[planet10]

Media twisting....

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27location_qa.html

dave

[chrisby]

This is not about Microsoft, this is about Locationgate. No one has an iPhone from anyone but Apple.

Yes about 2 Billion in marketing since the iPhone came out, plus all the other money that does not count in the marketing budget. And all the money before the iPhone came out...

You seem to be saying "Leave Apple alone!" Not exactly a rational argument about mobile phone security. Nor is the amount of money they are making an argument for being excused for what they have done or are about to do...

I think I'm saying that to focus on Apple as the (sole) villain in this, which I took to be your position, is misguided at least.

OK, so if your extrapolation is correct, they've spent several billion dollars in advertising during the past few years -  mea culpa, it sounded a bit like hyperbole in the context of the remark about "every computer you see"

But more to my point, and I think echoed by, is exactly why is location tracking a problem? 
Now if our safety, freedom or families future were threatened by big brother (or TPC*) monitoring every conversation or keyboard stroke or credit card swipe, it might be too late to be concerned. 


We either ask for, or vote with our purchases for communication / home appliances / entertainment devices to get smarter, and yet complain over expense, certain aspects of the requisite technologies and resultant "loss of privacy".   

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_President%27s_Analyst

[Pez]

JQP my friend you have bought in to the media hype hook line and sinker. It's kind of ridiculous to think that Apple, ATT or any other vendor/service provider could benefit in any way from this information. What are they going to send some G men after you in black unmarked sedans because you send a suspicious text message? Give me a break this is all a bunch of bullshit and you should know better than to fall into the faux paranoia.

[jqp]

I did not sign up for Apple to keep all my locations forever on my phone, at Apple, and even on my PC via iTunes.

It's not the end of the world, but Apple should not lie about it or try to distract us from what they are doing. Security experts say it is a security flaw and should be fixed. Now finally Apple admits it, and says they will fix it.

The extreme possibilities of men in black coming like stormtroopers to our door doesn't help. That's not the way privacy issues develop in this day and age.

I tend to agree with Steve Jobs - do you?

"We take privacy extremely seriously. As an example we worry a lot about locations in phones. We worry that some 14 year old is gonna get stalked or something terrible is going to happen because of our phone...Privacy means people know what they're signing up for. In plain English. And repeatedly. That's what it means. I'm an optimist. I believe people are smart, I think some people want to share more data than other people do. Ask them. Ask them every time."

I turned off location services on my iPhone yet this is what I get. Now I am not naive, I know there is lots of potential evil buried in lots of EULA's.  Any company should be in hot water if they screw up like this. Think Epsilon, think Sony, think Google, think Microsoft. Anybody.

OK here is a link to the video where Jobs says that.

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110426/a-probe-in-your-pocket-heres-apples-steve-jobs-and-googles-andy-rubin-talking-privacy-at-d8-and-dive/

And as the article says "The privacy implications are obvious."

[jqp]

JQP my friend you have bought in to the media hype hook line and sinker. It's kind of ridiculous to think that Apple, ATT or any other vendor/service provider could benefit in any way from this information. What are they going to send some G men after you in black unmarked sedans because you send a suspicious text message? Give me a break this is all a bunch of bullshit and you should know better than to fall into the faux paranoia.

Pez you are naive to even think that companies don't benefit from info like this - ever heard of selling the info, or using it yourself for targeted ads? Ads are annoying, then you get into security issues. Google records lots of stuff that people are upset about, i think the pendulum is swinging away from naivete.

[Pez]

Seriously?did you NOT see that apple has officially stted they do not use this information at all? It stays on the freaking phone.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/27/apple-officially-answers-questions-on-location-tracking-says-it/

I'm far from naive when it comes to this sort of thing, I actually make sure I know what the hell is going on before I believe any Apple related fear mongering 99.9999999999999% of the time it's utter bullshit.

[jqp]

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it's maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone's location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone's location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year's worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
This data is not the iPhone's location data-it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don't think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple's crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn't. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?
We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

[SET Man]

Hey!

    Talking about iPad. Did you guys see the new South Park tonight? It was Apple iPad parody.... the "HUMANCENTiPAD" It was freakin' funny and crazy.

Take care,
Buddy

[Crimson]

Ok, kids. Play nice or in the trash this thread goes.

[chrisby]

Ok, kids. Play nice or in the trash this thread goes.

guilty, your honor

[*Scotty*]

iOS4 Version 4.3.3(8J2) has been released which addresses the security concerns associated with the previous versions of iOS4.
 
Scotty

[*Scotty*]

Poll closed, non-issue with those bothering to respond to poll. 82.7% of voters were unconcerned about tracking information collected by Apple. Total voting in poll was 29. Total views at the time the poll was closed were 764.
Scotty