Someone shared their ssid, 10 minutes later I found their house

Today I had an epiphany while watching YouTube, people overshare and they don't know it. Now what do i mean by this? Am I just another grumpy person who want's to spoil your fun? No! I saw someone saying the name of their home wifi (ssid). Now some of you might think that it is not a problem at all, I am here to show you how wrong that is.

A ssid tells me a lot about you

Did you know there is ways to see where a ssid is located in the real world? It is as simple as putting in the ssid and then you can see a map with all the places with that ssid. With that information and the knowledge of the general area of where they live finding their apartment was a simple process of zooming into that area and looking at all the spots where that ssid is. Then just compare the inside of each apartment with some footage of their apparent and boom you now know where someone lives. I did this in under 10 minutes. Think about that, with minimal information and 10 minutes i could pinpoint their apartment complex. Isn't that terrifying? And this was not done by a professional, i had seen a couple of osint videos online. Now I had no malicious intent with my actions, but there are people who do.

Not just about the ssid

This goes for a lot of information sharing online. Try to reveal as little as possible. Think about what is in your photos! Do not post the outside of your house, that can be enough to find your house. Don't post a photo where your address is on a package in the background, people can take the time to read it even if it seems too blurry to be readable.

Final thoughts

People need to know how easy it is to find information online, how easy it is to turn that information into a profile of them. I used a ssid and a general area and found someones apartment in 10 minutes. Think about that! I never did any hacking, all I used was public sources of information. My goal here is to teach everyone how unsafe the internet can be if you are not careful. Please think before you share something online, and never share your ssid!