tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post2112824799543104600..comments2023-12-14T05:22:45.323-07:00Comments on geothought: The scoop: Apple's iPhone is NOT storing your accurate location, and NOT storing historyPeter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-2403139113999123362011-04-26T21:52:46.655-06:002011-04-26T21:52:46.655-06:00@Anonymous I'm not sure I understand your poin...@Anonymous I'm not sure I understand your point. The iPhone is downloading information about cell towers and wifi access points close to you to assist in quickly calculating your location when applications request this.Peter Battyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-52880727714476693872011-04-26T17:35:59.147-06:002011-04-26T17:35:59.147-06:00Part of my comments have already been e-mailed to ...Part of my comments have already been e-mailed to Mr. Batty.<br /><br />Why would Apple be interested in even the approximate location? In my area which has a high population density, transmission and I assume receiving towers are going up all over the place. There is such a thing as signal strength and triangulation. As far as I'm concerned, ones' very good approximate location can beAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-85935588473013303192011-04-26T10:08:17.534-06:002011-04-26T10:08:17.534-06:00The WWDC 2010 session mentioned in an earlier expl...The WWDC 2010 session mentioned in an earlier explains that the iOS pre-fetches "nearby" cell and wi-fi location data, so that it can still locate you if move location and also lose internet connectivity. Maybe this is why people are saying the location data in consolidated.db is "inaccurate".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-58011499487653404142011-04-26T06:56:47.011-06:002011-04-26T06:56:47.011-06:00@MichiKami Thanks!
By not storing history I mean ...@MichiKami Thanks!<br /><br />By not storing history I mean that if I go back to LAX, that record would be over-written and you would just see the most recent time I had been there. This is important as it reveals much less about your behavior patterns. See the example I gave about Sean Gorman's office location - there was only one timestamp for records in that area, although he goes there Peter Battyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-2917310449137537222011-04-26T00:22:50.012-06:002011-04-26T00:22:50.012-06:00Thanks Peter, this is the best discussion thread I...Thanks Peter, this is the best discussion thread I've come across regarding the iPhone location issue.<br /><br />A couple of your posts mentioned the Timestamp. These are SQLite files, and time is in 'seconds since 1/1/2001'. Excel stores time in 'days since 1/1/1900'. Here's an explanation of the data extraction and mapping process for Windows users:<br />http://MichiKamihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09730148319554234078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-25296609094402087012011-04-25T16:45:44.293-06:002011-04-25T16:45:44.293-06:00Good work Peter (and Sean).
Was my immediate con...Good work Peter (and Sean). <br /><br />Was my immediate conclusion after cracking my data open Wed morning http://twitter.com/#!/dunkmac/status/60815593326133248 but I was far too lazy to bother doing any sensible post on it like you and Sean!<br /><br />I found the experience (esp since I was at Where 2.0) of watching this thing explode made me surprisingly quite angry. Watching some smart big Duncanhttp://placeiq.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-42172036892085259152011-04-25T09:48:49.865-06:002011-04-25T09:48:49.865-06:00GPS used to initialize faster if the chip had some...GPS used to initialize faster if the chip had <i>some idea</i> of where you were when it began searching for satellites and began triangulating. Is it possible this cache enables faster map initialization? I've been amazed at how fast the iPhone picks up where I am - it's nearly instant. <br /><br />Contrast that with my Garmin car GPS, which often has to ask me if I have moved a Tim Beidelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08923458140529750094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-42161716391541612652011-04-25T07:55:34.799-06:002011-04-25T07:55:34.799-06:00All this paranoia about the iPhone storing locatio...All this paranoia about the iPhone storing locations, who the hell cares, it some ways it could actually be a good thing, that way if criminals who have iPhones are caught, police could easily see if they were at the location of the crime at the exact time the crime was carried out. BUSTED<br /><br />In fact a few years ago in South Florida, police were able to solve a murder because the scumbag Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-33903652685092082082011-04-25T06:11:44.040-06:002011-04-25T06:11:44.040-06:00All this fuss about revealing your home address......All this fuss about revealing your home address...why not just look it up in the white pages. For most people, it's still available there, on search engines, and nowadays, peoples business addresses are available in LinkedIn, etc.<br /><br />Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-31668858799749730752011-04-24T14:04:14.713-06:002011-04-24T14:04:14.713-06:00@Leslie Pete Warden mentions here that there are s...@Leslie Pete Warden mentions <a href="http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/#0" rel="nofollow">here</a> that there are some Windows ports of his app. I did a quick search and found <a href="http://iphonetracker4win.codeplex.com/" rel="nofollow">this</a> - haven't tried it as I'm a Mac guy :). There may be other options around too.Peter Battyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-21140740531877821492011-04-24T13:45:13.979-06:002011-04-24T13:45:13.979-06:00How does a non-Mac person get this info off their ...How does a non-Mac person get this info off their phone? I saw the app that was created but I am a PC person. I would love to see what I have been up to.Lesliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04386922998249553696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-38803014078927055222011-04-24T13:38:43.924-06:002011-04-24T13:38:43.924-06:00@Hal read my previous posts - in the first one I u...@Hal read my previous posts - in the first one I used Pete Warden's app which does some aggregation and hides some detail. In the second one I extracted the raw data and uploaded to Google Fusion Tables, so there is no loss of info there. I show multiple examples of how the data does not indicate anything about individual addresses you've been to, just general areas.Peter Battyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-43852042336026707412011-04-24T13:28:46.957-06:002011-04-24T13:28:46.957-06:00nice post.
for step by step guide to jailbreak yo...nice post.<br /><br />for step by step guide to jailbreak your iphone visit<br /><br />http://www.xionsms.com/2011/04/jailbreak-iphone-4-and-iphone-3gs-using.htmladminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11600595844555391892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-21423504400966459362011-04-24T13:25:55.977-06:002011-04-24T13:25:55.977-06:00Um, you do know the app purposefully adds distorti...Um, you do know the app purposefully adds distortion to the data by mapping to a grid, right? This is a distortion in the app's code not in the actual data. <br /><br />Get the source and remove that distortion and you'll see how much more accurate the data actually is.Hal Hildebrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04179863099003329867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-66548507386845264742011-04-24T12:48:26.261-06:002011-04-24T12:48:26.261-06:00Came to the same conclusion after investigating my...Came to the same conclusion after investigating my own iphone "location log".<br /><br />If ownly bloggers and news writers had down that bevor posting what others told them too. It does happen everytime something more technical happens ... nobody takes the time to properly investigate what they are writing about :(Sebbihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15827966168428964891noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-83351870202140249532011-04-24T11:10:43.952-06:002011-04-24T11:10:43.952-06:00@Harry thanks for the link. Yes I've looked at...@Harry thanks for the link. Yes I've looked at the WiFi data and didn't find it gave away anything more - if you can tell where I live from <a href="http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S183605HfyU" rel="nofollow">this map</a> of the wifi locations in my log in Denver, I'll buy you a beer :)Peter Battyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-89521044222207896612011-04-24T10:53:23.182-06:002011-04-24T10:53:23.182-06:00Did you see Ollie Obrien's blog post on the ma...Did you see <a href="http://oliverobrien.co.uk/2011/04/iphonetracker/" rel="nofollow">Ollie Obrien's blog post on the matter</a>? He managed to mix in the wifi data (also in the file) to give a more accurate view of where he's been around London, but maybe still not enough to figure out where his office and home are.Harry Woodhttp://harrywood.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-17321390708124405072011-04-24T10:50:40.880-06:002011-04-24T10:50:40.880-06:00@Anonymous you're right, that information has ...@Anonymous you're right, that information has been lost in all the fuss, this is the first time I'd seen it. Thanks for this document, it is very helpful.<br /><br />The main items relating to this discussion are on p7, including the following:<br /><br />"When a customer requests current location information ... Apple will retrieve known locations for nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi Peter Battyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-26680287761989976432011-04-24T10:31:14.538-06:002011-04-24T10:31:14.538-06:00As has been lost in all the excitement, this isn&#...As has been lost in all the excitement, this isn't new information nor is it secret. Apple provided complete details/limitations of the Core Location data collection and transfer activities in July last year http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2011/04/applemarkeybarton7-12-10.pdf<br /><br />This cache was also detailed in the WWDC 2010 session entitled “Using Core Location in iOS”.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com