Why does my iPhone have a list of bogus networks that I cannot delete

Yes, done that. This has been a very long ongoing thing. Just keeps finding its way back to my phone. Along with a great many other issues which are similar in nature. I’ve even changed service providers and phone numbers. Obviously I’ve changed devices too. Not sure how this problem persists, but it’s definitely outside of the purview of the Apple store. Thank you for your reply anyway

That is a good guess, although not what’s happening. These networks are saved on more than just my iPhone. I can’t remove them from my laptop or any of my other network devices that have the capability of saving networks. When I run a network diagnostic on my home network it seems to be some sort of pre-configuration that’s happening whenever I restore or do a system recovery. Or a network reset. I test software and mobile devices for a living, and when I’m setting up at series of tests, I often use some sort of flat configuration file to load the set of preferences that I need for my test conditions to be met. That’s the best analogy I can make, it seems sort of like that. Some sort of predetermined list of networks is going to be installed on whatever devices touch my network. To what end, I don’t know. I can only imagine so that whoever this is can continue to access my net work on my devices. Just a guess. I just know I’m unable to delete it and I don’t want it , I am unfortunately not network savvy enough to understand how this is happening. Nor can I figure out who can actually help me. I know where Apple Store is a bust.

any other suggestions are welcome

I am a current subscriber to Spectrum. And the security of my spectrum account is a whole other story (but related). In the past I had different service providers (T-Mobile, AT&T) and it was basically the same thing. A list of managed networks that were meant for users of whatever my current mobile service was, to use as hotspots, would be set up. It was always a different list based on the provider. But it’s essentially the same network set up over and over again. The Wi-Fi address is the same, configuration settings are the same. I think the idea behind it is that my phone can connect to Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere I’m at in the city which seems to be what it does when I’m not looking.

Really? No one?

I forgot to include this bit earlier, although it doesn’t seem that supposed is getting any attention anyway.

why would known networks be locked? If I didn’t lock them? And being the owner of my phone, I would like to know how to unlock them and delete them…

I can see why that would make sense, but it’s actually not part of the set up. And it shouldn’t be enforced, I do not agree to be under any sort of management profile. And this is honestly just one symptom of a much bigger issue with far reaching tentacles into all my cloud based accounts. It’s not just my phone that it’s happening on. I am going to give it a shot discussing with a technician at the Apple Store. if I get any useful information, I’ll update my discussion here. I think what I’m experiencing is what a lot of people just come out here and start calling “hacking”, which creates a lot of contention and disagreement among people in these discussion forums. So I believe the language is important and I think there are a lot of people experiencing similar issues and just don’t know what to call it. but I also don’t believe that the problem originates with Apple or with my iPhone, but it is a tool that’s being used very actively to invade my privacy.

hopefully I can get a little closer to having some answers. Thank you anyway for the feedback and taking the time to read my post