Your iPhone is keeping track of you...

Commenter on Guardian, apt given the date:

This is a major security threat. In the future when I lead the resistance against Skynet, this data will make it much easier for them to send a Terminator back in time to kill me. That probably is Apple's plan.
Click to expand...
 
I'm pretty sure that this requirement became mandatory for communication devices for the first time back in 1996.
Of course, back then, anyone who mentioned it was a conspiracy theorist.

It's similar to people claiming that fluoride is a toxic waste. At the moment, these people are called kooks but I've successfully procured an information pack on hexafluorosilicic acid from Yara Industrial who supply this ****e for water companies to dump in their water in some areas. It quite plainly states that it's hazardous waste obtained from wet scrubbers before the toxins are expelled from the smokestacks. Dressed in euphemistic language of course.
 
It's a total none story, the only issue is the file isnt encrypted. Apple are working on a fix. The file has been there since iPhone 3 just in a different place. It's used by apps to help locate your position and is not sent to apple at all.

[Apple 'not tracking' iPhone users

Apple's iPhone and iPad 3G appeared to collect information about their users' location
Apple has denied that its iPhones and 3G iPads have been secretly recording their owners' movements.

In a website posting, the company said it had never tracked user location and had no plans to do so in future.

Security researchers claimed to have found a hidden file on the devices containing a record of everywhere they had been.

Some users managed to extract the data and plot it on maps.

More than a week after the issue came to public attention, Apple released an online question and answer document.

It said: "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."

Planned fix

The document also addresses the fact - as some users discovered - that data going back months and even years was being stored.

"It shouldn't. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly," said Apple.

Ian Fogg, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said that the company was being uncharacteristically open about the functioning of its devices.

"I do not think that that the other [makers of mobile operating systems] have been as black and white about what they are doing with location data," he said.

While Mr Fogg believes that Apple is trying to do the right thing, he said that the company may have inadvertently created a security risk.

The fact that the location data file is stored on users' computers in an unencrypted form made it vulnerable to hackers.

Mr Fogg suggested that owners of Apple devices should go into their iTunes settings and select the option to encrypt their backups.
Click to expand...
 
That is you tracking your own phone, able to send messages to it, lock it, change pass lock Or wipe all data off it. It's a great feature especially as it's now free.
 
arfur said:
Mine says its been to places that it hasnt, dont trust it tbh
Click to expand...

Why don't you trust it, the it traces atennas and other such stuff so can be hundred miles or so from where you actually are.

If you read the thread in apple section. There's a link, it's been known about for ages, it isn't a secret and never has been. It's been documented and is nothing to worry about.not sure why it suddenly reared it's head as some unknown file.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom