  Abstract. Since the introduction of active discovery in Wi-Fi networks, users
can be tracked via their probe requests. Although manufacturers typically try
to conceal Media Access Control (MAC) addresses using MAC address
randomisation, probe requests still contain Information Elements (IEs) that
facilitate device identification. This paper introduces generic probe requests:
By removing all unnecessary information from IEs, the requests become
indistinguishable from one another, letting single devices disappear in the
largest possible anonymity set. Conducting a comprehensive evaluation, we
demonstrate that a large IE set contained within undirected probe requests does
not necessarily imply fast connection establishment. Furthermore, we show that
minimising IEs to nothing but Supported Rates would enable 82.55% of the
devices to share the same anonymity set. Our contributions provide a
significant advancement in the pursuit of robust privacy solutions for wireless
networks, paving the way for more user anonymity and less surveillance in
wireless communication ecosystems.
