Linked by Howard Fosdick on Mon 21st Nov 2011 07:48 UTC
Last June, CNET disclosed that Google collects and publishes the estimated locations of millions of phones, laptops, and other Wi-Fi devices. All without their owner's knowledge or permission. Google has finally announced how to exclude your home network from this database. Simply append "_nomap" to its name. Details over at CNET. Left unsaid is why the burden is placed on millions of individuals to opt-out, instead of on perpetrator Google.
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The SSID is not needed for attempting to crack it, they'd need the IP address for that and afaik Google does not show the IP address. In fact, knowing the SSID makes no difference for anyone not in your local vicinity and those who are in your vicinity could find it out by themselves.
Yea, cuz that wouldn't show up ANYWAY when he got to where you live. Besides, knowing that there's a router/access-point with a certain SSID in a certain location is useless information for this purpose.
The information Google provides does in no way make this easier. As long as you're not in the local area the information is meaningless and once you are in the local area the information is already available without Google.
Why is that you have to request explicitly to not be listed? Why would you have to pay to not be listed?
This is even more complicated than just adding _nomap and at least Google isn't charging you.