We can only hope. I apologize if you're not that type. I don't read poster history very often.
People still seem to think they're completely private on the web, when in actuality the opposite is mostly true.
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Federal Lawsuit Filed Over Apple's Location Tracking in iOS [Updated]
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We can only hope. I apologize if you're not that type. I don't read poster history very often.
People still seem to think they're completely private on the web, when in actuality the opposite is mostly true.
No, the statement should be: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no reason to watch me."
Agreed.
There has been a lot of finger pointing at Apple accusing them of pulling something dirty (mainly by those who don't understand what this data file is and what it does). Others are so darn anti-Apple they won't listen.
Apple isn't perfect. I feel that there may be room for improvement and compromise, but I certainly don't feel that they are doing anything wrong here.
I only take issue with people that have their panties in a bunch screaming that Apple is secretly watching them for some sinister purpose. That is a little over the top given that fact that Apple never sees the tower data file, it is only used by the phone for optimal operation.
Others keep accusing Apple of harvesting and selling data, when there is no indication that they are. Where do they get this stuff?
That doesn't mean that Apple couldn't do things differently to put people's minds at ease. Give the file a shelf-life, encryption, a total opt-out perhaps. All of these things will be discussed I'm sure.
Umm. They're not. get over yourself.I know, I know, you were only quoting.
Swing and a miss, bilbo.
Agreed. People (especially on message boards) get into this comfortable "place" where they think they are insulated. That what they post here is in a bubble. They feel a sense of community - for better or worse. The reality is - anyone from anywhere could be reading what you write. And the internet is forever. It's out there - it's out there.
And with Facebook and Twitter - it's even "worse" so to speak
In order to have access to a phone you're not supposed to have access to in the first place you'd need to take it without that person's permission.
Thus.... stealing is the presumed method.
(Of course, you still need access to that person's computer that it syncs to...)
I'm cool with...
I'm cool with anyone using my personal info, be it location, shopping, searching, etc just as long as there are appropriate services or features offered in exchange.
This is just news for the sake of news. It's not very surprising that some people are upset by location tracking... but I bet the same people would freak out if we put a spotlight on how easy it is to get someone's personal data from *insert other popular tech device or service*.
I'm a little more worried about all the other personal info stored on my phone & laptop than my past locations. Could it be used for nefarious means? Sure, but if someone had access to that location data, they also have access to much more sensitive and potentially damaging data.
I'm cool with anyone using my personal info, be it location, shopping, searching, etc just as long as there are appropriate services or features offered in exchange.
This is just news for the sake of news. It's not very surprising that some people are upset by location tracking... but I bet the same people would freak out if we put a spotlight on how easy it is to get someone's personal data from *insert other popular tech device or service*.
I'm a little more worried about all the other personal info stored on my phone & laptop than my past locations. Could it be used for nefarious means? Sure, but if someone had access to that location data, they also have access to much more sensitive and potentially damaging data.
If the company gave the phone to the employee to use (not own), then it's usually tied to a corporate iTunes server. Especially if there's a custom app involved.
Umm, that doesn't hold water. Apple also sells ads these days, and they use personal info such as iTunes sales info to pigeon hole the user, along with their location.
Interesing side note: Apple converts our coordinates to a zip code before choosing which ad to deliver, thus masking our exact location.
Note that E911 locating only takes place when you make a 911 call. It doesn't constantly take place and cannot be sent to third parties. (Congress had to create an exemption in the carrier location privacy laws just for E911 so that public safety points could get the info.)
More importantly, there's no reason for the phone to send the file to Apple, since the cache data in the file CAME FROM APPLE when you made a location request. So they already know it. D'oh!
That's the key point so many people miss. No evidence that this goes back to Apple, so nobody's privacy is being invaded.
But let's all panic anyway, huh?
Umm, that doesn't hold water. Apple also sells ads these days, and they use personal info such as iTunes sales info to pigeon hole the user, along with their location.
Interesing side note: Apple converts our coordinates to a zip code before choosing which ad to deliver, thus masking our exact location.
Note that E911 locating only takes place when you make a 911 call. It doesn't constantly take place and cannot be sent to third parties. (Congress had to create an exemption in the carrier location privacy laws just for E911 so that public safety points could get the info.)
More importantly, there's no reason for the phone to send the file to Apple, since the cache data in the file CAME FROM APPLE when you made a location request. So they already know it. D'oh!
You make some valid points, but what I said is still true. iAds is hardly the center of the Apple universe. Their primary purpose is to make users happy with their products so the users will spend money to buy them. If Apple makes users mad, they stop buying Apple products. Not good for Apple.
Google, on the other hand, sells hardly anything to users. They give great functionality away, and then depend on advertisers to give them money to get access to data about those users. One key difference between Google and Apple is illustrated by what happens when you subscribe to a magazine app: On the iPhone you get a prompt asking if it is OK to send your personal information to the publisher of that magazine. On an Android phone, you aren't asked, it just gets sent. Different business models. For Apple it's not their primary purpose to share your information. For Google it is.
As for E911, you could say the same of Apple's services: Note that Apple's locating only takes place when you use a location service. It doesn't constantly take place and cannot be sent to third parties.
My point about E911 is that our phones have been capable of "spying" on us for years. Yet we make that tradeoff for the convenience it brings. All of this location service stuff is for convenience. Prefer not to partake of that convenience? Turn it off. It's easy, it works.
Wow
616 Posts - as of writing this one with a very large percentage of people saying this file represents Location Tracking of individuals down to the second.
This is total bollocks - the file, if you people bothered to do some research instead of just accepting what the sensationalist news hounds tell you - is nothing more than a list of nearby cell tower locations. So, I guess if you spend all your time near a cell tower [not a good idea by the way] then yes, it will show your location otherwise it does not show YOUR location at all - just the nearest cell towers to your location at sometime in the past.
When I looked at my file - yes I actually properly looked at it [not using the astronomers free app] and it's not easy to do this properly by the way - I could see that in some locations the temporal stamp [that's the time and date] was exactly the same for a number of tower locations. This suggests to me that the data was downloaded TO MY PHONE from Apple or my Telco, not the other way around, otherwise I would have had to have been in several locations at the exact same time, which as you know is not possible [yet]. Also, there is a place that I go fairly infrequently, but it happens that I had been just the other day - this did not show up at all on that day and I was there all day! I did find some locations for this "general area" in the file way back in December but nothing recent.
So my guess is that this file is used by the phone or the Telco to do something on the network which I don't need to know about - It is definitely NOT tracking my every move and if it was it's not doing a very good job of collecting the data.
By the way, if you're going to be doing something that you shouldn't be doing, somewhere that you shouldn't be - switch your effin' cell phone off dummy, don't you know that the Telco can track where your phone is, sheeesh!
616 Posts - as of writing this one with a very large percentage of people saying this file represents Location Tracking of individuals down to the second.
This is total bollocks - the file, if you people bothered to do some research instead of just accepting what the sensationalist news hounds tell you - is nothing more than a list of nearby cell tower locations. So, I guess if you spend all your time near a cell tower [not a good idea by the way] then yes, it will show your location otherwise it does not show YOUR location at all - just the nearest cell towers to your location at sometime in the past.
When I looked at my file - yes I actually properly looked at it [not using the astronomers free app] and it's not easy to do this properly by the way - I could see that in some locations the temporal stamp [that's the time and date] was exactly the same for a number of tower locations. This suggests to me that the data was downloaded TO MY PHONE from Apple or my Telco, not the other way around, otherwise I would have had to have been in several locations at the exact same time, which as you know is not possible [yet]. Also, there is a place that I go fairly infrequently, but it happens that I had been just the other day - this did not show up at all on that day and I was there all day! I did find some locations for this "general area" in the file way back in December but nothing recent.
So my guess is that this file is used by the phone or the Telco to do something on the network which I don't need to know about - It is definitely NOT tracking my every move and if it was it's not doing a very good job of collecting the data.
By the way, if you're going to be doing something that you shouldn't be doing, somewhere that you shouldn't be - switch your effin' cell phone off dummy, don't you know that the Telco can track where your phone is, sheeesh!
no, no, you are wrong. the file does much more than that. i looked at the file before lunch, and it had predicted where i will go all afternoon. it even had a notation next to a location, stating that i'd pick the pesto chicken pizza as my lunch.
I stand corrected and appreciate the clarification. I think the author of the software should have made this fact more obvious in the software itself, with maybe a popup notification that the locations are being simplified for security reasons.
Not quite correct. Apple _could_ easily track every iPhone user. Technically it would be no problem for Apple to do that. However, these people believe that a file on their iPhone is _evidence_ that Apple is tracking them. And that is utter nonsense.
All the information in this file went through the same process: iPhone asks Apple servers for its location. Apple servers give the location to the iPhone. The location data for your iPhone is deleted from the server. iPhone stores the information in a file. It should be obvious at this point that it would be pointless for Apple to use this file to track you: Apple did already have the information. All they have to do is to not delete the location data from Apple's servers.
Apple setup the iPhone to track you. Apple is not tracking you but it organised for others (ie, your iPhone) to track you. Like the difference between stealing something and instructing somebody else to steal something.
And no, encryption is not the only thing required here, Apple has make sure only very recent data are stored. There is no reason to store data from a year ago. Apple's problem is that is being seen as not being sensitive enough to have realised the potential security concerns of this data storage on their own (or maybe they knew about it but thought fixing it with iOS 5 would be enough, which is exactly the wrong attitude).
If it is a work-supplied phone, it might be required to to sync it at work (so that IT can control how the phone is setup).
How would deleting the file from iPhone backup remove it from the iPhone? Wouldn't you rather have to delete the file again after each sync? Of course encrypting the iPhone backup is probably the easier method.
Most people do not put any critical numbers on their computer (CC, social security, etc.) or if they do they encrypt them.
The point about encrypting the iPhone backup is that I have to know what is in the backup to decide whether I want to encrypt it or not. Why would I encrypt a backup that 'only' contains my e-mails if I do not encrypt my e-mail residing on my computer?
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Almost true. I didn't really want to get into this yet, because of all the tinfoil hatmaking going on, but here we go.
According to Apple, if the user has Location Services turned on, then even without an LBS app running, the iPhone ...
1) Collects cells/wifi + GPS during the first 30 seconds the phone is turned on.
2) Collects cells/wifi + GPS while searching for a network after a call drops.
3) If the user had enabled "send Apple diagnostics", then the phone also collects cell/wifi based coordinates at start/end of call to look for common call drop areas.
All the info in cases 1-3 is anonymously sent to Apple via a WiFi batch send every 12 hours.
Last but not least, when searching for a network, any current GPS coordinate is immediately sent to apple to "help locate available channels", and then the GPS coordinates are deleted from Apple servers.
So the iPhone is recording info at other times than expected. Not sure where it's stored. If it's in the clear, it needs encryption too.
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Ok, maybe I should have said, those posting here and thus having shown some awareness for data security. I bet if you queried all those posting in this thread, very few would put their social security number in an unencrypted form on their computer (or at very least felt very uneasy when they did so).
I do believe that many are sensationalizing this, but on the other hand a consumer has the right to their privacy. If they are unaware of some of the behind the scenes data collection, they should be entitled to a refund.
Moreover, I dont think this suit is an example of greedy litigious individuals targeting apple. They want transparency and a refund. Doesnt get much more honest than that.
Moreover, I dont think this suit is an example of greedy litigious individuals targeting apple. They want transparency and a refund. Doesnt get much more honest than that.
100% agree with you on that count -- but you have to remember that the people on this forum are _very_ far removed from a normal computer user.
OK, that's a valid point and it's good to bring that up. I think we are now in the territory where this happens with all smart phones to one degree or another, no? So this gets into a larger question about privacy and phones.