They do pick them up, how else would they know there's a trigger word in the name. Then the WiFi search processes noticed the trigger word combination and if programed honestly, they ignore such WiFi names.
But it's not really #optOut because we still need to trust them they'll really ignore them. I bet #NSA demanded to store all of them in secret.
Opting out for real would mean no wireless connections in your home or on you. No WiFi router, no Bluetooth, no turned on wifi on your mobile devices etc.
Speaking about Bluetooth... Some time ago a showed some OSINT magic to Flipper users in a discord channel who bragged about them, posting pictures of a device and sometimes even publicly disclose the #FlipperZero device name.
Most of them could be easily geolocated.
How, #Wigle does not only store wifi AP but also Bluetooth and if you type in wigle Bluetooth search the device name you can in many cases see where the device is located.
They were clueless where I get the information from and demand I take down the data 🤣
TikTok hackers Canada fear the most
https://wigle.net is a great tool for #OSINT
So, what have we learned? Disconect from the wireless world of smart devices to ❌ OptOut gor real.
i recommend using the official "opt out" line. it should be set, if not, you did not officially "opt out". and if you want, you can choose to hide your ssid as well. i think it is a bit of overkill and anyone with wireshark, for example can find your "hidden" ssid.
if you have an open source hardware firewall running pfsense or opnsense (with vpn installed on firewall) connected to an open source router (travel routers are great since the signal usually doesn't reach the road) with openwrt or dd-wrt you should be well protected, just remember spoof your mac address before connecting it to your isp's modem the first time.
even better if you choose to not use wifi, but this is threat model dependent.
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