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Apple Updating iOS To Address Privacy Concerns
wiredmikey writes "[Apple] said that over the next few weeks it would release a software update for iOS that would reduce the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, cease backing up the cache, and delete the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off. Additionally, Apple said that in the next major iOS software release the cache would be encrypted on the iPhone, though a timeline for that was not provided."
Not erasing the old logs doesn't seem like a bug.. it would've been caught by a single test case.
You only put tests in for problems you think of. Deleting the log file altogether when you turn off location services, is a problem they simply didn't think about. If you think about it the guys writing that part of the code probably assumed that since the file was cached it would be truncated so leaving it around wouldn't matter...
The rest of the time you aren't deleting the file, instead you are periodically truncating it - something beyond a single test case, and requiring a long period of time to elapse. That part seems also like it could easily be oversight.
To my mind they probably just thought keeping a record of cell towers was not a big deal, because it was not an exact location log... although just from a performance aspect you'd think they would not want that file growing too large.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sounds like Apple is taking steps to improve their system and give the paranoid users a easy opt out. Now the question is what are the other phone manufactures doing with their location systems? Especially those who log your data to the cloud?
That's a good point. Given their relatively short response and turn-around time on this, I'm wondering if Apple sees the possibility here for turning a negative situation into a positive. Don't get me wrong - I think Apple (and other vendors) should've been doing this from the get-go - but it will be interesting to see (for example) how Google responds, given that their business model is to own as much data about you as possible.
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