So does every cell carrier: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/03/wh....

Quote:

Your cell phone company knows everywhere you go, twenty-four hours a day, every day. How concrete is this fact for you?

It's very concrete for Malte Spitz, a German politician and privacy advocate. He used German privacy law — which, like the law of many European countries, gives individuals a right to see what private companies know about them — to force his cell phone carrier to reveal what it knew about him. The result? 35,831 different facts about his cell phone use over the course of six months.

The real issue is that the data is just sitting on your hard drive, free for anyone with access to look at. If Apple had encrypted it or obfuscated it in some manner, no one would know.

Creepy. Glad I don't own one of those.

Actually, the cell CARRIER does have it, always, but it takes a SUBPOENA to get it. Cell-based location (unless specifically requested) is only accurate to within somewhere between one and ten to twenty miles, depending on where you are. The system can be asked to find you, and it will then triangulate, but it normally does NOT because that requires channels on three different towers be allocated to your handset, which reduces capacity by a factor of three. So while they CAN do this, they don't - unless the law comes asking.

This is different - there's nothing compelling anyone - including Apple - to keep this file private.

This kind of backlash should have been enough to compel Apple to keep it encrypted in some form. The other question is why do they want it?

Also, combine it with this: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-2005....

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The Michigan State Police have started using handheld machines called "extraction devices" to download personal information from motorists they pull over, even if they're not suspected of any crime.

Scary.

Who needs a subpoena??? Now the cops have devices that they can plug into your cell phone and download the entirety of texts, data and photos, etc. in 90 seconds. Works with any cell phone.


http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458....

Gen: They are using Cell Tower location, not GPS: http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTrack....

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As far as we can tell, the location is determined by triangulating against the nearest cell-phone towers. This isn’t as accurate as GPS, but presumably takes less power.

I, for one, welcome SkyNet and vow my allegiance to the machines! Google + Facebook + Apple = digital consciousness working to take over the human race.

Jeffrey: read above. that's what I said.

Gen- layer 2 messaging on a gsm network is always sending attach records every time you move. Those include signal strength to neighbor towers which can be used, via court order, to provide a much more accurate location than 1-10 miles. These records are created when the phone is on...not when it's making a call. The device caching this info is a much more serious claim and one that should be looked into. Probably doing it for e911 requirements.

Eight: Yep; I'm aware of that. I have engineering mode enabled on my device and can look any time I'd like. By itself, without using time-based pings for triangulation, it's only accurate within 3,000 meters or thereabouts near where I live (that's ~2 miles.) We have moderate tower density here (suburban-ish.)

In a city or close to one, where density is higher, the certainty of location off attach messages is greater. Way the hell out in the boonies certainty is less.

The tower gear can be told to provide a triangulated solution off the time chirps used by the network and that's quite accurate, but it's not enabled all the time as it requires far more bandwidth than they want to use and impairs service. If your carrier gets served with a Subpoena by a law enforcement agency, however, they WILL turn it on and that can usually get them location within a few hundred yards.

Here is where something like this becomes very useful for the Android platform.

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Guardian's n8fr8 coded UpOnApp which switches all network communication on or off depending which way up a phone is placed in a pocket or on a surface. If it faces up, the phone is online, and its location can be tracked and recorded. Turn it face down to disable all network connections, the microphone, and the camera. The idea is to make being tracked a conscious decision rather than the default behavior.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/....

Steve Jobs can't die fast enough.

Is the consent actually in the iTunes TOU? Apparently so:

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It says that "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."

iTunes has got to be one of the biggest pieces of crap software ever foisted upon modern day geekdom. Maybe it's not so bad if you have a Mac, but for other users, it's a nightmare. I'm glad I removed it years ago.

Time to go long tinfoil wallets & faraday phone pouches

I guess if you go out and rob a bank, it might be wise to leave your phone at home.

Also, there is this take from the po-po:

http://chris.pirillo.com/why-do-law-enfo....

Quote:

Did you know just how MUCH information the iPhone stores on you? Police do, and they LOVE the iPhone for making it easier to track down criminals. The Chicago Sun Times discussed exactly what the iPhone stores without your knowledge, and we discuss this in today’s video. Lamarr didn’t know that quite this much information was captured and stored without your knowledge – did you?

Detective Josh Fazio works in the Will County (Illinois) sheriff’s department high-tech crimes unit. He adores it when someone tells him there’s an iPhone as evidence in a case. He and his coworkers can often tap into the information you thought you deleted from your iPhone. The devices can help police learn where you’ve been, what you were doing there and whether you’ve got something to hide. What, exactly, can police find even if you’ve deleted information?

* Every time an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone snaps a screenshot and stores it. Savvy law-enforcement agents armed with search warrants can use those snapshots to see if a suspect is lying about whereabouts during a crime.

Technically, that only shows where the phone was at a certain time, not the person.

Non-approved sharing of on-handset GPS data IS a privacy violation. Since the data on the file is only moved off of the handheld in the course of a backup and is not "shared", then there's nothing really going on here. The file in question cannot be accessed unless the phone is tethered and is not accessible via another app on the phone. Unlike the Android world, Apple has app access locked down fairly well.

So ... if you're going to rob a bank, steal your coworkers iPhone? Got it.

"You can turn this off...... how? It appears you can't."

Encrypt your backups. Geez, it's really not that hard to keep your data safe.

That location data and where you've been previously made ever-so convenient for the police to review UPON A SIMPLE TRAFFIC STOP WHEN THEY SCAN THE DATA ON YOUR PHONE:

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ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

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The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.

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The ACLU is concerned that these powerful capabilities are being quietly used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

"With certain exceptions that do not apply here, a search cannot occur without a warrant in which a judicial officer determines that there is probable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of criminal activity," Fancher wrote. "A device that allows immediate, surreptitious intrusion into private data creates enormous risks that troopers will ignore these requirements to the detriment of the constitutional rights of persons whose cell phones are searched."

USSR USSA

What was old is new again. Totalitariansim becoming all but FACT. And we sit here like sheep and decend into it without a peep. DISGUSTING.


http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3458....

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Encrypt your backups. Geez, it's really not that hard to keep your data safe.

Doesn't help that it's unencrypted on your phone.

"Doesn't help that it's unencrypted on your phone."

True, but they need physical access to your phone to get that data. So you have some choices in that event:

1. Remotely wipe your phone if it is stolen
2. Reset your phone periodically as a new phone and this will wipe any location history.
3. Turn off the radios when you go someplace you don't want anyone knowing about.

What surprises me is that anyone is surprised at this. Anyone involved in illegal activities will go and buy a prepaid phone and use it once and discard. What we really need are cameras all over the place like they have in the UK so all the bad guys can be tracked. Next step is to imbed a micro chip in you at birth so you can be tracked if abducted, which I think some parents might be doing now. It's now 1984 just a little late.