Senator Asks Apple About Location-Tracking Issues as Experts Weigh In

[Yankee617]

If someone breaks into my home and hacks into my Mac (using the OS X DVD to do a password reset), I have a lot more worries than whether they know how to find out what neighborhoods’ cell towers I’ve used! Luckily, encrypting your iPhone backup is simple, automatic, and unbreakable; and has the added benefit that then your iPhone’s keychain gets included in the backup. (Otherwise it doesn’t, with good reason.)

If, on the other hand, they steal my phone, they’re unlikely to stop me from remotely shredding it so fast their head spins

That said, dumping the old cached data is good practice, and Apple really needs to do so. I’d be surprised if they didn’t patch it to do just that. So: good catch! (Of course, this was noticed months ago.)

So somebody sues you for (insert nefarious activity of your choice) and you deny it saying you were nowhere near Location-X at the time. Then, under rules of disclosure, they subpeona your iPhone/iPad/MBP/TC to obtain your data. The data shows you were at least in the vicinity of Location-X and so had the opportunity to perform (aforesaid nefarious activity). They win their case and you are required to pay $250K in damages, not to mention the $50K you already spent in legal fees. Did you do it? Maybe not... but it doesn't matter, they won and you lost.

I agree that the location data should be dumped... every few hours... so the files contain minimal information. Backups should exclude all this location data. I cannot imagine why any application needs to know my location from more than a few hours ago.

BTW> Is this location data collected on "Wi-Fi Only" iPads? I understand that such iPads do have/use location services, only its not as accurate.

 

[jc1350]

Al Franken isnt tracking me, my iphone is.

What a lame ass attempt to politicize the issue

When it comes to politicians, EVERYTHING is political. They don't do or say anything without some idea on how it can help them politically.

 

[barkomatic]

I could see this as a concern for politicians and celebrities whose locations might be used as fodder for tabloid gossip. Maybe a couple going through a divorce could use the data to substantiate an affair.

 

[ericmooreart]

Does this really surprise anyone? Genius, Ping, App store. Apple has been Big Brother for a long time.

Did you know every time you use the calculator on your mac it dials out to Apple? That's right the calculator. I block it and much more with Little Snitch. Wish they made it for Apples mobile products

 

[Yankee617]

I could see this as a concern for politicians and celebrities whose locations might be used as fodder for tabloid gossip. Maybe a couple going through a divorce could use the data to substantiate an affair.

Or you could use this information to supply an alibi... just leave your iPhone at home while you go to (distant Location-Y) to perform (nefarious Activity-2)... or lend it to (good Buddy-Beta) who testifies you were with him and the iPhone information supports this alibi.

It helps to know the information is being collected... it even helps those who are not so innocent.

 

[Jaasen Jones]

There are other ways to access data on an iPhone outside of Apple tools. If you think a Passcode is making your phone secure, you are mistaken.[/QUOTE]


True, but what percentage of people would actually give up once facing the passcode?

 

[logandzwon]

Not being rude at all but please tell me. I really want to know specifics.

People with the correct forensic equipment can get data off the iphone without the passcode.

 

[jwdsail]

I like Franken

I like Franken, he's a good egg.. Shrug. Minnesota *needs* at least one elected official with an IQ higher than 40...

While I agree that this data (location data in general) really should be better protected against the chance of being intercepted without a user's permission, I think it's more important for all involved in this chicken little act re: iPhone location data to remember that most iPhone users already openly share all of this info and more on sites like Facebook, 4 Square, twitter, flickr, etc..

I don't share this type of data, I hate Facebook, 4square, etc... (and git off my lawn!!!) and if I'm using my iPhone camera, make sure I have location services turned off unless I want to use the gps data for MYSELF... Actually, unless I'm using Navigon I usually keep location services turned off ..

Sadly, the vast majority of smartphone users have handed over more data than this willingly, and don't really seem to care about privacy..

I think that's the real story in all of this, that few are picking up on. And, shrug, that's just pathetic. If all this chicken little energy was put towards educating consumers about their data, their privacy, you wouldn't need Franken to write a letter to Jobs. But, no one *really* wants educated consumers in any marketplace, be it music, video, phones, food... It's just bad for business. And states like MN should be the last to throw a stone in the glass house of privacy, just google how they want to track cars that *gasp* are *too efficient* ... to collect more taxes .. sigh.. God forbid they just raise the license/tag fees.. have to add expensive tech and invade citizen's privacy... sigh. I'd like to see Franken speak out against invasions of privacy by the state just as aggressively..

 

[logandzwon]

One of the many advantages of my iPhone 4 tracking me, is that I have big brother watching me. I'm never alone.

The only problem is my stupid Android phone can't do the same.

I have an appointment with Apple next week, I'm giving them the keys to my house, cars, and all my tax returns, stock certificates and investment portfolio. They promise to do every thing for less than 70% of my annual income. A great deal.

I'm in good hands with Apple, not a worry in the world. I'm now an official Apple fanboy. Living in the walled garden all I have to do is be an Apple drone

Woo Hoo life is sweet.

Wow, how can I sign up for this? At 80K yearly that would leave you with 2K a month to spend each month, (with your house, cars, taxes, and investments covered.)

 

[aliensporebomb]

Sigh

Despite the freaked brigade and people wanting to turn this into a huge political argument I think this guy at Reddit had the best thing to say about this:

I went to WWDC last year where the new Core Location system was discussed in great detail. If you went as well, or have the videos, look at the video for session 115, "Using Core Location in iOS". Skip to around 13:45 for the discussion of "Course Cell Positioning" where they discuss the cache in detail.

The purpose of this is offline GPS. Normally, each cell tower has an identifier and Core Location sends that identifier to Apple and asks for the latitude and longitude for that tower. This requires a data connection, and the use of data. Since cell towers don't move, however, it's inefficient to keep going back to Apple for that information so they cache it. Now if a tower appears with the same ID as the cache, tada! you have a cache hit and a faster fix with no data use. Which also means you can get a "course location" (as in rough) if you are near known towers and don't have a data connection.

That's all this is. It's a cache of identifiers (cell and wifi), locations, and their age (it's a cache, after all). Someone made the decision to never clean it out so they would have more and more information about those GPS "assists" (you know, A-GPS) and so they'd use less and less power and data over time for the places you frequent. It's a great idea, technically.

Practically, yes, you can track location over time. The file is readable only by root and you're free to encrypt your backups for now. I'm sure Apple will either encrypt the file or truncate the data in a future update (I would prefer encryption as I think it's technically sound, but I know many will disagree). I'm also sure someone is considering a toggle for the feature or a button to clear the database. Both are great ideas.

This isn't nefarious, this isn't being sent anywhere, and this isn't as bad as everyone is making it. This is a real feature with a major oversight. That's it.

Yes they probably need to encrypt this to keep thieves and insane people from taking it from your phone but it's nothing that other cellular providers aren't doing with their phones, you just can't see it necessarily.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

I trust Apple a lot more than Al Franken.

Remember, Al Franken voted for legislation that would require, among other privacy violations:
- All your health care information be reported to the government.
- All your health care information be kept in a centrallized location.
- the disclosure of your financial and health care information to the IRS without your notification
- all busiensses that gather any information about you via the internet (including Apple) to disclose this information to the government upon demand and without a warrant.

So, Franken can pretend like he cares about privacy, but he's already clearly on the record in thinking that you don't have any privacy when HE wants to find out things about you.

LOL, and know he's trying to be the #1 Defender of Public Privacy?

This definitely sounds as a publicity stunt, trying to increase his popularity. Maybe he wants to run for a higher position in the government, perhaps for the Presidency?

In the end, loosing your iPhone is as bad as loosing your wallet with all your documents, unless you turn on password protection on your iPhone, something you can't do on your wallet.

 

[NAG]

Despite the freaked brigade and people wanting to turn this into a huge political argument I think this guy at Reddit had the best thing to say about this:



Yes they probably need to encrypt this to keep thieves and insane people from taking it from your phone but it's nothing that other cellular providers aren't doing with their phones, you just can't see it necessarily.

Thank you for the nice explanation. It is kind of funny that so many people don't bother to find out why this database even exists before jumping to conclusions. Now if it turns out they're gathering this info and giving it to marketers or whatnot, sure reason to complain there. If it is a feature with an oversight, then the overreactions here are needless. What is more likely, aliens stealing your bodily fluids or a design mess up?

 

[DavidLeblond]

To those laughing at this and pointing out that Android phones don't have a file recording your movements:

https://github.com/packetlss/android-locdump

(NOTE: I did not write this)

 

[RappleRapple]

Well I'll never go missing!

I've got at least 3 tracking devices in my car...that I know of.

 

[JimEJr]

Looks like a new ...gate is brewing.

Let's call it TrackerGate.

Let's not please. I'm so frickin sick of everything being ____gate. Man, I wish Nixon never made that mistake just because we have had to hear that grossly overused suffix for decades since.

 

[JimEJr]

Yea, we're all safe now...Al's come to the rescue!!!

 

[marksman]

Does anyone else really just not care about this? I could care less. It's not like the info is going to end up in China.

And what if it did end up in china? Is china going to pre-emptively place cheap toys where they predict me to go next?

This whole thing is massively overblown. There is no evidence this information is ending up anywhere... The information is there for a reason and serves a specific purpose. I am fine with it.

For someone to access it they would have to steal your phone. As others have mentioned if that was the case, for most people the information about cell tower locations you might have been near is the absolute least of your worries.

People have to realize this information is not private in the first place. Your location as you move from public place to public place is not some kind of protected right to privacy. Sometimes I wish it was, but it is not. We have no right or expectation of privacy as we move around the public world.

There are a myriad of ways our public movements are tracked hundreds of times every day as we move about. I really do wish people would spend more time investigating and understanding these issues then just knee jerk flipping out and "demanding" answers. Especially since they don't even understand the question, so how can they expect to understand the answer?

If this were Google or M$ you apologists would be foaming at the mouth. Nice fallacious argument - just because we can be tracked in our cars with traffic cams, or GPS devices, etc, doesn't mean this, or those instances are legal.

This is clearly in violation of EU law, for those of you who are interested:

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/information_society/l14012_en.htm

We should at least be given the choice to opt-out, and the purposes and disclosure policies should be clearly stated, not buried in a 30-page ToS.

Europe has a law against a device you own tracking your movements from one public place to another? That must be tough not to be able to have any GPS devices.

Do you understand privacy? Do you understand what is actually happening with the iPhone and this information? Do you understand the European law you cited?

It seems you do not understand any of those three.

 

[JAT]

Only ones upset over such news is Johny what's his face who hangs out at the local booby bar, when his wife thinks he's somewhere else.

If that's going to bother her, she can track him, anyway. And if it does bother her, there's an easy solution. Try saying "yes".

al franken?

I thought it was just us "tinfoil hats" as was said yesterday by some in these forums, who would be upset about this?

Guess not.

Uh, Franken sells his homemade tinfoil hats right on his personal website. What are you comparing him to?

 

[marksman]

So somebody sues you for (insert nefarious activity of your choice) and you deny it saying you were nowhere near Location-X at the time. Then, under rules of disclosure, they subpeona your iPhone/iPad/MBP/TC to obtain your data. The data shows you were at least in the vicinity of Location-X and so had the opportunity to perform (aforesaid nefarious activity).

They can do that anyways. They could subponea the cell phone records and the cell phone company would have the exact same record from the other side. People really don't understand what is going on here when they fly off the handle with these wacky examples.

The cell phone provider has a log of every cell tower you have visited with your phone. This is often used in legal cases as evidence.

I agree that the location data should be dumped... every few hours... so the files contain minimal information. Backups should exclude all this location data. I cannot imagine why any application needs to know my location from more than a few hours ago.

That is because you don't understand what the data is for... It is a database to help assist with the functioning of the device. It is not a log file of places you visited. See you don't even know what the file is for but you are demanding how it should be changed.

Dumping the file every few hours would make the significant functionality it provides the phone worthless.

Did you know the future of cellular phones is going to use systems where you are predictably moved to a specific tower based on where they believe you are going as it will help with throughput for data, signal quality, reduced power consumption and overall functionality. Such databases will absolutely be a part of all cell phones going forward. It is part of the technology, part of the functionality.

If someone steals your phone they might see some of that data, and they might also see the roll of pictures you took at the furry convention.

 

[tatonka]

Despite the freaked brigade and people wanting to turn this into a huge political argument I think this guy at Reddit had the best thing to say about this:

Yes they probably need to encrypt this to keep thieves and insane people from taking it from your phone but it's nothing that other cellular providers aren't doing with their phones, you just can't see it necessarily.

I do think that guy is right and it is only about caching the cell tower locations. I baffles me however which idiot engineer at Apple thought it would be good idea to store those locations along with detailed timestamps unencrypt and even move it to the next phone if you happen to switch phones. If you work on such a high profile system, you need to make smarter decisions than that.
The second thing that baffles me is Apples blatant incompetence handling these kind of situations. Haven't they learnd anything from antenna gate? Sitting on your ass for several days having the internet raging and the evening news reporting on this stuff without a word, is horrible press. It is more than day since the story broke and no official word from Apple yet .. good job people, let the field to the raging internet mob and the incompetent news crews.

T.

 

[kdarling]

To those laughing at this and pointing out that Android phones don't have a file recording your movements

Yep, apparently Google's engineers also cache WiFi and Cell Ids. Caching makes sense for a lot of reasons.

The only differences are that with Android, the log is far shorter because older entries are overwritten. And of course the file isn't copied to a mothership computer for all to see. That's a downside of being an iTunes dependent device.

I do think that guy is right and it is only about caching the cell tower locations. I baffles me however which idiot engineer at Apple thought it would be good idea to store those locations along with detailed timestamps unencrypt and even move it to the next phone if you happen to switch phones. If you work on such a high profile system, you need to make smarter decisions than that.

Even though it's an understandable coding design goof, I'd hate to be in that programmer's shoes today. Perhaps s/he worked so hard that s/he never even left Cupertino on trips, and so never thought about it being a problem

On such personal mistakes, do big real life probems sometimes hang.

The Google hotspot data collection thing was similar: debug code left in, and the original developer long gone.

In any case, all the whining needs to stop. It's clearly an unintentional mistake, again same as happened with Google. Yes, better code vetting is needed. So it goes. Nobody is perfect.

The second thing that baffles me is Apples blatant incompetence handling these kind of situations. Haven't they learnd anything from antenna gate?

That's always been Apple's style under Jobs. Pretend that nothing is wrong, and hope it all goes away. Most of the time, it works.

 

[wolfie37]

And the non-story with the non-privacy issues goes on and on and on. Sometimes a little knowledge really is a bad thing. So some info is stored on your phone, and your computer and this results in a public outcry. Yet every mobile phone company has logs of where and when every text and call you made through them and data on which masts you were connected to at the time, regardless of wether you have a smart phone or a plain old dumb one. Credit card companies know what you spent, what you bought and where you bought it. Shops have data on when and where you purchased from them using your card. Airports/airlines know where you have been and when. I could go on.

All of these miss one key point, they are of no use except to someone with malicious intent, yet do we hear anything about addressing that which is the real issue. The biggest fear I have read about, in terms of numbers, is someone getting caught cheating on their partner. Think about it, no complaints about the cheating but about being caught!!! Just where is the sense of proportion and focus on the real issues???

 

[kiljoy616]

This really is not a issue in my opinion. Smart phones have tons of data stored on them and if its really not being sent, whats the harm. If someone were to get my phone and read my info, they will be as excited as I used to be in PE class. First the DUI checkpoints now this. Is there something more important for them to look into? Like a Budget and ( insert concern here )

Now if your a bad boy or girl, I can see this becoming a Court Evidence Issue in the near future. But until then, remember the NSA scans calls randomly for "our safety" Bigger issues than this in the world of privacy.

You really don't know much about the state of things, just be glad their are millions of us. Your illogical thoughts remind me of forfeiture laws which most people say will not impact them until they do and then what?

I bought a phone for certain things, I did not buy the phone for Apple Inc. or anyone else to be able to use it against me for any reason what ever that reason might be. But I do see how most people can not perceive that it could be a dangerous precedence when their world is small and limited.

So if your getting your Dexter on its best to leave the phone at home.

 

[kdarling]

Think about it, no complaints about the cheating but about being caught!!! Just where is the sense of proportion and focus on the real issues???

This is not just about catching cheaters or even your own kids sneaking out of town. (Although I bet all sorts of relationship problems are going to come out of people checking this file. Yikes.)

There is the good possibility that people's lives will be put in danger, simply because the info is so easy to get.

A battered or divorced spouse comes to mind. Sync their phone and find out where their safe house is.

Not to mention how many undercover agents or rebels across the world right now are cringing and wondering if anyone has gotten access to their movements.

 

[MacMan86]

But it doesn't need to be as persistent and as precise as it is for that to work. My history of last year is not relevent. The file should be flushed/cleaned out after a certain time. After a point, the data isn't useful to the phone.

The data is nearly always useful to the phone. Cell towers don't move very often, cached data would very rarely be out of date. If you go back to a city you visited several months back but have no data connection, the cached cell tower data could still be used to find your rough location.

It also shouldn't be backed-up. The device starts with a new DB when its new, no reason it shouldn't start over when you restore. That would alleviate some of the privacy concerns at least.

I would agree, but there's a hell of a lot of other information in an iTunes backup (geotagged photos, passwords in clear text in plist files stored by 3rd party apps who don't bother to use the Keychain, SMS messages, call logs etc) and if you're worried about privacy you should already have ticked the 'Encrypt backups' box - that's all it takes. I'd say all the other data in an unencrypted backup is just as, if not more, valuable.

And if this same file isn't what is being sent to Apple, and you have information indicating this, then the summary of the article that makes it sound like it is should be fixed.

It says so quite clearly at the top of Levinson's article which this MR article links to (https://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/3-major-issues-with-the-latest-iphone-tracking-discovery/):

1) Apple is not collecting this data.

And to suggest otherwise is completely misrepresenting Apple. I quote:

Apple is gathering this data, but it’s clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations.

Apple is not harvesting this data from your device. This is data on the device that you as the customer purchased and unless they can show concrete evidence supporting this claim – network traffic analysis of connections to Apple servers – I rebut this claim in full. Through my research in this field and all traffic analysis I have performed, not once have I seen this data traverse a network.

If the phone sends Apple a cell tower ID and gets back a lat/lon of that tower (this is being done anonymously according to T&C's), what is the benefit to Apple of sending this log back to them? They've already got the information from the calls to their servers, no need to get it twice.