Apple patent application: iPhone should sort free WLAN intelligently

Open WLANs in hotels, trains or restaurants are practical, but not necessarily safe: you never know what will happen to your data, which is why it is always recommended to use a VPN – either via the home network or via a VPN service provider. It seems that Apple now plans to use different techniques to bring more trust to the world of free Wi-Fi providers. That comes from a New patent application That became known this week.

Advertisement

Crowd-sourcing better Wi-Fi

The application was presented under the title “Crowd Sourced Privacy Preserving Access Point Mapping” and describes a system in which existing WLAN base stations in the area are to be checked for reliability with the help of users, but this must be done in such a way that privacy is preserved. Apple describes a system in which WLAN displays on iOS or Mac in the future will be ranked. Networks will then be classified according to characteristics such as “popular”, “suspicious”, “high quality” or “captive” (these are networks that can be identified using captive portal Registration required, like hotels).

To implement this, anonymous data must be collected about the WLAN access points users connect to. Personal information or location details must not be stored. The data, including network performance, is evaluated on Apple’s servers to perform the ranking.

Public beta: why it’s worth testing iPadOS 18

So far only a patent, no product

It was initially unclear from the patent how Apple identifies networks that are “suspicious.” It is conceivable that users themselves would be questioned. Other ranking elements such as “popular,” “captive,” or “high quality” could be identified through connection patterns. It appears that Apple does not want to rank some networks at all, perhaps because there is not enough data yet.

As is always the case with patent applications, these are initially just inventions that a company would like to protect. These do not necessarily end up in products; sometimes they simply serve to legally protect intellectual property. Accordingly, they also cover a wide range of potential areas and possible uses.

(B.Sc.)