past few years, the ability of wireless network operators to monitor audience using control frames emitted by client devices has been compromised, both by legislation treating client MAC addresses as private information and by the difficulty of distinguishing genuine client frames from those arising from the Internet of Things or from certain enhanced services. Here, a deterministic model, based on characteristics of human activity and on seasonal trends, is used to reveal underlying client statistics in raw MAC-randomized WiFi Probe Request data. The method proposes a candidate conversion factor, , between probe request counts and the client population, which offers plausible predictions on real-world datasets.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s22228679