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Wired: iPhones Send Your Location Data to Apple Every 12 Hours

S

SomeDudeAsking

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 23, 2010
1,250
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http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/iphone-location-opt-out/

“If customers toggle the switch to ‘Off,’ they may not use location-based services, and no location-based information will be collected,” Apple said in the letter (.pdf).

That doesn’t appear to be the case from WSJ’s testing, as well as multiple independent reports from customers who had the same results.

The controversy surrounding Apple’s location-tracking stems from a discovery by two data scientists, who found that a file stored on iPhones and iPads (“consolidated.db”) contains a detailed history of geodata accompanied with time stamps.

Apple claimed in its letter last year that the geodata is stored on the device, then anonymized and transmitted back to Apple every 12 hours, using a secure Wi-Fi connection (if one is available).
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Steve Jobs is Big Brother. Why the F does Steve Jobs do this? Why the F is Apple making the iPhone phone home every 12 hours with my location history? Also, could this be the cause of the horrible battery life some users see after updates caused by the iPhone trying to phone home again and again if unsuccessful?
 
A lot of people are confused, because...

There are apparently TWO different things going on:

1) The "newly" discovered database, which is simply a receive-only cache of responses to location data requests using cell and hotspot info.

In other words, every time your phone needs a quick location using cell or hotspot, it looks first in this cache to keep it from having to use up battery and network resources asking Apple for their location over and over again. (Think about the cell tower and hotspot at your home, for instance.)

This database, while not totally harmless, is an innocent developer mistake. (It should've been encrypted or truncated.) It is NOT sent to Apple.

2) The known twice or more daily transmission of discovered cells and hotspots when the phone uses internal GPS to resolve a location request. This is used to build up Apple's database used above in (1) when GPS is not available or necessary. Reportedly this is done over WiFi to conserve data costs.
 
SomeDudeAsking said:
Why don't you get a tracking device implanted from Homeland "Security" if you think like that?
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Since you didn't actually answer my question I'll assume that is a "no, the media is just freaking out over nothing and there isn't a single bad thing i could think of that Apple could do with our location data" ;)
 
ap3604 said:
Since you didn't actually answer my question I'll assume that is a "no, the media is just freaking out over nothing and there isn't a single bad thing i could think of that Apple could do with our location data" ;)
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If I go to a stripper bar, Apple doesn't need to know, nor do the engineers that map all the location data.
 
ap3604 said:
Even if they did, who cares? There isn't a single thing Apple would actually do with that data.
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Oh, you don't know the first thing about voyeurs or OCD people like Steve Jobs that have a fetish for this sort of thing and stalk you.
 
ap3604 said:
Even if they did, who cares? There isn't a single thing Apple would actually do with that data.
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Apple wont do anything perhaps but the data can be subpenaed by law enforcement and used against the user. It happens all the time with email.

Bad move by Apple.
 
MassiveAttack said:
Apple wont do anything perhaps but the data can be subpenaed by law enforcement and used against the user. It happens all the time with email.

Bad move by Apple.
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Yeah, and with the type of farcical "law" enforcement at Guantamano Bay that the NY Times showed yesterday, there really isn't any "law" other than what ******s feel like.
 
MassiveAttack said:
Apple wont do anything perhaps but the data can be subpenaed by law enforcement and used against the user. It happens all the time with email.
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So as long as your not doing illegal sh•t then this doesn't even affect you. Personally I'd be happy if someone falsely identified me in a crime that I could have the police look up my location data to verify I wasn't there at all.

So the only negative thing that apple would actually do with this data is help law enforcement catch people committing crimes? Sounds like a real negative all right :rolleyes:
 
ap3604 said:
So as long as your not doing illegal sh•t then this doesn't even affect you. Personally I'd be happy if someone falsely identified me in a crime that I could have the police look up my location data to verify I wasn't there at all.

So the only negative thing that apple would actually do with this data is help law enforcement catch people committing crimes? Sounds like a real negative all right :rolleyes:
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So why don't you just let TSA agents go through all the files on your laptop every time you cross the border?
 
SomeDudeAsking said:
So why don't you just let TSA agents go through all the files on your laptop every time you cross the border?
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If they see your english paper, who cares? What do you have on your computer that is so secretive? (I'm speaking in general, not directly at you).
 
Small White Car said:
Did you even read what you posted? There's no way for Apple to know that based on what you yourself posted in the first place.
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Oh, suuuuuuuuuure. Because Steve Jobs claims so just like Steve Jobs claims there was no antennae issue. All the location data for a device sent to Apple is tied to an "anonymized" id. Now, how easy would it be for Apple to match that "anonymized" id with the IP address and UUID of the device phoning home to send Steve Jobs my location history? You have my iPhone phoning home every 12 hours, it's a cinch to de-anonymize.
 
ap3604 said:
So as long as your not doing illegal sh•t then this doesn't even affect you. Personally I'd be happy if someone falsely identified me in a crime that I could have the police look up my location data to verify I wasn't there at all.

So the only negative thing that apple would actually do with this data is help law enforcement catch people committing crimes? Sounds like a real negative all right :rolleyes:
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So if someone were to (god forbid) get murdered about the same time and location I'm at there's not a chance that I will be falsely convicted or at the least questioned?

People get convicted by false DNA tests all the time, GPS is not even as accurate as DNA.

This shouldn't even be an issue because Apple shouldn't have started this to begin with.

It's amazing how Apple fanatics find a way to justify Apple's dirty deeds.
 
NWI73 said:
If they see your english paper, who cares? What do you have on your computer that is so secretive? (I'm speaking in general, not directly at you).
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How about nude pictures of your girlfriend? Or an Apple employee with drawings for the iPhone 5?
 
SomeDudeAsking said:
Oh, suuuuuuuuuure. Because Steve Jobs claims so just like Steve Jobs claims there was no antennae issue. All the location data for a device sent to Apple is tied to an "anonymized" id. Now, how easy would it be for Apple to match that "anonymized" id with the IP address and UUID of the device phoning home to send Steve Jobs my location history? You have my iPhone phoning home every 12 hours, it's a cinch to de-anonymize.
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Well why did you quote things if you don't believe them?

Here's some facts!
They're not true!

Ok. Worthless thread then. Thanks for wasting our time with a thread all about things you don't even believe.

MassiveAttack said:
With all due respect you're a gullible person
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Ok, so it's not anonymous data. Then why did he start a thread with a quote saying it is?

I guess you get his reasons because I sure don't. Maybe you can explain it to me.
 
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