Big Brother Apple?

**Phillip Swanson** · 04-20-2011, 04:37 PM

Every Apple iPhone owner has a free app they didn’t even know they had: iKnow Where You Are.
The U.K. based newspaper The Guardian is reporting that security researchers have discovered the iPhone keeps tabs on your location at all times. The location log includes longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates as well as a timestamp. Each time the iPhone is synced to the computer a new log file is created. Apple has literally made it possible for anyone who cares enough to look, to have a complete map of an individual’s movements for as long as they have had the phone.

While this may seem as a Big-Brother breach against iPhone owners’ privacy, Apple is in the clear legally. Near the end of the 15,000 plus word iTunes terms and conditions document you never read before agreeing to them is this nugget, “Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.”

For now it seems the data is simply being transferred from iPhones to the computers they are synched to and not to any third parties or Apple. However, this does little to ease the idea of someone stealing the location databases of iPhone users. Apple has yet to comment on the situation.

The scientists who discovered this, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, have set up a webpage (petewarden/iPhoneTracker @ GitHub), which answers questions about the file and even have an app that lets users check for themselves the location data their iPhone has retained. It is worth noting the iPhone is the only device that researchers found to be collecting and hording location data information.

Source: The Guardian

**bijju** · 04-20-2011, 04:46 PM

wow ....

somebody going to hurt really bad

**Mr. Russian** · 04-20-2011, 04:49 PM

Wow fail

Sent from my iPhone using ModMyi

**luvmytj** · 04-20-2011, 04:50 PM

Bad Apple... bad! Now you give that personal data back to it's rightful owners pronto. Then go to room and think about what you've done.

**xerray** · 04-20-2011, 04:50 PM

Does apple still track you even while your GPS is off, or is GPS needed for tracking at all?

**Paco** · 04-20-2011, 04:51 PM

I expected this from cricket phones not iPhones

**unison999** · 04-20-2011, 05:00 PM

interesting... Guess iPhone will not be used by the CIA, kinda funny how the TV show Chuck everyone uses iPhones...
I totally can see Apple do this, I bet iAd will conveniently use this data so Apple can benifit from this.

BTW ULA does not cover Apple's butt on this, people click I Agree without reading it making ULA basically useless (according to a judgement in court).

**delusion950** · 04-20-2011, 05:02 PM

Read about it earlier on iclarified thought I'd tip the modmyi staff!!!!

**jackietran** · 04-20-2011, 05:10 PM

To opt out of interest-based ads on a device running iOS 4, go to http://oo.apple.com

**Mes** · 04-20-2011, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by Phillip Swanson

.... location log includes longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates as well as a timestamp....

More is collected!!! Your SIM code (MCC/MNC) and Carrier

.

Look for yourself at: /private/var/root/Library/Caches/locationd/consolidated.db

Update: Also included: MAC address of connection, WiFi channel and signal level. One of the entries (4 total) is the unique hardware address of my AT&T Uverse DSL router which can be easily linked to my name and physical address.

**tangus999** · 04-20-2011, 05:30 PM

this is the real reason why apple doesn't want the iphone jailbroken...... bc we will know what they are up to.

**iPittsburgh** · 04-20-2011, 05:32 PM

^ you're right. I recieved a tethering email from att and called to check it out and was told they had installed an app to track everything when any regular app was updated in the past 6 months. I said prove it and the csr started naming the websites I had visited on my laptop using mywi.

**5h4d0w** · 04-20-2011, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by Mes

More is collected!!! Your SIM code (MCC/MNC) and Carrier

.

Look for yourself at: /private/var/root/Library/Caches/locationd/consolidated.db

Use iFile and screw with the user/group and remove all read/write permissions from the file? I do that to all the iAd and other ad/usage tracking files...

**LamboFan** · 04-20-2011, 05:37 PM

Dave's iPhone FTW

**dsg** · 04-20-2011, 05:54 PM

it's a cache it will just rebuild

Edit: I hope somebody makes a jailbreak tool/tweak to kill it

**Cer0** · 04-20-2011, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by dsg

it's a cache it will just rebuild

Edit: I hope somebody makes a jailbreak tool/tweak to kill it

I hope so too.

**Mes** · 04-20-2011, 06:05 PM

^Me too. I'm thinking about creating a daemon to periodically delete this file.

**DaEliminator** · 04-20-2011, 06:29 PM

i get it! Big Brother from 1984

hope nothings the same with ipod touches.

**delusion950** · 04-20-2011, 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by tangus999

this is the real reason why apple doesn't want the iphone jailbroken...... bc we will know what they are up to.

This is without jailbreak or with jailbreak still the same.

**Go Gators** · 04-20-2011, 06:45 PM

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