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Share Your iPhone Location Data Like You Mean It
An anonymous reader writes "The crazy guys over at crowdflow.net are begging you for the location data that your iPhone collected without you being aware of it. All your data will be anonymized, and the whole combined data set of all donations will be shared under an OpenDataCommons license. Those people are data and visualization geeks and create beautiful visualizations like this from the data. They previously did a visualization of data retention caused by the German 'Vorratsdatenspeicherung.' Please consider donating your location data. ...and be fast, too, since the upcoming iOS software update (see Apple press release) will prevent further evaluation of the collected data."
So what happens when they look up the address of where they see my phone at night?
Even though I trust their claims that they'll anonymize the data, I suspect that this data could be very easily de-anonymized (like they discovered was possible with the NetFlix data set), and would not contribute my data to this project.
> the upcoming iOS software update (see Apple press release) will prevent further evaluation of the collected data.
They forget to add a USB port to their iPad. Users cry out. Next iteration has a USB port.
Users discover Apple is tracking them! Users cry out! Next iOS update makes it so they wouldn't have been able to see it in the first place.
Why the fuck do people continue to use Apple? Why the hell doesn't Apple want their users to see how they're being tracked and where they're being tracked?
So much for 'thinking different'.
Look at the image, they are tracking your wifi access points: http://crowdflow.net/blog/2011/04/28/wifi-stations-in-berlin/
I need to make a Cell-Phone Telephone call. Can I borrow your Cell-Phone Telephone?
I've always thought the solution for stuff like this was to hack it so it records what you want it to record. Lessee now, breakfast in San Francisco, lunch in Paris, where shall I go for dinner?
...laura
So they are trying to get people to opt-in to submit location data to show some indication of where people are, ok...
Why do it in a way that:
-Is limited only to iPhones
-Limited to a method that won't work in the relatively near future
Why not do something like asking people to use something like google latitude and sharing their location? Or providing an open-source app that delivers a verifiable degree of vagueness/random identifier per update?
No matter how you slice it, if you did participate in anything like this, never presume anonymity is assured. Even in that open-source case, even if the app injects data with randomized identifier and vague location, the peer can track your IP and assemble unique paths per IP.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Please keep in mind that there is a difference between isolated data and data linked (or just linkable) to other data sets. And no, that's not "the same", it is a different quality.
Also, it's different if the data is collected on servers of someone who will never give it to someone else unless legally forced to or someone who will pass it on to certain agencies or even sell it to the highest bidder.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
Not sure what to make of all of the controversy on this matter, I would be quite happy to provide my DNA to go on a database and if everyone else did the same would crime drop? Sure I would want to make sure that the data was not used for any other purpose but like it or not your mobile phone company stores the data of where you have been, e-mails and voice calls are searched and in most areas worldwide you, your car or vehicle and your movements would be viewed and stored on camera - if you've nothing to hide should you be worried?? Otherwise I am glad I opted for an HTC Desire phone, and yes I have Google Lattitude switched on! Cheers Keith. http://www.eco-pressure-clean.co.uk/
are going to hate that. Right now every iPhone has a very precise map of all cell phone towers it ever saw saved in that intenal DB. They're not going to like these positions to be published, I would say.
On the other hand *I* like that very much...
This "log file" (actually it's a SQLite3 database) does not contain the locations of the iPhone, it contains the locations of the cell towers and WiFi base stations the iPhone was near to. I thought this was clear meanwhile?
This project does NOT map the whereabouts of iPhone users, it maps the locations of WiFi and cell towers.
Having read the Apple press release, now I know what to do next time I want to track somebody and don't know how to defend myself.
It's easy: just repeat, it's a bug that we will fix shortly!
Cool project, also fun to see they are using my code to get the location-data from the iPhone backup...!
(their 'Applet' uses the code I've posted here: http://www.redcode.nl/blog/2011/04/reading-iphone-gps-data-from-backup-with-java/)
So you're an Android user? You are aware that your locations are ALSO saved in the exact same manner, for the same purposes?
Remember, the database they are downloading is only a subset of records of locations Apple knows about cell towers and WiFi stations.
If you look at the data itself, at the locations reported - they are all aligned on a pretty big grid. That is to say, no one location stored in the file is really accurate to a point anyway, they are all snapped to a point about half a block away (or more).
All you get from the data is a sense of what city you live in, along with cities you travel to. Looking at my data you could not even tell where I lived or worked from the data recorded, because the scope of locations stored is a few miles around where you are and thus too broad to get a sense of where anyone actually was.
I happily sent them my data, it will be interesting from a macro level to see where people live and travel. But I'm not even sure they can get much of a visualization out of it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We need an application that takes this data and makes crap up. Some sort of semi sensible random walk. Then let apple steal this data and make what they would like of it. Thompson Manitoba (over 10,000,000 visitors a year).
Wanted: an app that makes my iPhone report fictitious location info of my choosing instead of real info.
Does that exist?
How about for android?
This site is only using WiFi access points, not the cell tower locations. Regardless, there are lots of places online that have databases of cell tower locations.
To what end? Maybe you want the Maps app to always locate you at the South Pole perhaps?
What restaurants are nearby? None. Sounds like loads of fun to me.
Wanted: an app that makes my iPhone report fictitious location info of my choosing instead of real info.
Since Apple does not collect that data, but sends data to you about what towers are around you - what would you do with this app?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you are really, REALLY concerned about this, one answer might be to scramble the data and garble just enough of the data to destroy Big Brother's confidence in its accuracy. There seems to be enough iPod hacker-lore available so that a reasonably good developer could put together some thing that garbles the data in the mysterious file on your iPod. Just add or subtract 42 (the ultimate answer) to every third number in the coordinates. If I am wrong and we can't do that then L33t haxors, this is a challenge for you. I think it might make some location-aware apps malfunction, too; sometimes that is the price of real freedom from the watchful eye.
That's not your location. And only things Apple doesn't know about already would be sent - so let's say once a month when you stumbled on a new WiFi router, Apple would send a rough location of that (accurate to within 1/2 mile or so) and with no other data, including your cell phone ID or name or anything.
In short they are not tracking your location. They are tracking the location of devices, not you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't want to even see someone of strange character appear in front of me suddenly in public
good idea thanks for information Technology and Cell Phone
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