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Firefox Add-On To Track Your Location Via Wi-Fi
Barence writes "Mozilla Labs has unveiled a new Add-on that allows Firefox to pinpoint your location based on Wi-Fi signals. The feature, called Geode, is a prototype for the location-tracking technology that will be built into the forthcoming Firefox 3.1. Geode is designed to work with websites that rely on knowing your location, such as mapping and geotagging services. The prospect of Firefox having the ability to track your location raises obvious privacy fears. Mozilla insists users will remain in complete control. 'With Geode, when a website requests your location a notification bar will ask how much information you want to give that site: your exact location, your neighbourhood, your city, or nothing at all,' the Mozilla Labs blog claims."
http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html
http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/10/introducing-geode/
just tried to install it to see what it's like, but won't install on i386/Ubuntu
I'd much rather this remain a separately downloadable add-on.
It is designed so that every application has to get the agreement from the user first. He/She may choose to permit access to the accurate or approximate coordinates (or to deny access).
Source: heise.de (german)
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
They sent vehicles out with Wi-fi scanners to catalog broadcast MAC addresses and then map those wireless devices via their GPS location. All that data is then funneled into a database so the position of the Wireless device can be easily "looked up." The downside is that wireless devices are not static and can be easily moved or turned off. So the database must be constantly updated.
If you'd bother reading to the second sentence: " The feature, called Geode, is a prototype for the location-tracking technology that will be built into the forthcoming Firefox 3.1."
You can't not install it, it's already installed.
Other than that, you seem to be traveling.... you get the point
There are other ways to approximate your location when you aren't using wi-fi. As an example, http://www.geobytes.com/ipLocator.htm will give you a location derived from your ISP's. Also, a way to set a location in your Firefox profile would be useful for desktop PCs that rarely move. And I should note that Ubiquity is currently using the MaxMind geo-api (http://www.maxmind.com/app/api) for very similar purposes.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Wi-Fi location works kind of like Google Street View — someone drives around and collects information on the wireless devices in the area. All of this data is subsequently collected into a database, which is then used to look up locations based on the names and strengths of nearby networks.
You can. TFA mentions that you will be able to manually enter your location, and there's no requirement that you tell the truth.
100 meter cat 5 limit :)
Like this? http://code.google.com/p/arora/
If you'd bother RTFyouknowwhat...
Geode is an extension, and it will not be in Firefox unless you add it to Firefox. Firefox 3.1 will not have any "location-tracking technology", it will just expose the W3C geolocation API so extensions such as Geode can answer to document.geolocation calls from a script. A naked Firefox doesn't know zilch about its location.
The article is misworded but understandable with a little good will.
Well if you are on Windows you might want to try Kmeleon which is just Firefox without any bloat. Very fast and now that they have easy to install versions of flashblock and noscript I've been using it more and more and it is quite nice and a lot faster than FF3 on Windows.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.