Fi' all u iPhone people...

[j-kid]

Re: Fi' all u iPhone people...

Yes, every phone has dynamic tracking, however they don't save the data. Some one tracking you have to plot the data with separate exterior software, and in theory, this access is accessible to authorized personnel only.

iPhone has a built in history dat is saving and plotting the data on every individual unit. The data is potentially available to anyone who steals, found, or hack your unit. This can have far reaching ramifications.

[RichD]

Re: Fi' all u iPhone people...

Apple announce a fix of this "bug"

[j-kid]

Re: Fi' all u iPhone people...

When Is Tracking Too Much?


JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer
POSTED: Saturday, April 23, 2011
UPDATED: 11:55 pm EDT April 23, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO -- If you're worried about privacy, you can turn off the function on your smartphone that tracks where you go. But that means giving up the services that probably made you want a smartphone in the first place. After all, how smart is an iPhone or an Android if you can't use it to map your car trip or scan reviews of nearby restaurants?

The debate over digital privacy flamed higher this week with news that Apple Inc.'s popular iPhones and iPads store users' GPS coordinates for a year or more. Phones that run Google Inc.'s Android software also store users' location data. And not only is the data stored - allowing anyone who can get their hands on the device to piece together a chillingly accurate profile of where you've been - but it's also transmitted back to the companies to use for their own research.

Now, cellphone service providers have had customers' location data for almost as long as there have been cellphones. That's how they make sure to route calls and Internet traffic to the right place. Law enforcement analyzes location data on iPhones for criminal evidence - a practice that Alex Levinson, technical lead for firm Katana Forensics, said has helped lead to convictions. And both Apple and Google have said that the location data that they collect from the phones is anonymous and not able to be tied back to specific users.

But lawmakers and many users say storing the data creates an opportunity for one's private information to be misused. Levinson, who raised the iPhone tracking issue last year, agrees that people should start thinking about location data as just as valuable and worth protecting as a wallet or bank account number.
"We don't know what they're going to do with that information," said Dawn Anderson, a creative director and Web developer in Glen Mills, Pa., who turned off the GPS feature on her Android-based phone even before the latest debate about location data. She said she doesn't miss any of the location-based services in the phone. She uses the GPS unit in her car instead.

"With any technology, there are security risks and breaches," she added. "How do we know that it can't be compromised in some way and used for criminal things?"
Privacy watchdogs note that location data opens a big window into very private details of a person's life, including the doctors they see, the friends they have and the places where they like to spend their time. Besides hackers, databases filled with such information could become inviting targets for stalkers, even divorce lawyers.
Do you sync your iPhone to your computer? Well, all it would take to find out where you've been is simple, free software that pulls information from the computer. Voila! Your comings and goings, clandestine or otherwise, helpfully pinpointed on a map.
One could make the case that privacy isn't all that prized these days. People knowingly trade it away each day, checking in to restaurants and stores via social media sites like Foursquare, uploading party photos to Facebook to be seen by friends of friends of friends, and freely tweeting the minutiae of their lives on Twitter.
More than 500 million people have shared their personal information with Facebook to connect with friends on the social networking service. Billions of people search Google and Yahoo each month, accepting their tracking "cookies" in exchange for access to the world's digital information. And with about 5 billion people now using cellphones, a person's location has become just another data point to be used for marketing, the same way that advertisers now use records of Web searches to show you online ads tailored to your interest in the Red Sox, or dancing, or certain stores.
Autumn Bradfish, a sophomore at the University of Iowa, said she doesn't see a problem with phone companies using her location to produce targeted ads, as long as they deliver relevant offers to her. She said she would not disable the tracking feature on her iPhone because she enjoys using a mapping app that helps her find new restaurants.
"I'm terrible with maps," she said.
The very fact that your location is a moving target makes it that much more alluring for advertisers. Every new place you go represents a new selling opportunity. In that sense, smartphone technology is the ultimate matchmaker for marketers looking to assemble profiles on prospective customers.
That profiling is what makes some users uneasy.

At a technology conference in San Francisco this past week, security researchers disclosed that iPhones and iPads keep a small file of location data on their users. That file - which is not encrypted and thus vulnerable to hacking - is transferred when you sync your phone to your computer to back up information. Security firm F-Secure Corp. said the iPhone sends users' location data to Apple twice a day to improve its database of known Wi-Fi networks.

The data that is available goes back to last year's launch of Apple's new iOS 4 operating software. Researchers say the tracking was going on before that, though the file was in a different format and wasn't easy to find until the new system came out. In June, Apple added a section to its privacy policy to note that it would collect some real-time location data from iPhone users in order to improve its features.

While Apple has been silent about the latest findings, it has noted that its practice is clearly spelled out in user agreements. Other phone makers say the same. Google acknowledged this past week that it does store some location data directly on phones for a short time from users who have chosen to use GPS services, "in order to provide a better mobile experience on Android devices." It too stressed that any location sharing on Android is done with the user's permission.

But consumer advocates warn that too many people click right through privacy notifications and breeze over or ignore such legalese. Case in point -some iPhone users who found about this past week about the data storage say they didn't know anything about Apple's tracking.

"It's like being stalked by a secret organization. Outrageous!" said Jill Kuraitis, 54, a freelance journalist in Boise, Idaho. "To be actively tracking millions of people without notification? It's beyond unacceptable."

It's easy to tell smartphone users that turning off tracking is as easy as finding their way to the settings menu. But to opt out of GPS service means preventing the software on your phone from using any information about where you are. That means cutting yourself off from the vast array of mobile apps that offer discounts and ads, allow you to connect more easily with friends who use social media, and simplify your life with map directions. Not a great trade-off.

And if you thought there were laws that curbed tracking, think again.
The government prohibits telephone companies from sharing customer data, including location information, with outside parties without first getting the customer's consent. But those rules don't apply to Apple and other phone makers. Nor do they apply to the new ecosystem of mobile services offered through those apps made by third-party developers.

What's more, because those rules were written for old-fashioned telephone service, it's unclear whether they apply to mobile broadband service at all - even for wireless carriers that are also traditional phone companies, like AT&T Inc. and Verizon.
Both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have said they are looking into the issue. But for now, it's up to smartphone users to decide: Is it privacy they are most concerned about, or convenience?
___
AP writers Ryan J. Foley in Iowa City, Iowa, Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia and AP Technology Writers Joelle Tessler in Washington and Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this report.

[j-kid]

Re: Fi' all u iPhone people...

Apple: IPhone Not Tracking Users, Will Get Update

PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
POSTED: Wednesday, April 27, 2011
UPDATED: 8:12 pm EDT April 27, 2011

NEW YORK -- Apple denied that the iPhone has a privacy problem Wednesday - and then promised to fix it. It took the technology giant a week to respond to a brouhaha over how the devices log their owners' movements.

Privacy concerns erupted last week when security researchers said a file found on PCs linked to iPhones allowed them to create maps of the phones' movements for up to a year. Combined with similar questions about Google's Android smartphone software, the news left privacy-conscious smartphone users wondering how much information they were unknowingly giving up.

Apple denied claims that it was keeping tabs on its customers, saying the file records Wi-Fi hot spots and cell towers in the general area of iPhones, not the whereabouts of their users.

The company implied that the privacy concerns raised by that file were partly based on a misunderstanding. But it also said that a software error was the reason the files are storing up to a year's worth of information, and that it would fix that issue and others in a few weeks.

"Users are confused, partly because creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date," Apple said in its first comprehensive response to the allegations. It had revealed the nature of the location file in a letter to Congress last summer following an earlier round of questions about its location-tracking practices.

The data help the phone figure out its location, Apple said. They allow the phone to listen for signals from hot spots and cell towers, which are much stronger than signals from GPS satellites. Wi-Fi signals don't reach very far, which means that if a phone picks up a signal it recognizes, it can deduce that it's close to that hot spot.

Taken together, this means navigation applications can present the phone's location faster and more accurately than if the phone relied on GPS alone, Apple said.
However, it's still not clear why the files are so detailed that they allow the reconstruction of the phone's movements.

In its 10-point question-and-answer statement, Apple didn't address why the files contain "timestamps" that link a phone to certain hot spots and cell towers at a certain time. Those timestamps are what allowed the researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden to construct animated maps of a phone's movements over a year.
Warden said that as far as he could tell, Apple could have used the location data productively without storing timestamps. He said he's pleased the company is applying software fixes to safeguard the data.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based privacy rights group, commended the company for quickly making significant changes to the iPhone operating system.
But Larry L. Smith, the president of the Institute for Crisis Management, a public relations company, said Apple should have responded to concerns last week even if it didn't have all the answers ready.
Questions such as "Is Apple tracking my iPhone's location?" are not entirely unexpected, and Apple should have had some standby statements ready to go, Smith said.
Apple's reaction is reminiscent of its response last summer, when Consumer Reports and others reported that the iPhone 4 suffered from signal loss when held a certain way.

Apple stayed quiet for a week after the launch of the phone, then denied there was a hardware problem but said it would fix how the iPhone displayed its signal bars. Two weeks later, it offered free protective cases that insulated the antenna, mitigating the signal loss. It still denied the design was flawed. The phone's appeal stayed intact.
Apple is not the only technology company addressing allegations that it's tracking customers. Google Inc. acknowledged last week that phones running its Android software store some location data directly on phones for a short time from users who have chosen to use GPS services. Google said that was done "to provide a better mobile experience on Android devices."

Apple said iPhone data are stored for up to a year because of a software error. The company said there's no need to store data for more than seven days, and a software update in the next few weeks will limit the size of the file.
The iPhone will also stop backing up the file to the user's computer, a practice that raised some concerns. Computers are much more vulnerable to remote hacking attempts than are phones.

A third planned fix is to encrypt the file, and to stop downloading the data completely to phones that have all "Location Services" turned off, Apple said.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, said he still has questions about why Apple didn't tell users what it was doing.

"This has raised larger questions of how the locations of mobile devices are tracked and shared by companies like Apple and Google, and whether federal laws provide adequate protection as technology has advanced," Franken said Wednesday. He plans a hearing on cellphones and privacy next month.

The way an iPhone stores its own location appears to be at most a minor privacy threat. A snoop would need access to the victim's phone or PC, both of which usually store lots of other personal information. Phones contain texts, emails and lists of phone calls. PCs contain such information as tax returns, logs of websites visited and passwords.

There's a separate issue of smartphones like the iPhone transmitting their location wirelessly to corporate servers. In Wednesday's statement, Apple reiterated that iPhones regularly send their location to Apple, but do so anonymously, so the company isn't able to track users.

IPhones can also transmit a user's location to companies that run applications with location-based services, with the user's consent. Companies that buy ads through Apple's iAds advertising system can also locate users, but only ones that specifically approve of a location request from a particular ad.
Apple shares fell 27 cents to $350.15 on Wednesday.
___
AP Technology Writers Joelle Tessler in Washington and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.