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Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

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Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#191

Post by sneeze-slayer »

kevinsync wrote: post #174

Whenever location data collection comes up, I always think about that Seinfeld episode where Kramer is receiving misdialed MovieFone calls -- at first he just talks to the person and reads the movie times out of the newspaper. Very helpful. Eventually, he starts emulating the phone menus, asking the caller "Using your touch-tone keypad, please enter the first three letters of the movie title, now." When this doesn't…

Since Android 12, there is the option to choose between providing "precise" and "approximate" location data to an app. I have found it quite nice, even if it sometimes breaks a random app if a developer hasn't planned to use it.

https://www.howtogeek.com/763227/what-are-precise-and-approx...

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#192

Post by thund »

vlovich123 wrote: post #168
ralmidani wrote: post #160

This is one of the majors problems with completely locked-down platforms. Assurances that the owner of the platform respects your privacy and prevents others from violating it are really just a pinky promise.

I think the perspective can be incorrect. No one expects Apple to get it perfect. Computing platforms are legitimately hard to secure, especially when you’re talking about privacy which is a lot more amorphously defined culturally vs typical CS security which is defined as subverting technical access controls. The key question is whether Apple will play a curator role in trying to reign in the ecosystem. They have in…

Open platforms can be reviewed and fixed more easily and faster

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#193

Post by extraduder_ire »

mannyv wrote: post #138

They're not tracking locations because they're not using GPS. They are checking the environment for stuff that might have known locations, which is different. You can do the same with bluetooth/BLE.

> You can do the same with bluetooth/BLE.

Not anymore you can't. Sometime before 2020 apple, and also google, started treating BLE scanning as an operation needing location permissions. (I had to deal with this transition while submitting an iOS app that connected to a BLE device which actually had a GPS module in it)

As of now, I still have to turn on location on my android phone to connect to some BLE devices.

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#194

Post by ethbr1 »

samstave wrote: post #178
n2d4 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Alipay, but afaict WeChat needs this feature for WeChat Wifi, which lets users connect to internet hotspots from their WeChat accounts https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzI1NjA0NzQzOQ==&mid=265026...

The complexities and capabilities in the Chinese(well, most asia) mobile market are remarkable. I always find it funny when people boast about how great certain things are in the US without ever have traveled to HK, Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing etc... Most people dont realize just how entangled mobile life is in Asia, way more than in the US.

Centralized superapps seem incredibly dangerous to privacy, given that the limited mobile privacy models are designed around per-app permissions.

   1. Create app that does 1 thing
   2. Add more features to app
   3. Abuse superset of permissions
   4. Gov leans on app owner
   5. Gov abuses superset of permissions

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#195

Post by lxgr »

facialwipe wrote: post #112
lxgr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No app gets special treatment for any of the user-grantable permissions like location, Bluetooth, local network access, contacts, photos... What makes this any different? It really seems more like an oversight than a conscious decision, similarly to how (I believe) both iOS and Android have retroactively had to bucket some of the Bluetooth LE permissions into "location", since that's what you can effectively do with…

Giving the world’s most valuable corporation the benefit of the doubt. This is an interesting worldview to have in 2023.

It’s a pretty obscure API, and Apple has a strong interest in at least being perceived as pro user privacy.

And assuming for a second this is indeed an intentional backdoor in plain sight of the world: What’s in it for Apple?

Hanlon’s razor still cuts in 2023, at least for me.

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#196

Post by extraduder_ire »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #180
kevinsync wrote: post #174

Whenever location data collection comes up, I always think about that Seinfeld episode where Kramer is receiving misdialed MovieFone calls -- at first he just talks to the person and reads the movie times out of the newspaper. Very helpful. Eventually, he starts emulating the phone menus, asking the caller "Using your touch-tone keypad, please enter the first three letters of the movie title, now." When this doesn't…

You want to change your location in every app manually, even when your device has a GPS receiver installed?

It'd make for a useful additional option, as long as the app doesn't know it's happening. There are already ways to spoof GPS location, as many pokemon go players know.

iOS already has an option to give a very loose fix to an app.

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#197

Post by rpigab »

stavros wrote: post #59
MBCook wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain apps have always gotten special treatment. If it’s big enough to mess with phone sales they’re allowed nonsense a normal dev would be permanently banned for. Ex: all the stuff FB has been caught doing over the years My understanding (no first hand experience) is that WeChat and Alipay are basically required in China. If a phone doesn’t have them, it’s worthless and won’t sell. So naturally they too can do non…

Why does apple get to decide which app gets automatic access to my private data, on my device, without needing to ask me?

If every big app had to interrupt users to ask for simple things like performing http calls, usability would take a little hit, the nice "UX flow" of apple is a major selling point, so a very small percentage would buy Android phones.

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#198

Post by refulgentis »

samstave wrote: post #178
n2d4 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Alipay, but afaict WeChat needs this feature for WeChat Wifi, which lets users connect to internet hotspots from their WeChat accounts https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzI1NjA0NzQzOQ==&mid=265026...

The complexities and capabilities in the Chinese(well, most asia) mobile market are remarkable. I always find it funny when people boast about how great certain things are in the US without ever have traveled to HK, Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing etc... Most people dont realize just how entangled mobile life is in Asia, way more than in the US.

I think I'm missing some context: ex. there's O(many) apps that offer hotspot connections in the US as well. And my understanding is there's a privacy concern, which I think would be exacerbated by a super-app like WeChat adding this.

What's the great certain things of all that?

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#199

Post by lxgr »

politician wrote: post #91
lxgr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No app gets special treatment for any of the user-grantable permissions like location, Bluetooth, local network access, contacts, photos... What makes this any different? It really seems more like an oversight than a conscious decision, similarly to how (I believe) both iOS and Android have retroactively had to bucket some of the Bluetooth LE permissions into "location", since that's what you can effectively do with…

What’s your basis for saying that Apple doesn’t provide special treatment to apps? I’ve directly experienced both of their special and their non public (phone calls only, refusal to communicate over email) processes.

I’m not claiming that at all in general, but I do believe it’s true when it comes to user-grantable permissions. Or do you have evidence to the contrary?

Re: Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

#200

Post by redwall_hp »

mrtksn wrote: post #54
wwtrv wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However the author forget the mention that you need to apply and get approved to use this API. And? How is this any better? e.g. if I'm a dissident/etc. in China I would be much concerned about government affiliated large corporations being able to track my location than some random private developer (not that this specific API really matters that much if you're using those apps anyway). > I find it dishonest and a…

Your government can track you all the time you have your phone with you, they have authority over the infrastructure. They can also make device manufacturer to track you for them, later you will be a single digit increase in their transparency stats. If you don't want the government track you, you will have to do much better than using mainstream consumer devices. Apple is not your spycraft supplier.

You would also have to not use a phone in general, since your carrier always knows where you are, by the nature of how cellular networks work. Your phone has a unique hardware identifier that is linked to your identity, and every tower knows which phones pinged it recently. Two towers are two points in a triangle, and you're the third.

Carriers constantly perform triangulation and keep records of phones' coordinates, which of course can be subpoenaed, and may be available more freely to government agencies, depending on how much abusive surveillance your local government does. Carriers have also sold this information to data brokers in the past.

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