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Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

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Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#131

Post by brudgers »

revscat wrote: post #123
brudgers wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple can do so without tracking the location of the iPhone and knowing its identity, yes. But then the scenario you propose admits that Apple tracks the location of the iPhone to some degree. The most charitable case would be that Apple only tracks location based on the cell tower to which the iPhone is connected. The worst case is that it tracks location based on every hotspot and celltower the iPhone sees. Sinc…

The device ID is not necessary for such a query to be successful, though. If you as the device programmer were interested in getting the subset of the cache for your location, the method signature would need be nothing more complicated than: +(DBConsolidated) subsetForDevice:(NSArray *)visibleTowers:(NSArray *)visibleHotSpots So even in the "worst" case described by you no identifying data is sent. This could possibl…

The "flat denial" is in response to Apple's ability to "locate me" not "locate my iPhone." Elsewhere, Apple is very specifically making claims about the iPhone.

"Anonymous" is pretty slippery and there is no agreed upon technical definition (just ask EFF), but it literally means "not identified by name" so one could argue that sending tracking data based on your device serial number, IP address, phone number, location, contacts list, etc. is still in an "anonymous form." [somewhat similar to debates about the technical meaning of "open"].

I'll add that the information you are proposing to send to Apple is enough to clearly identify your location - or rather the location of the iPhone, and short of Apple using Tor or a similar approach to making the message's route through the network untraceable, the data in "anonymous form" can likely be disanonymized.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#132

Post by lukeschlather »

rbarooah wrote: post #129
lukeschlather wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locked-down bootloaders are the norm in the high-end tablet space, because Apple set the trend. Yes, there are a handful of freely modifiable ones, but I don't want my hardware choices constrained to those vendors which deign to let me use the hardware I've purchased as I please.

So you want Apple to fail because you don't like what the other manufacturers are doing?

That's twisting my words a a bit isn't it? I don't like what Apple is doing. Other manufacturers imitate Apple. I want Apple to fail in the hopes that other manufacturers will stop imitating Apple.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#134

Post by r00fus »

epistasis wrote: post #112
diminish wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your need is too exotic and mainstream concerns about location/timestamp tracking on iphone are real, valid concerns.

The location/timestamp concerns are only relevant when my phone has been stolen or somebody has unrestricted access to my computer. At that point, location tracking is only one of many many terrible things that can happen to me, and frankly it's nowhere near the most terrible. And if I'm concerned about somebody tracking me, I'm going to be most concerned about the last 7 days, not the past year. If you're concerned…

Your solution is asinine, as I have little way to protect my "cache" of goods... it's unencrypted both on the device and in the backups (though you can encrypt backups now, there might be previous computer backups of mine that have unencrypted location data, now I have to go find and excise those).

Any malicious desktop tool can easily find the location cache in unencrypted backups. Modern Police Forensics tools (http://www.cellebrite.com/) can easily extract non-encrypted data from phones in minutes (see Michigan Police).

That Apple stored this growing set of user-data in cleartext on the device was as stupid as Sony storing their customer's personal information in cleartext (or weakly hashed) on their servers.

Either bit-recycle the information that's not immediately relevant, or strongly encrypt/sanitize it. This shit isn't rocket-science, folks. Otherwise it's a liability and potential PR nightmare in the making.

We're now still in the "wild west" of personal data records. Once these issues start to snowball and real-life consequences happen, people will clamor for litigation, which given politicians will be over-reaching and ham-fisted.

Corporations with hundreds of millions of users' personal data should stay in front of these issues unless they want to wade in a regulatory mess (see Google's mis-steps with wifi packet data).

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#135

Post by jrockway »

sounddust wrote: post #130
jrockway wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need to use AGPS? It only takes 12 minutes to download the ephemeris and almanac via the GPS satellite itself. So even without Internet connectivity, you'll eventually know where you are.

As far as I can tell, the iPhone cannot determine one's location solely from the GPS antenna. If you travel to a place where you haven't been before, location services simply won't work until you obtain internet connectivity for a few seconds. I don't know if this is because the iPhone's GPS functionality is crippled, or if it's a software limitation. I'd imagine that if you wanted to overcome this limitation, you'd…

Are you sure you've had 12 minutes with a clear view of the sky? Each GPS satellite carries the entire constellation's almanac. After downloading that (which is a 12.5 minute process), then you can download the ephemeris from each satellite, which takes 30 seconds. You need 4 satellites to get a location fix.

The almanac is valid for 180 days, so you only need to wait 12 minutes once. From then on, you only need the ephemeris from 4 visible satellites, which takes less than a minute to download.

It confuses me that the iPhone wouldn't be able to do this, because I can buy a $10 microchip that's the size of a dime that can do it. Give it electricity, wait 15 minutes, the location comes out the other side. I would be shocked if the iPhone were incapable of doing this.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#136

Post by wlesieutre »

seabee wrote: post #34
pieter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is that he's turning roaming off, and probably doesn't have access to WiFi in the foreign city. By having the database, you don't need a data connection at all, thus saving money.

He had to connect to the internet in the foreign city at least once before. The difference is now it must be every time.

Right, but if you travel there semi-frequently, it would be nice to not pay for it each time. Cheap relative to the airfare, but every bit helps.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#137

Post by wlesieutre »

sounddust wrote: post #45
diminish wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your need is too exotic and mainstream concerns about location/timestamp tracking on iphone are real, valid concerns.

It's a common scenario in Europe. It's not "exotic" to take a €39 train ride from Paris to Brussels to visit for the weekend. I don't think it's a privacy concern to store such data locally on the phone. In any case, it should be resolved by letting the user decide how long to cache the data; that would make everyone happy.

How does data roaming work on European carriers? For someone traveling from the US, there could be a significant cost to using data in another country. If Europe's prices are more sane, it might not be an issue.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#138

Post by tlrobinson »

mrcharles wrote: post #50
tjogin wrote: post #42

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. Interesting. Apple generally does not pre-release information about upcoming products, at all. They must have fel…

IMO the most interesting thing -- I was just daydreaming on the way to work of a mapping app that basically tracked your route, and compared timestamps of movement against expected times to generate an accurate realtime traffic map when shared with a central server. The problem with traffic info right now is that it's always either laughably late (see sirius/xm traffic info) or it's based on eyes-in-the-sky style upd…

Traffic data from sensors in the road has always seemed fairly accurate to me.

I also like the idea of using millions of iPhones' locations to get comprehensive traffic data.

However it's vaguely reminiscent of the cell phone sonar surveillance system in The Dark Knight.

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#139

Post by DanielBMarkham »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #82

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 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 ano…

For those interested in continuing the conversation, I followed this comment up with a HN post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2490693

Re: Apple Q&A on gathering and use of location data (Apple Press Release)

#140

Post by speleding »

wlesieutre wrote: post #137
sounddust wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common scenario in Europe. It's not "exotic" to take a €39 train ride from Paris to Brussels to visit for the weekend. I don't think it's a privacy concern to store such data locally on the phone. In any case, it should be resolved by letting the user decide how long to cache the data; that would make everyone happy.

How does data roaming work on European carriers? For someone traveling from the US, there could be a significant cost to using data in another country. If Europe's prices are more sane, it might not be an issue.

At the moment data roaming in Europe is still a nightmare, most providers make you pay ridiculous fees when crossing a border. The EU commissioner for IT & Telco (Nellie Kroes) recently threatened with legislation if things didn't improve and now several providers started offering some kind or "Euro roaming" subscription.
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