iPhones, iPads secretly tracking user's whereabouts

[skyblue1]

The iPhone 4 and iPad 3G secretly record information about the whereabouts of their users and store that information in unencrypted files, according to two British researchers at the University of Exeter.

Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden levelled the allegations at a conference in Santa Clara, Calif. on Wednesday.

"All iPhones appear to log your location to a file called ‘consolidated.db,'" Allan said in a video recording of their presentation, which has already been viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube. "This contains latitude and longitude coordinated along with a time-stamp. The co-ordinates aren't always exact, but they are pretty detailed."

The discovery happened accidentally while they were investigating which contact information was available on Allan's iPhone 4. What they found is that the device has had recorded his location 220,000 times in the 293 days since he began using it.

"Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movement," they said.

The tracking function is set in iOS4, Apple's latest iPhone software, as well as on iPads with a cellular data plan. The information about a user's location is also backed up on their computer using iTunes when they synchronize either portable device.

While it doesn't appear that Apple stores the tracking information, "why this data is stored and how Apple intends to use it, or not, are important questions," Allan said.

It would also be relatively easy for hackers to access the unencrypted files, he said, particularly if a user loses their iPad or iPhone.

Apple hasn't commented on the matter.

Meanwhile, Allan and Warden have created a free program that maps the tracking data collected by the devices. And Sam Biddle, an editor at technology website Gizmodo, used the mapping program and published the results online.

"This is a map of everywhere I've been for the last months. Everywhere," he wrote. "I didn't carry around a tracking device. The FBI isn't sending goons in unmarked vans to track me. All I did was use an iPhone."


http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/...nnipegHome

[skyblue1]

Apple Explains iPhone Tracking, Promises Fix
iPhones track Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers, not users, Apple said in answering critics, while also promising to fixing a bug that kept too much data.


By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
April 27, 2011 02:56 PM

Apple on Tuesday responded to the controversy surrounding its handling of location data on the iPhone and denied tracking iPhone users' whereabouts. The company attributed the volume of stored location data to a software bug, and committed to encrypting the data on iPhones while eliminating it from backups in a forthcoming software update.
Apple's explanation arrives following a letter of inquiry sent on Monday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The letter seeks an explanation of Apple's location data policies in light of press reports about the presence of location data on iPhones. While the initial report last week about the discovery of location data on iPhones was subsequently revealed to be old news in the forensics community, the issue has continued to fester in the absence of a clear and comprehensive response from Apple. A lawsuit accusing Apple of violating privacy and computer fraud laws through its location data practices was filed in Florida last week.

Apple accepts some blame for situation, stating in a note posted on its website on Wednesday that "the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date."

Disavowing any interest in tracking the locations of iPhones, Apple described its data gathering as an attempt to build a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers to hasten location calculations, which are useful in apps that utilize location services and in core phone functions.

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"Calculating a phone's location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes," Apple explained. "iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements)."

Although the location data stored on iPhones corresponds to hotspots and cell towers (some of which may be as many as 100 miles away from the iPhone user), rather than the geographic locations of iPhone users, many location records may still be closely aligned with the user's actual location at the time the data is recorded.

Apple said that when this data is transmitted to the company it is encrypted and anonymous. However, it acknowledged while the cache of hotspot and location data it is not encrypted, but instead is protected through obscurity, which is regarded in the security industry as a dubious security strategy. Nor is the iTunes backup of the cache encrypted, unless specified to be so by the user.

To remedy the situation, Apple has promised to release an iOS update in a few weeks that reduces the crowd-sourced database so that it stores seven days of data instead of a year's worth, stops backing up the database cache in iTunes, and deletes the cache when the Location Services option is disabled. In addition, the hotspot and cell tower database that resides on iPhones will be encrypted in the next major iOS release, which is likely to be several months from now.

Apple also said that it is collecting anonymous crowd-sourced traffic data in order to offer an improved traffic service to iPhone users in the coming years. Presently, iPhone users have access to Google-provided traffic data through the Maps application that comes pre-installed on every iPhone.

Since Apple and Google began viewing each other as competitors in August 2009, when then Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board of directors, it has been widely assumed that Apple will eventually seek to revise or replace its software and services that depend on Google. Apple's acquisition of mapping companies Placebase and Poly9 have only strengthened such speculation.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/secu.../229402352

[Adam]

Must be the Jews 

[Osensitive1]

Thanks, Blue One.

[Frolic_Fun]

I think android phones have this issue too, although I can easily turn off the GPS if needed.

[ProfessorFarnsworth]

Heh, I knew about this since /b/ discovered GPS coordinates in the EXIF data of camwhore photos taken with an iPhone.

[Queen Victoria]

Must be the Jews 

I hope you are "taking a piss" since I'm Jewish.

[midlifeaspie]

Must be the Jews 

I hope you are "taking a piss" since I'm Jewish.

I think he was just trying to show that it isn't always the Muslims he is bashing? 

[Queen Victoria]

Must be the Jews 

I hope you are "taking a piss" since I'm Jewish.

I think he was just trying to show that it isn't always the Muslims he is bashing? 

I'm not amused with bashing any mainline religion.  ( is okay since it's the only way to eat spaghetti)

[Frolic_Fun]

Must be the Jews 

I hope you are "taking a piss" since I'm Jewish.

*hides gold*

[Adam]

lol, I wasn't "bashing" any religion here. skyblue is a conspiracy theorist nutcase. That was what my post was about

[Adam]

Also there's nothing wrong with bashing any religion, mainline or not, imo. Religion is bullshit

[renaeden]

Glad I have a phone that can only make calls and texts. What mobile phones are really meant for heh.

[Parts]

Glad I have a phone that can only make calls and texts. What mobile phones are really meant for heh.

Mine can do lots of stuff but I only use the phone for calling, an occasional text and camera.  The whole being available 24/7 and people knowing where your are creeps me out. I remember fondly the days of being out of touch and nobody knowing where you are. 

[renaeden]

Yeah it took me a long time to get used to having a mobile phone, always used to leave it at home, let the battery power run out or leave it switched off.

Now I have a friend that lives pretty far away (we met in hospital) and we text each other almost every day and I like that. It is also handy for when GA and I are at uni and we want to meet up somewhere.