Odd report: your iPhone and iPad are tracking you

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by Barcey

I find it disturbing that someone with two minutes of access to my niece's computer could lift a file that shows where and when she's been .

Once again:

This database isn’t storing GPS data. It’s just making a rough location fix based on nearby cell towers. The database can’t reveal where you were…only that you were in a certain vicinity. Sometimes it’s miles and miles off. This implies that the logfile’s purpose is to track the performance of the phone and the network, and not the movements of the user.

http://ihnatko.com/2011/04/20/hey-wo...-on-my-iphone/

[kjk]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Once again:
http://ihnatko.com/2011/04/20/hey-wo...-on-my-iphone/

The map is pretty interesting, actually. Mine shows a lot of locations I never was very close to. For example, we drove up the coast earlier this year-the map shows us taking 3 different routes (or rather, triggering hits along 3 different highways) along the way, rather than the one we ended up using both directions. I'm wondering if the cell towers are just really far apart on that route, and roaming just hits all of them?

The other odd concentration of hits was in Silicon Valley-I mean, a LOT of hits throughout Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, etc...I travel on the Peninsula a bit, but nowhere near that range of locales, and definitely not as far south as some of the points show.

Unless of course, my phone is traveling without me on occasion.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by kjk

The map is pretty interesting, actually. Mine shows a lot of locations I never was very close to.

My point exactly.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Nope. Google does it, but does it differently.

As I understand it, the reason for concern is collected data could be compromising if a device is seized by authorities - gist of a legal action - or stolen. All useful material for authors.

[grumpy3b]

It's so Jobs can ban you for visiting Sneaky Peete's Adult Novelty & Toy store. Parking in the rear of course.

Never have an never will accept all these "it's to stop criminals or terroists" BS. It never has done either and never will. And therin lyes the rub, none of these tactics do squat anything but cause those sorts to go lower tech with trow-aways.

My uncle was a G-Man, Treasury Agent and FBI as well, in his life. He did indeed look at any activity outside "normal" as criminal. Not potentially criminal but cut and dried criminal. I loved my Uncle like a father and best pal, but we got in to many deep discussions on this topic. We did agree in some areas but in concept we totally disagreed.

When has collected personal data NOT been used against people in the long run? Never...ask those folks who lived in Germany say around the 20s-40s? They might have an opinion or twenty. or just visit Irvine, CA to see the ultimate Nanny State. Talk about Chicken Little & pathologic a community.

[boxcorner]

WSJ on digital privacy

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/wh...l-privacy.html

[RockdaMan]

http://twitter.com/#!/Ihnatko/status/63013785346121728

Apple sends roses to Sony. "Thanks for making everyone forget about the iPhone location tracking thing."
http://bit.ly/ejRCI1

[kjk]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

http://twitter.com/#!/Ihnatko/status/63013785346121728

Man, that Sony thing is not good.

[6charlong]

Now Apple is being sued for this feature.

According to the report, Vikram Ajjampur, an iPhone user from Florida and William Devito, an iPad user from New York are asking a judge to bar the alleged data collection.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...wpisrc=nl_tech

[Barcey]

At least Apple are recognizing it as a problem and will be fixing it. This is what I was hoping they'd do.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011...cation_qa.html

[boxcorner]

Apple 'not tracking' iPhone users
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13208867
27 April 2011

[elcreative]

I read that more as Apple recognising users' paranoia (fuelled by the "media") as a problem so will reduce the info stored, have explained what it is and allow anyone to reduce the functionality of their device by turning location data off... this can also be done for Android devices as well...

Originally Posted by Barcey

At least Apple are recognizing it as a problem and will be fixing it. This is what I was hoping they'd do.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011...cation_qa.html

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by kjk

The map is pretty interesting, actually. Mine shows a lot of locations I never was very close to.

And now we know why.

Jobs:

the iPhone database that people have assumed was their personal information was, in fact, the relevant chunk of a global crowdsourced database that the company uses to deliver location-based information.

“We haven’t been tracking anyone,” Jobs said in a telephone interview with Mobilized on Wednesday. “The files they found on these phones, as we explained, it turned out were basically files we have built through anonymous, crowdsourced information that we collect from the tens of millions of iPhones out there.”

“We haven’t–as an industry–done a very good job educating people, I think, as to some of the more subtle things going on here. As such, (people) jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions in the last week.”

http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/2011...n-information/

[RockdaMan]

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

No.

6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?

The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?

It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?

We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...-Location-Data

[kjk]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

And now we know why.

Yeah! This part especially:

The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone.

So when I drove up the coast, it basically triggered the cell towers on the other routes as well...which explains why my map shows me traveling on 3 different routes at the same time. Still doesn't explain all the activity near Cupertino though