iPhone Probing MAC Addresses on iOS 8?

[theiosking]

At WWDC Apple announced that probing Macaddresses will be randomized from ios8. My initial test results showed that they were not being randomized. I tested on iPhone 4s and iPad Mini. They were not in any controlled environment so may be I missed something. Did someone else test ? Please share your results.

 

[Intell]

What was the process that you used?

 

[theiosking]

I used tcpdump on my mac to sniff packets over the air. Then opened the capture file in wireshark.

 

[Intell]

You need to explain your testing setup in more detail than that. What steps did you use? What colour shirt were you wearing at the time? Has the iDevice ever connected to that access point before?

 

[dmccloud]

At WWDC Apple announced that probing Macaddresses will be randomized from ios8. My initial test results showed that they were not being randomized. I tested on iPhone 4s and iPad Mini. They were not in any controlled environment so may be I missed something. Did someone else test ? Please share your results.

Not all of the features announced at WWDC will be present in the early developer builds. Need to see what changes between now and release before saying "x" was left out. Also, what was your exact method of testing this?

 

[fishkorp]

Were you connected to the network (or does your iPhone know the network)? If so, it'll display your actual MAC address. The feature only works for unknown networks, like when walking through the mall or something similar.

 

[grockk]

Were you connected to the network (or does your iPhone know the network)? If so, it'll display your actual MAC address. The feature only works for unknown networks, like when walking through the mall or something similar.

This is spot on. If you are connected and sending network traffic the MAC of your phone needs to be known and correct to properly route traffic. It's only when the iPhone searches for networks does it use a random MAC to probe. When you then ask to connect it uses the real MAC from there on out.

 

[theiosking]

I understand the fact that the probes are sent out only when the iDevice is searching for an access point. When it is associated with an access point it won't probe or it probes with a lesser frequency.

Yes during my test setup my iphone was :

1. Disassociated and sleeping - probes with my original macaddress. no randomization.
2. Associated and sleeping - No probe with my original macaddress.
3. Disassociated and awake - probes with my original macaddress, no randomization.
4. Associated and awake - No probe with my macaddress.

I made sure I forgot all the networks / I remembered one single network for all the 4 cases mentioned above and I did not see any randomization.

I saw a recent post on networkworld which suggested the same : http://www.networkworld.com/article...ust-one-part-of-apple-s-new-privacy-push.html

I think the feature is not yet enabled on the ios8 beta builds yet.

 

[IFRIT]

Wrong thread.