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Apple "tracking" Low Down Ping!
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Posted on 04/21/2011 11:47:24 PM PDT by Swordmaker
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This is disinformation. I’ll just pick out one line, but my comments apply to the rest:
“Built-In applications such as Maps and Camera use this geolocational data to operate.”
There is no need for a long log of everywhere you have been to make the Maps and Cameras functions operable. A real time (or a record of the most recent GPS lock) would be sufficient for these functions.
Likewise with the rest of the excuses, except for the forensics aka government tracking...
I knew this had been discovered over 6 months ago. I'm glad this author is taking credit for having published about it and setting the record straight.
How useful would it be for law enforcement? It's not even GPS level data, just a rough location fix based on nearby cell towers. That might show you miles from your actual location. The data is likely kept as a cache. Android phones do it also, they only keep the most recent data.
The long history of data kept on the Apple phones maybe just be a programming error or oversight.
This is a tempest in a teapot. It's great for headline grabbing and morons like Ed Markey and Al Franken to bluster about.
Sorry, but you really don't know what you are talking about. There is much more to what Core Location does that what you are referring to.
You offhandedly dismiss an EXPERT in forensic software analysis in favor of a couple of amateurs who really haven't a clue about what they found???
This guy writes software for police and governments to examine cellphone content... for a living. HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT. Read the rest of the article before you dismiss what he has to say. He explains it and provides PROOF of what he says.
Further, this database does NOT keep what you claim... every time it logs the same location, it replaces the previous time you were there. It LOGS the location of the WIFI hotspot or Cell Tower radio, not the fact YOU were there and when is recorded just to know that newer data is to replace older data. It does not keep how many times you were by that radio point, just that you have been near that tower and the phone logged it... one record per radio source.
It isn't useful for law enforcement... it is useful for quick zeroing in for the GPS so that users only have to wait seconds instead of having to wait minutes for the real GPS to find their locations from the satellite GPS signals. Apple uses Cell Tower assisted GPS geolocation based on this database... and it is fast because most people stay within a specific area and use cell towers within that area. Apple's Core Location system stores the specific location information for those towers in this database and doesn't have to ping them every time to assist the GPS system, thereby speeding up the display of where the iPad or iPhone is located on the screen... making it much more usable for the owner. Those who have turned off their database caching are finding their mapping, routing, and other apps that use these abilities are crippled, drastically. That is the stupidity of this panic.
Not what I read. I read that the phone keeps a continuous log of everywhere you've been. If what I read was wrong, then I concede the point. If I was right, then I see NO valid technical reason for keeping a year long log of where you've been.
I've downloaded and run the program and can confirm that it lets me retrace my movements over the past 10 months with a scary level of precision. (Warden and Allan have obfuscated the data slightly in their application by showing information on a week-by-week basis, though they say that the data file it draws from goes down to the second.) The two scientists will be presenting their findings on Wednesday at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco.
According to Warden and Allan, the data seems to be compiled from cell tower triangulation, rather than GPS, which reduces its full precision (in my own investigation, I noted there also appears to be a log of Wi-Fi location data as well). My own map showed clusters around my home in Boston; the Macworld office in San Francisco, which I visit frequently; and other locations that I've visited in the past year, including Chicago and Houston. Zooming in further shows more detailed information, to the point of letting me isolate individual trips I've taken. And because the information is timestamped, you can theoretically even retrace steps on an extremely granular basis.
What technical reason justifies a 10 month track including WiFi spots? And cell tower triangulation can get you to within a couple hundred feet, not a few miles.
ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz
It reads the clock and puts a time stamp on the record. That's all. That's why it has an accurate time/date stamp on the file entry. Several people have examined the file and find ONE entry per cell tower: the latest time it was read. . . not every time it was read. Some claim that an error on their file handling (John Gruber) may have resulted in multiple entries. Most, have found only one entry per tower/WIFI site.
Obama wants to know where you go and what you do. Big brother is looking .
I am an anti-socialist and thus with the current political leadership my freedom of speech could be viewed as seditious.
Why take the chance?
I use a disposable Tracphone, if I do get a smartphone it will be in a portable farday shielded case, it will NOT be my monitor into where I am or what I do.
As far as I have understood cell phones, this is nothing really new. All cell phone carriers have always known which tower you are connected to when you call, and have made that information available to law enforcement without a warrant for years. I don’t see how this new revelation is any more intrusive than what has always been happening with cell phones.
I call BS. Users should be able to turn tracking on and off. I *believe* this is a feature in windows phone 7...users can choose whether to have location services on or off. That’s the way to do it. Maybe Apple will copy Microsoft and allow users to choose if they want to be tracked.
Here’s how it’s relevant. Now you can grab a co-workers iPhone...grab this file off of it and find out where he’s been going for the past year.
Maybe he likes to visit nursing homes and care for the elderly and doesn’t want people to know. Or maybe he’s cheating on his wife with your wife and doesn’t want you to find out.
Bottomline is this is bad and if Microsoft had done this everyone defending apple right now would be lampooning Microsoft for this.
Bottom line: Even if there’s a legitimate reason for the phone to store this data, there’s no justification for the crap security (basically, mere security-by-obscurity) on it.
True. Police now have a device that it plugs into the iPhone and grabs all the users data. And they are getting this during traffic stops! So if they grab your file and see you were at a crime scene around the same time a crime was committed...wammo you are now a suspect. And in our police system you are GUILTY until proven innocent.
Thanks Apple.
At the nursing home?
Nothing in this article refutes the existence or magnitude of the problem; in one area, he basically confirms the worst case scenario. The author seems to be mainly concerned that he didn’t receive proper credit for finding out about these logs first. Apple should be scrambling to release a firmware update that lets the user turn off this data logging, and an application that allows past logs to be deleted from any computers or backups that were made when syncing.
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