[Feature Request]: Don't send MAC addresses and other identifying data by default.

[vd994]

Platform

Cross-Platform

Description

Devices currently broadcast their MAC address (and the nodenum based on it) in nodeinfo packets, which weakens privacy unnecessarily.

Recent changes such as #7628 and #7116 are very good, but even with NodeIDs based on the private key, MAC addresses are still trackable, particularly with MQTT. Setting the device role to client hidden somewhat mitigates this, but it's an ineffective workaround, and most users do not even know that they are broadcasting this information by default. Additionally, broadcasting MAC addresses increases the attack surface.

MAC addresses and other identifiers should not be sent by default, though there could be an option to enable their broadcast. As I understand, this should not cause significant issues, as some devices don't have MAC addresses anyway. The hardware model should also not be broadcast by default, though this is less identifiable.

[Rick1029]

In the meantime before this setting is pushed to the meshtastic app / webclient, is it possible to override the hardware model or mac address in the platformio.ini build settings when compiling for your device?