A location-based services (LBS) are a hot topic among mobile services developers. A location-based service (LBS) is an information or entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. Modern smart-phones have abilities to locate the position of the mobile phone using using GPS and/or based on the radio signal delay of the closest cell-phone towers.
Location information can be used for all kind of services including mobile phone tracking. GPS real time tracking of a person is technically quite possible, by using certain software and hardware tools. The phone could be sending the location data in real time or collecting the places visited to a file inside the phone. A malware can turn your smart-phone to a tracking device.
The widespread collection of location information is the latest frontier in the booming market for personal data. It seems that very many smart-phones track user location and store it on the device (or even send to the phone manufacturer), usually without the permission of the device owner.
Researchers found that iPhones store unencrypted databases containing location information sometimes stretching back. iPhone Tracker open-source application maps the information that your iPhone is recording about your movements to hidden files.
Apple Inc.’s iPhones and Google Inc.’s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal. This is intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data. Should you care that your iPhone’s logging your location? Apple gives some answers on their side.
Recent news have surfaced that also Nokia phones and Windows Phone 7 phones also collect and send out the location information.
Cellphones have many reasons to collect location information, which helps provide useful services like local-business lookups and social-networking features. Some location data can also help cellphone networks more efficiently route calls.
Google also has said it uses some of the data to build accurate traffic maps. Apple gathers the data to help build a “database with known location information”. Windows Phone 7 transmits to Microsoft a miniature data dump including a unique device ID, details about nearby Wi-Fi networks, and the phone’s GPS-derived exact latitude and longitude.
Maybe the phone manufacturers should have informed the customers on the customers on this beforehand and get their permission to do this. This kind of data collecting can be a potential privacy problems, but maybe the companies can to this because most Smartphone users do care about location privacy according to a new research from Nielsen.
The user is identifiable if you have a series of events. One privacy concern is that location databases can be a gold mine for police or civil litigants: requesting cell phone location information from wireless carriers has become a staple of criminal investigations.
Before the smart-phone era your operator knew your location at certain accuracy. It is needed for the cell phone network to work correctly. A cellphone is continuously sending and receiving signals to and from the nearest operator tower. Even in the standby mode, a cellphone is ‘active’ with the wireless communication. The signals received from cellphones are located by the cellphone service provider by analyzing the signals. Initially, two or three towers nearest to the cellphone are located. These figures are then compared with regards to the relative strengths of their signals. Using this method, a cellphone can be traced to within a 100 meters of its exact place. Your telephone operator could be using this information and even store it. You need to trust them if you use using cell phone.
Android chief Andy Rubin and other Google executives emphasized that collecting location data from consumers’ smartphones was “extremely valuable to Google,” and detailed the trouble the company was having with data collection in the wake of a privacy blowup involving Google’s Street View cars.
Earlier this week, Google reiterated that no location data is collected through Android phones unless users explicitly give permission when they are setting up a new phone.
The opt-in question comes when users are asked to check a box that reads: “Allow Google’s location service to collect anonymous location data. Collection will occur even when no applications are running.” If they opt in, users have the option to later turn off data collection at any time, Google said.
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_17960065?nclick_check=1
Share Your iPhone Location Data Like You Mean It
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/05/01/1514256/Share-Your-iPhone-Location-Data-Like-You-Mean-It
The crazy guys over at crowdflow.net are begging you for the location data that your iPhone collected without you being aware of it. All your data will be anonymized, and the whole combined data set of all donations will be shared under an OpenDataCommons license. Those people are data and visualization geeks and create beautiful visualizations like this from the data, like this http://crowdflow.net/blog/2011/04/28/wifi-stations-in-berlin/
Apple says it has fixed the bug on iOS the caused the device to collect location information on long time. The new iOS 4.3.3 update will update the parts the collect location information. After update all the location data will be discarded when location services are closed or information is older than one week old.
Source: http://www.itviikko.fi/uutiset/2011/05/05/apple-korjasi-iphonen-sijaintibugit/20116403/7?rss=8
Apple causes ‘religious’ reaction in brains of fans, say neuroscientists
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/apple-causes-religious-reaction-in-brains-of-fans-say-neuroscientists/
In a recently screened BBC documentary, UK neuroscientists suggested that the brains of Apple devotees are stimulated by Apple imagery in the same way that the brains of religious people are stimulated by religious imagery.
Some cars can also collect your location information and reveal it to word:
Nissan LEAF CARWINGS tells any RSS feed provider your current position, speed, direction, destination, etc.
http://seattlewireless.net/~casey/?p=97
The Nissan LEAF all-electric car is full of technological firsts. One of which is a GSM cellular connection to the internet for providing voluntary telemetry information to Nissan, new charging stations, competitive driver rankings, and even RSS feeds. This is called Nissan CARWINGS.
After creating some of my own third party RSS feeds, I noticed something very peculiar in the HTTP GET in my apache logs
Looking at the GET string above, “lat” and “lon” variables contain the current position of the vehicle, “speed” is the vehicle speed, “car_dir” is the direction of the car, and “lat_dst” and “lon_dst” is your destination configured in your navigation system.
All of these lovely values are being provided to any third party RSS provider you configure: CNN, Fox News, Weather Channel, it doesn’t matter! While a lot of these providers are probably not aware of these (rather valuable) parameters the car passes, they probably sit in thousands of HTTP logs already, waiting to be parsed out — or perhaps supported in the future.
Infographic: Do You Care About Privacy on Your Cell Phone?
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/infographic-do-you-care-about-privacy-on-your-cell-phone/240339/
Google curbs Web map exposing phone locations
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20074571-281/google-curbs-web-map-exposing-phone-locations/
Google has taken steps to limit the disclosure of the locations of millions of iPhones, laptops, and other devices with Wi-Fi connections after a CNET article drew attention to privacy concerns.
Wi-Fi-enabled devices, including PCs, iPhones, iPads, and Android phones, transmit a unique hardware identifier, called a MAC address, to anyone within a radius of approximately 100 to 200 feet. Until CNET’s June 15 article was published, if someone captured or already knew that unique address, Google’s server could reveal a previous location where that device was located, including home or work addresses or even the addresses of restaurants frequented.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20074571-281/google-curbs-web-map-exposing-phone-locations/#ixzz1QYY8dPlU
[...] on smartphone raises the awareness of privacy attacks on smartphone sensors. Besides the obvious privacy concern over the GPS sensor, researchers have shown attacks using the camera and [...]
Here is one interesting blog posting that tells on using cell phone location technologies to locate a stolen cell phone:
A Look Inside the Search for My Stolen Cell Phone
By Jared Keller
A cumbersome legal process provides less accurate information on a phone’s whereabouts than a third-party application
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/a-look-inside-the-search-for-my-stolen-cell-phone/244010/#.TlQXbFnjMNA.reddit
thats cool i have purchase nokia n9 mobile with linux oprating system and this is too much good but use too much hard
but its a good thing with good oprations
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[...] will increase and more details of it will surface. Last year’s findings have included Location data collecting smart-phones, Carrier IQ phone spying busted and Police Surveillance system to monitor mobile phones. In USA the [...]
Leaky Cellphone Nets Can Give Attackers Your Location
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/02/20/010216/leaky-cellphone-nets-can-give-attackers-your-location
“GSM cellular networks leak enough location data to give third-parties secret access to cellphone users’ whereabouts, according to new University of Minnesota research. ‘We have shown that there is enough information leaking from the lower layers of the GSM communication stack to enable an attacker to perform location tests on a victim’s device.
Attackers have all they need from leaky cellphone networks to track you down
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/0217120-gsm-cellphone-privacy-leak-minnesota-256293.html
GSM cellular networks leak enough location data to give third-parties secret access to cellphone users’ whereabouts, according to new University of Minnesota research.
“We have shown that there is enough information leaking from the lower layers of the GSM communication stack to enable an attacker to perform location tests on a victim’s device. We have shown that those tests can be performed silently without a user being aware by aborting PSTN calls before they complete,” write the authors, from the College of Science and Engineering, in a paper titled “Location Leaks on the GSM Air Interface.”
Location Leaks on the GSM Air Interface
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~foo/research/docs/fookune_ndss_gsm.pdf
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So What Exactly Can Location Aggregators Do With Our Foursquare Data?
http://allthingsd.com/20120403/so-what-exactly-can-location-aggregators-do-with-our-foursquare-data/
The widespread analysis of the matter was that Girls Around Me was creepy, but that people should realize that when they publish their locations online, bad things may happen. Technology writers, in our enthusiastically adopted roles as the white knights of online privacy, urged readers to lock down their Foursquare and Facebook profiles.
The situation made me curious about what, exactly, location aggregators are being allowed to do with our location data. It’s one thing to share where you are with your friends, or with what you think is a small audience of early adopters. But what’s more tricky — and can often feel icky — is when that information is exposed in a different context.
The point of sharing our locations is to explore new places, meet new people, and brag about doing cool stuff. I doubt that the majority of the population will be volunteering where they are on Foursquare anytime soon. But those of us who want a little more serendipity in our lives now know a bit more about how our information will be used.
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