Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Its one thing to use an active service like latitude, foursquare, facebook places

where the USER decides how the info is shared/used.... this is quite another.

Turns out since last June, all iPhones have been tracking their location and saving that data locally on its internal memory. So if you're reading this, have an iPhone and say "well, its not tracking me, I've shut off location services, etc" you are wrong. What's concerning is Apple hasn't disclosed why this information is being logged at all, especially why its being done so passively, nor what it plans to do with this information. All iOS backups you create on your computer have this information embedded, as well so blanking out your phone, then restoring wouldn't clear this info.

 From the Gizmodo article:
For now, there is no fix. The only way to remove it from your computer is to wipe your back up files from your computer. But then you have no back ups to restore your phone in case you lose it. And every time you sync your computer, though, it'll create a new file. And if you do lose your phone, all your tracking data goes with it, right into the hands of whoever found it. And if you upgrade your phone to the next iPhone, the location tracking data goes with it.

From the Guardian article:
Only the iPhone records the user's location in this way, say Warden and Alasdair Allan, the data scientists who discovered the file and are presenting their findings at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. "Alasdair has looked for similar tracking code in [Google's] Android phones and couldn't find any," said Warden. "We haven't come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this."

Click the links below for more info.


















Source -> http://gizmodo.com/#!5793925/your-iphone-is-secretly-tracking-everywhere-youve-been
& http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears
& http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/20/researchers-find-ios-4-records-your-location-in-system-file-syn/
& http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/20/ios-devices-secretly.html
& http://www.cnbc.com/id/42697611
& http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/iphone-tracks/ 

New App that erases that data (requires jailbreak) -> http://gizmodo.com/#!5794369/ispy-conspiracy-break-apples-secret-tracking-with-this-app 

Or post it publicly! -> http://gawker.com/#!5794404/hot-new-trend-posting-the-data-apple-secretly-collected-on-you 

Android to an extent too -> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLETopStories 

Updates! (5/25)
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/25/did-steve-jobs-respo.html or http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110425/tc_digitaltrends/stevejobsappledoesnttrackanyone_1
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/137432/20110423/apple-we-must-have-comprehensive-user-location-data-on-you.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2011/tc20110421_195911.htm
http://www.geekosystem.com/iphone-still-tracking/

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