There's a bit of a stink going on - even in major media - about something iOS 4's been doing. Apparently, iOS 4 has been storing a list of locations and timestamps to a hidden, but readable file in a standard database format. The locations are triangulated using cell towers, and generally aren't as accurate as for instance GPS. Still, the file is stored without any form of protection on both your iPhone as well as your desktop.
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Member since:2009-12-07
It is being sent to Apple. Every 24 hours a list is submitted off the phone to Apple servers since iOS 3.2. Android does it every few minutes since I think 1.6. Google servers appear to me to be receiving the 50 most recently connected cellsites and the MACs of the last few hundred broadcasted wifi SSID. Dunno about Apple, but the list in cosolidated.db seems to be retaining a year's worth.
They are using your hardware and your movements as the largest dynamic, for-profit illicit sensor network in history and both are using a 2 line sentence buried in a EULA to say they have user assent. The extent to which either Google or Apple are anonymising the data collected upstream is not known to me.
This is not a new effort for Google, they tried it earlier with their Google Street View fleet of vehicles. As they went out snapping images they also were intruding into any available wifi network and recording signal strength as they passed by in order to attempt "wifi triangulation". As interesting as it is unethical. They are trying to create landmarking indexes in order to sell or give it away as a service on their respective platforms for "located" directed advertising. Google earlier blamed an errant unnamed engineer and the investigation didn't even levy a single penalty (lol). Now I'm guessing they believe they are covered by some EULA so won't have to come up with a fall guy this time around.
Why is this being so misunderstood? Is it because a few fanboi "tech sites" that have no engineers on staff say it isn't?
Why do you think Apple has not said one word in response about this? I'm guessing because the lawyers know they are in bad, bad place and especially in Europe where privacy laws are actually enforced. Al Franken will hopefully put Jobs or Cook in front of a committee panel with subpoena power and ask him directly but I doubt anything more than the letter already sent will happen. I think in Europe the real issue will be whether or not Apple has transferred or sold the data collected to another corporate entity in violation of consumer rights.
Borderline absurd. What's it going to take? Packet captures that fanboi journalists can't understand anyway? Even days after it has been shown to be the case the headline for this dedicated os news site still says, "not being sent to Apple". Tech journalism is absurdly bad anymore. Seems pretty much limited to rewording press releases and covering paper launches of products with lip gloss "reviews".
It is not without humor that what appears to have most (probably male) iOS users concerned is not the loss of privacy without compensation to corporate interests but the fact that a divorce lawyer with a subpoena could get the information rather easily, let alone a tech-savy spouse/partner since the file resides on a probably shared, easily accessible filesystem.
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Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow."During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.
Member since:
2005-07-25
...But it's Not Sent to Apple
Thats like saying "some guys just took your wife, but don't worry, they're not fucking her". Pheww thank god for that, now I wonder whats on TV....
Why is this functionality present in the phone? Undoubtedly Apples excuse will be that its a "bug". This will keep the tech-ignorant main stream media happy like when Google used that excuse when caught stealing peoples private wifi information.
But are the tech watching sites going to give apple a free ride on this? No doubt the shills are being mobilized and briefed by Apple PR to start the disinformation campaign. The usual excuse-making cheer-leading whores who sold out years ago: mossberg, ihnatko, pogue etc.