Apple promises patch for iOS tracking, posts a Q&A

[thewayne]

The patch will encrypt the location database and force it to recycle. Also, if you turn off the location tracking option, it will not store location information in the table.

In the Wired article, Apple says: "Apple calls this “crowdsourcing” location data, because millions of iPhones are collecting this data and transmitting it to Apple to build its comprehensive location database to assist with location services.

“Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes,” Apple said. “iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements).”"

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/iphone-location-bug/


In the Q&A, "4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below). "

Further, Apple claims "The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data."

And finally, the fix: "Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

* reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
* ceases backing up this cache, and
* deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone."

Apple Q&A: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27location_qa.html


http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/04/27/1326252/Apple-Updating-iOS-To-Address-Privacy-Concerns

Comments

[the-samosaurus.livejournal.com]

^_^ thanks!

hehe, not for a gooooooooooood long time. I like the idea of a 1-2 year engagement. Will keep you informed, though! :D

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Russet and I were married 18 months after we met, less than six months after getting engaged. But there were extenuating circumstances that hastened that, i.e., the impending death of her father.

6th anniversary this June!