iPhone GPS tracking
Out of context: Reply #32
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- Boz0
"The tech press was abuzz Wednesday with reports that devices running iOS 4 are tracking your friends, co-workers, and family members through an unencrypted ten-digit phone number and other identifying information, including their first and last name. Apple has not commented publicly on the controversy and it's unclear whether Cupertino is even collecting this data, but Minnesota Sen. Al Franken has penned a letter asking Apple for more details.
"The existence of these ten-digit numbers, stored in an unencrypted format—raises serious privacy concerns," Franken, a Democrat, wrote to Apple's Steve Jobs. "Anyone who gains access to these numbers, in conjunction with the first and last names, could use them for all kinds of nefarious actions. They could find out who you called, when, and how long the calls lasted. They might even make contact themselves with anyone you've ever called. It's disgusting!"
In the House, Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, sent his own letter to Jobs with a request for information.
A Wednesday blog post published on O'Reilly Radar claimed that devices running iOS 4 are keeping all this personal information and storing it an unencrypted manner. The data is being stored to a file known as "contacts," which is easily discovered on a user's iPhone.
"What makes this issue worse is that the file is unencrypted and unprotected, and it's on any machine you've synched with your iOS device. It can also be easily accessed on the device itself if it falls into the wrong hands. Anybody with access to this file knows who you've called, and when," wrote Pete Warden, founder of the Data Science Toolkit, and Alasdair Allan, a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter.
But while this data is being stored on your phones and iOS devices, Warden and Allan acknowledge that there is no "evidence to suggest this data is leaving your custody"--aka, being sent to Apple. There is also "no immediate harm that would seem to come from the availability of this data."
"True," Franken said. "But anyone who finds a lost or stolen iPhone or iPad could easily map out the last year of the user's phone calls, through the manipulation of data. And it'd be pretty easy to make a bunch of phone calls to China, too."
As a result, Franken asked Apple to share why it is allowing its devices to keep this information unencrypted, among other things. He also said that Apple should acknowledge ripping off Dieter Rams if they are going to start suing people for ripping them off."