The phone could use the data itself to make a map of towers you've used in the past, which gave the best connection and depending on the direction you are traveling when it should switch towers and what would be the best to switch to. Optimizing connection and battery by keeping a historical record of connections.
I'm skeptical that as a foreigner I would have the luxury of refusal, I wouldn't want to argue wether or not the Bill Of Rights protects non-citizens with someone with the power to detain and/or deport me.
That's odd, I charge my iPhone at work all the time and my workstation (XP) doesn't have iTunes installed, it does recognize it as a camera though. No such luck with the iPad, it charges, even though it reports it won't, but only at a couple of % per hour which is pretty useless.
Huh, didn't know that. That's pretty bad since not only this file but also the contact database, sms db and any encrypted app databases would be transferred and up for grabs. You could imagine a spy-like scenario where your phone is lifted, synced and then returned without you even knowing it was gone. A good argument for the screenlock (which I dislike) and to improve its rather poor security, I still can't be arsed to enable it though.
- as stated elsewhere it doesn't appear to log *your* exact position but that of cell towers you use. The data points on the map are laid out in a sort of rectangular grid across my home town. - the sqlite file contains tables such as WifiLocation and CellLocation which reinforce my idea that it's some sort of cache/database file used by the OS to make better connections and to do it faster by remembering past connections for an area. - no logging of a trip I took last summer, so either data is being destroyed after a set time or this is a new "feature" - there are some outlier data points at places I haven't visited, which is odd.
Seems like this file should be encrypted or protected in some way. That's clearly an oversight on Apple's part.
I'm examining the file from my backup, there are isolated data points at places I haven't been. I assume these are errors... or maybe they've already gotten to me;-)
IIRC iPhones can sync only to a limited number of computers (to prevent sharing of mp3's) and I doubt the police are going to jailbreak devices, or if that's even legal without a reasonable suspicion or court order.
Backup encryption is something which must be enabled (how many iPhone users do that, or even know of it?), so your implying that the data is encrypted is misleading, as is the claim that a jailbreak is necessary. Finally, there's nothing to indicate your claim that this won't collect data when location services are turned off is correct.
Granted I was under the assumption it used GPS data, if it is triangulation data it might always collect. I want to get to this file as soon as I can it sounds interesting but I can't at the moment. If it collects information on cell-towers to then it might map the best reception for a given location, or map location to tower positions to speed up location services such as maps.
And you need physical access to the phone or the syncing PC to get the file, if you have such physical access you can get at a LOT of interesting information other than location data.
You need to jailbreak the phone and/or break into the PC it syncs to. Granted, pretty easy if you want to catch a cheating spouse but harder for malicious strangers.
1) no evidence location is tracked when you turn off location services (unlikely) 2) no evidence the file is leaving your phone (or its encrypted backups on your pc), you need to jailbreak the physical device it to obtain it 3) you could get the same kind of information by looking at geotagged pictures people upload absolutely everywhere.
The headline gives the impression the phone is phoning home this info to Apple, this is NOT stated in the article. My impression is that it is a cache file which they fail to clean.
They already released their "slate" with HP with Balmer being on stage to introduce it:
"press images of the HP Slate just hit the web, right as Ballmer showed it off during his CES keynote. The prototype device is said to be coming later this year, and it's running Windows -- Ballmer showed it running the PC Kindle app."
Fortunately for them it has bombed so badly they actaully have a chance of people buying this shit about them not wanting in the tablet market yet.
"With Rage HD on iOS do you see yourself ever working on Android? Every six months I’d take a look at the scope of the Android, and decide if it was time to start really looking at it. At the last Quakecon I took a show of hands poll, and it was interesting to see how almost as many people there had an Android device as an iOS device. But when I asked how many peple had spent 20 bucks on a game in the Android store, there was a big difference. You’re just not making money in the Android space as you are in the iOS space."
There's an audio version of the actual poll floating around on Youtube, but I can't find the link right now.
You can see this on Slashdot too where people pounce on articles to post the established group-think for a quick '+5'
Really? And here I thought posts kvetching about how anybody who agrees with prevailing opinion is just practicing groupthink was an ideal example of Slashdot groupthink.
You may have a point, after all I was posting here pretty early in the discussion. Which means I'm right after all, if I reach '+5';-)
Origins normally make good story plots, at least in theory. Because it makes it easier to give the main character a reason to grow, and that is why many sequels fail, as we know the character and they rarely grow further in the sequel.
It's an established archetypical story The Call To Adventure. Historically the "origin story" is pretty popular too, ancient gods often have multiple surviving origin stories and those are the ones that reached us, many more must be lost.
It's an old internet tradition to take even mundane discussions, like your choice of editor, and turn them into a "holy war." This used to be done quite tongue-in-cheek but they've turned into actual holy wars by kids with a poor grasp of irony and even poorer reasoning skills. You can't debate with a religious fundamentalist who already knows The Truth.
I find that the biggest barrier to a reasoned debate is time rather than space, restrictive though it may be. Everything goes so fast that there is pressure to react sooner rather than later without allowing time for reflection. People then fall back on popular "truths" that can quickly be thrown out there. You can see this on Slashdot too where people pounce on articles to post the established group-think for a quick '+5' (as well as the ubiquitous "frist psots".) Those who come relatively late to the debate will find themselves ignored and drowned out by the deluge of mindless babble. That said it's not like Twitter was meant for actual debate but more for stream of consciousness ego stroking verbal diarrhea. In that respect it is quite successful.
Why is this marked flamebait ? It could be true, I've noticed a lot of the free or cheap iPhone apps use Openstreetmaps' maps. It creates a base of people that benefit from making the maps ever more accurate. That has got to scare Google: maps is one of the levers they use, along with gmail, to differentiate their mobile platform from other platforms (and unlicensed Android versions)
Wonder why only Android was mentioned for this story?
Because the iOS DHCP issue was fixed in August 2010 when iOS 4.1 came out probably. Maybe your question should be why Android fell into the same trap when iOS' problem was well publicized ?
I remember enjoying Monty Python in junior high. In high school, I began to find it a little nerdy and overplayed. At CMU, I discovered how nerdy and overplayed it could possibly be (and this is coming from a CS major!), as the skits were acted out loudly in the computer clusters every night. That was almost 20 years ago, and I'm still hearing references to the same skits.
Couldn't we move ahead ten years to Caddyshack or something?
Can you imagine someone in a room filled with CS majors loudly proclaiming "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!" ? Ludicrous.
In dutch a suppository is also know a "poepsnoepje" or "ass-candy." True story.
Putting in a suppository would be really awkward in a place with little or no privacy and it seems to me like it would be a little difficult to perform in microgravity too, unless you're willing to have a colleague do it.
Slashdot Mirror
The phone could use the data itself to make a map of towers you've used in the past, which gave the best connection and depending on the direction you are traveling when it should switch towers and what would be the best to switch to. Optimizing connection and battery by keeping a historical record of connections.
I'm skeptical that as a foreigner I would have the luxury of refusal, I wouldn't want to argue wether or not the Bill Of Rights protects non-citizens with someone with the power to detain and/or deport me.
That's odd, I charge my iPhone at work all the time and my workstation (XP) doesn't have iTunes installed, it does recognize it as a camera though. No such luck with the iPad, it charges, even though it reports it won't, but only at a couple of % per hour which is pretty useless.
One more item to add to my list on why not to visit the US. Pretty depressing. I just hope they don't give politicians around here any ideas.
Pretty funny someone actually found it necessary to mod me down to 0 for that. Grow up ffs.
Huh, didn't know that. That's pretty bad since not only this file but also the contact database, sms db and any encrypted app databases would be transferred and up for grabs. You could imagine a spy-like scenario where your phone is lifted, synced and then returned without you even knowing it was gone. A good argument for the screenlock (which I dislike) and to improve its rather poor security, I still can't be arsed to enable it though.
I did not read that article in fact.
Checking out the app now, here's a couple finds :
- as stated elsewhere it doesn't appear to log *your* exact position but that of cell towers you use. The data points on the map are laid out in a sort of rectangular grid across my home town.
- the sqlite file contains tables such as WifiLocation and CellLocation which reinforce my idea that it's some sort of cache/database file used by the OS to make better connections and to do it faster by remembering past connections for an area.
- no logging of a trip I took last summer, so either data is being destroyed after a set time or this is a new "feature"
- there are some outlier data points at places I haven't visited, which is odd.
Seems like this file should be encrypted or protected in some way. That's clearly an oversight on Apple's part.
I'm examining the file from my backup, there are isolated data points at places I haven't been. I assume these are errors ... or maybe they've already gotten to me ;-)
IIRC iPhones can sync only to a limited number of computers (to prevent sharing of mp3's) and I doubt the police are going to jailbreak devices, or if that's even legal without a reasonable suspicion or court order.
Backup encryption is something which must be enabled (how many iPhone users do that, or even know of it?), so your implying that the data is encrypted is misleading, as is the claim that a jailbreak is necessary. Finally, there's nothing to indicate your claim that this won't collect data when location services are turned off is correct.
Granted I was under the assumption it used GPS data, if it is triangulation data it might always collect. I want to get to this file as soon as I can it sounds interesting but I can't at the moment. If it collects information on cell-towers to then it might map the best reception for a given location, or map location to tower positions to speed up location services such as maps.
And you need physical access to the phone or the syncing PC to get the file, if you have such physical access you can get at a LOT of interesting information other than location data.
You need to jailbreak the phone and/or break into the PC it syncs to. Granted, pretty easy if you want to catch a cheating spouse but harder for malicious strangers.
1) no evidence location is tracked when you turn off location services (unlikely)
2) no evidence the file is leaving your phone (or its encrypted backups on your pc), you need to jailbreak the physical device it to obtain it
3) you could get the same kind of information by looking at geotagged pictures people upload absolutely everywhere.
The headline gives the impression the phone is phoning home this info to Apple, this is NOT stated in the article. My impression is that it is a cache file which they fail to clean.
They already released their "slate" with HP with Balmer being on stage to introduce it:
"press images of the HP Slate just hit the web, right as Ballmer showed it off during his CES keynote. The prototype device is said to be coming later this year, and it's running Windows -- Ballmer showed it running the PC Kindle app."
Fortunately for them it has bombed so badly they actaully have a chance of people buying this shit about them not wanting in the tablet market yet.
Precisely, who in his right mind would scan a face?
The first picture a normal sane male would take is his penis.
But where would I get the wide angle lens for my iPhone ?
Relevant : John Carmack on iOS vs Android
"With Rage HD on iOS do you see yourself ever working on Android?
Every six months I’d take a look at the scope of the Android, and decide if it was time to start really looking at it. At the last Quakecon I took a show of hands poll, and it was interesting to see how almost as many people there had an Android device as an iOS device. But when I asked how many peple had spent 20 bucks on a game in the Android store, there was a big difference. You’re just not making money in the Android space as you are in the iOS space."
There's an audio version of the actual poll floating around on Youtube, but I can't find the link right now.
You can see this on Slashdot too where people pounce on articles to post the established group-think for a quick '+5'
Really? And here I thought posts kvetching about how anybody who agrees with prevailing opinion is just practicing groupthink was an ideal example of Slashdot groupthink.
You may have a point, after all I was posting here pretty early in the discussion. Which means I'm right after all, if I reach '+5' ;-)
Origins normally make good story plots, at least in theory. Because it makes it easier to give the main character a reason to grow, and that is why many sequels fail, as we know the character and they rarely grow further in the sequel.
It's an established archetypical story The Call To Adventure. Historically the "origin story" is pretty popular too, ancient gods often have multiple surviving origin stories and those are the ones that reached us, many more must be lost.
Sounds like a bug in your parser, you should upgrade.
It's an old internet tradition to take even mundane discussions, like your choice of editor, and turn them into a "holy war." This used to be done quite tongue-in-cheek but they've turned into actual holy wars by kids with a poor grasp of irony and even poorer reasoning skills. You can't debate with a religious fundamentalist who already knows The Truth.
I find that the biggest barrier to a reasoned debate is time rather than space, restrictive though it may be. Everything goes so fast that there is pressure to react sooner rather than later without allowing time for reflection. People then fall back on popular "truths" that can quickly be thrown out there. You can see this on Slashdot too where people pounce on articles to post the established group-think for a quick '+5' (as well as the ubiquitous "frist psots".) Those who come relatively late to the debate will find themselves ignored and drowned out by the deluge of mindless babble. That said it's not like Twitter was meant for actual debate but more for stream of consciousness ego stroking verbal diarrhea. In that respect it is quite successful.
Why is this marked flamebait ? It could be true, I've noticed a lot of the free or cheap iPhone apps use Openstreetmaps' maps. It creates a base of people that benefit from making the maps ever more accurate. That has got to scare Google: maps is one of the levers they use, along with gmail, to differentiate their mobile platform from other platforms (and unlicensed Android versions)
Funny, seems like the same group reported that iOS has had the same problem: http://www.net.princeton.edu/announcements/ipad-iphoneos32-stops-renewing-lease-keeps-using-IP-address.html
Wonder why only Android was mentioned for this story?
Because the iOS DHCP issue was fixed in August 2010 when iOS 4.1 came out probably. Maybe your question should be why Android fell into the same trap when iOS' problem was well publicized ?
I remember enjoying Monty Python in junior high. In high school, I began to find it a little nerdy and overplayed. At CMU, I discovered how nerdy and overplayed it could possibly be (and this is coming from a CS major!), as the skits were acted out loudly in the computer clusters every night. That was almost 20 years ago, and I'm still hearing references to the same skits.
Couldn't we move ahead ten years to Caddyshack or something?
Can you imagine someone in a room filled with CS majors loudly proclaiming "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!" ? Ludicrous.
The way Hollywood's been remaking Scandinavian and Swedish films you could argue they're just taking back what's theirs :-)
In dutch a suppository is also know a "poepsnoepje" or "ass-candy." True story.
Putting in a suppository would be really awkward in a place with little or no privacy and it seems to me like it would be a little difficult to perform in microgravity too, unless you're willing to have a colleague do it.