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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."
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'.
From what i read in the previous slashdot discussion (and from what they write on their webpage) they only want the "base station log", so they wouldn't be able to correlate the data to anyone in particular (unless you are somehow verifiably the only user of a cell tower at a certain point in time.)
Emotions! In your brain!
Look at the image, they are tracking your wifi access points: http://crowdflow.net/blog/2011/04/28/wifi-stations-in-berlin/
Even then, you see a data trail that follows the towers along my commute most weekdays. Not many people will hit that same pattern. Bonus for knowing that I was out sick one day and noting that only one of the candidate trails didn't go in that day.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The data contains only the last time your iPhone saw a specific BSSID. Insufficient data to map out regular journeys.
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
You know what's going to happen? They are going to pay you a visit one night, rob you, rape you, then point a crowbar satellite at your house.
Get a grip already, for fuck's sake! The data is scrubbed of personally identifiable data, and you'll be lost in the sea of 'targets' anyway. Nobody wants to know your address, you have nothing anybody wants!
And before you respond with "Burglars!", they're not going to track your phone, they'll go up to your house and look at it to see if you're home, and then rob you anyway.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Depends on where you live. I have at least a dozen APs in my list here at home, at least two of them I know to be in the same building, just on different floors. Good luck pinpointing where exactly I live, even if you could fetch out my data set.
If you're interested in me, there are a lot of easier ways to get my address.
Really, I dig privacy and all that, but people do get freaked out too easily. Sure I have something to hide, everyone does. But the something is usually what I do, and not where I do it.
And quite frankly, if you're upset about this data collection (on the device!), but you check in with FourSquare whenever you are anywhere at all, you're messed up.
Reading someone's Twitter or Facebook postings would probably reveal more about them then checking out their location data. For the average american, I guess a visit to the local whorehouse is the worst that location data would reveal. Sure you don't want that to be public, but the end of the world it is not. Well, maybe the end of your marriage. Then again, if you do stuff that you positively don't want to be discovered, one of the things you do is turn off your mobile phone. That's not news. A guy working closely with the german equivalent of the secret service said 10 years ago that he turns off his mobile phone and takes out the battery routinely whenever he doesn't use it.
Nothing here is new, except for the specifics of the individual event.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
The data is scrubbed of personally identifiable data, and you'll be lost in the sea of 'targets' anyway. Nobody wants to know your address, you have nothing anybody wants!
Apple collected the information on their iDevice, and Apple is evil - so everyone rose up in hysteria when the news about this file came out.
Now this group asks for the information and reassures us it will be anonymized, and people say "No Worries! Great! Fine! Wonderful!" because it's not Apple, and the word "Open" was used - so we can blindly trust them both to be honest and know what they're doing with regard to secure data handling.
Folks, I would like to invite you all to participate in a new study - FreeOpenCreditCardDataStudy. I am doing important research on the recurrence of certain patterns of digits in credit cards that seems to be matched to certain names. Your numbers will be randomized, so no one willl be able to use your data. I need the numbers intact, though, so I can look for these patterns. Oh, and I'm also asking you to enter the security codes and expiration dates, because while I'm not currently aware of any patterns it may be there.
Free! Open! FreeOpenCreditCardDataStudy!
#DeleteChrome
Oh come on! I don't really see the reason why everyone is up in arms about this. Who the bloody hell cares if Apple (or in my case, Google) sees the wireless routers I walk past (even if my WiFi is off), or the cell towers I connect to. It's not like they're going to dog me and try to sell me stuff. And before you cry "Law Enforcement!!1!", let me remind you that the mobile companies are already obligated to turn over subcell info when presented with a court order. Having the actual GPS data available, especially in real-time, would be even more useful to the police, both in capturing the perpetrator, and in proving his/her guilt by showing that he/she was at the crime scene.
Let me reiterate this: nobody fucking cares when you're away from home or where you are! Those who want to rob your house or mug you are not the stratum who would track your cell phone, they will just do it regardless of your Google Latitude, Apple Tracking or whatever. Those who can track your phone, having the tech and the expertise for it, however, are aiming for fish way above your league, and this is not some conspiracy novel where the FBI/CIA/NSA Black Ops disappear people off the street like in Slipstream. /rant
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!