Apple to address iPhone location concerns with quick release of iOS 4.3.3

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  • Reply 21 of 30
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by libertyforall View Post


    Such nonsense, Apple still provides iTunes, Security and QuickTime updates for 10.5.x, so why should ONE iOS VERSION BACK (3.1.x and still current 4.2.x) be any different?!



    Last year Apple also STILL provided Safari & iTunes updates for 10.4.x, and other updates!



    Updates for apps that happen to run on an older OS, the same way users can get updates for App Store apps that run on iOS.
  • Reply 22 of 30
    blah64blah64 Posts: 993member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    That?s not how I read it. It sounds like your iPhone is recording the nodes, or access points you?ve connected to, sending that to Apple and getting a subset of the DB that replaced the Skyhook service.



    I don?t see how your phone could send an exact GPS location to Apple so it can send back the subset DB so your phone can get faster GPS connections. Your location changes even though we do tend to stay in the same general areas, which is why the subset of the DB needs to contain more than a point of reference.



    At least that is how I understood it.



    Okay, this is a good start. Stuff to think about anyway.



    So if I understand what you're saying, I agree it doesn't make sense at "initialization" time, since that's part of the issue, i.e. how can we get location information faster, and that would slow things down.



    But if GPS isn't correlated at some point (like once the GPS does lock in), then how does location information for the various towers and access points ever make it into Apple's database? Do cell towers know their own lat/lng and report it back to the cell phones during the typical course of communication? I didn't think that was the case, although someone else will surely correct me if I'm wrong. Access points surely don't pass that data back to the client devices.



    And while phones are coming into "contact" with many access points all day long, few iPhone users that I'm aware of actually connect to them, so if it's only recording devices you've connected to, that would seem like it would be a very tiny number. But if data is being sent back to Apple about all the access points within range, in densely populated areas, wow, that could even be more precise "tracking" data than GPS.



    Isn't the whole idea that Apple is creating their own location db of access points to replace skyhook's? If so, they need to gather (and just as importantly, update) that data somehow, and I can't figure out how they'd be doing it if they're not correlating with GPS location in the phones. Which again would imply sending GPS location data back from the device to Apple.



    I'm still puzzled. I'll be more than happy if someone can prove this wrong, it just feels like there's still something missing in the explanations so far.
  • Reply 23 of 30
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blah64 View Post


    We know now that the data stored in this particular file that grabbed the media's attention is not your phone's specific location, but other locatable devices in the vicinity. And the size of the vicinity ranges widely, dependent on where you are, from very tight to many miles. And the data comes from Apple, from their crowd-sourced data, not from your own specific location data.



    The way it was explained to me by one of my tech heads is that it is like genius for locations. They do receive small bits of info from each device telling them what wifi, gps, cell towers that device has collected to. But like one hours worth every couple handful of days. And it sends the info with a randomly generated id number, not anything traceable like your phone number, serial, sim etc



    Then when you connect to something your phone sends another randomly identified request for what other iPhones connecting to that whatever have connected to. Thus it knows where to look for cell towers etc in less time.



    The bug is how much info it is holding. A month at most is enough, for many a week is plenty. But the system isn't auto flushing.



    At no point call Apple pull up the current location of any device or its history.
  • Reply 24 of 30
    steverancesteverance Posts: 27member
    Why blur out the build number in the screen shot only to leave the build number visible in the Title Bar???



    iPhone3.1_4.3.3_8j2_Restore.ipsw
  • Reply 25 of 30
    anthraciteanthracite Posts: 43member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Stourque View Post


    Apparently Osama Bin Laden had an iPhone.



    There was an old man named Osama



    Whose craftiness vexed Prez Obama



    The terrorist's phone



    Would track where he'd roam



    And thus a bullet sent him home to his mama
  • Reply 26 of 30
    suddenly newtonsuddenly newton Posts: 13,819member
    Class act, that Apple. Your move, Google.
  • Reply 27 of 30
    cy_starkmancy_starkman Posts: 653member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post


    What you like and want is irrelevant. Only the likes and wants of the paranoid tinfoil hat crowd counts in this scenario.



    Alas you are right. Seems indeed that the mega corps have become like governments after all...
  • Reply 28 of 30
    firefly7475firefly7475 Posts: 1,502member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blah64 View Post


    But if GPS isn't correlated at some point (like once the GPS does lock in), then how does location information for the various towers and access points ever make it into Apple's database? Do cell towers know their own lat/lng and report it back to the cell phones during the typical course of communication? I didn't think that was the case, although someone else will surely correct me if I'm wrong. Access points surely don't pass that data back to the client devices.



    I think you're right. Actually, you have to be right. It can't work in any other way.



    If it were just cell towers I imagine that Apple could have their own database of that information, and then all your phone would need to do is tell Apple which cell towers it had contacted and Apple could then send your phone GPS co-ordinates of towers around that area.



    However Apple mentioned that wifi points are included as well. That means your phone must be sending Apple the wifi points it has connected to along with its GPS when it was connected.



    I suspect your phone is sending Apple the same data for cell towers.



    However Apple isn't storing that GPS information against your phone, they are storing it against wifi points and cell towers... so they aren't tracking you exactly, they are just GPS, cell tower and wifi information from your phone to build a database.



    I assume this is the same reason why Google decided to grab wifi information from their street view cars.
  • Reply 29 of 30
    peterburkpeterburk Posts: 12member
    Better move quickly to use iPhone Geotag before Apple releases the update then!

    It uses the location data to tag your photos in iPhoto or Aperture.



    Check it out on my site: http://goo.gl/OQzfB



    Peter
  • Reply 30 of 30
    blah64blah64 Posts: 993member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    I think you're right. Actually, you have to be right. It can't work in any other way.



    Thank you! At least someone finally acknowledges it!



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    If it were just cell towers I imagine that Apple could have their own database of that information, and then all your phone would need to do is tell Apple which cell towers it had contacted and Apple could then send your phone GPS co-ordinates of towers around that area.



    However Apple mentioned that wifi points are included as well. That means your phone must be sending Apple the wifi points it has connected to along with its GPS when it was connected.



    I suspect your phone is sending Apple the same data for cell towers.



    However Apple isn't storing that GPS information against your phone, they are storing it against wifi points and cell towers... so they aren't tracking you exactly, they are just GPS, cell tower and wifi information from your phone to build a database.



    And this is where we really don't know the implementation details, because they are behind Apple's closed walls. We can speculate, and we can look at the data being passed back, but I believe that could all be correlated on the back end if they chose to do so. I'm not saying they do that, but it's possible. Sadly, here's where I think the laws need to be updated, to ensure that companies do the right thing.



    Also, even without personally-identifying tags, data can be un-anonymized. Remember the "research data" that AOL released? And with location data, there's a whole other aspect. See: Home/work location pairs.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post


    I assume this is the same reason why Google decided to grab wifi information from their street view cars.



    Sure. It doesn't explain why they were tapping into the data streams though! ;-)
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