How does an encrypted db aide your sense of security when the information is about publicly listed cell towers [FCC registered], and ends up at Google which profiles your activities for trends which then allows them to resell this information through their AdSense service and more?
How did your sense of security become violated when the Telcos have historically sold your contact information to third parties who flood your mail box with junk mail and get you on lists w/o your consent? Does it send you through the roof that your liberties are being violated?
Do you scream at Safeway, Albertsons, Starbucks and every other business that profiles your buying habits that it pushes you to file a class action lawsuit?
I think not.
This and all subsequent lawsuits will be thrown out. Apple is in compliance with the FCC rules and regulations set by Congress.
If you notice, Congress has been conspicuously absent since sending off a letter to Steven P. Jobs.
The only people pushing this story are blogs and journalists [HuffingtonPost, WSJ, etc] because it gets them massive click through results.
People are crying about a location service doing what it's designed to do, yet they acted as if RFID tags that WalMart wanted to deploy, a few years back, was no big deal.
One of the obvious reasons Apple sees no reason to encrypt the db is it's one extra process to decrypt/encrypt each time a new tower cell is logged to the phone as it keeps probing for the best signal, shortest path to that signal solution, across a spread spectrum.
But then again, I forget that 99% of all consumers are Physicists, Engineers, Mathematicians, Doctors, and we produce children with Ph.D's ala Wesley Crusher dealing with Particle Physics at the tender age of 15 so commonly that the thought of an unintelligent human has long since become a relic to the evolution of the species.
While everyone screams about tracking they conveniently ignore the IP address that keeps them tracked using their own computer(s).
