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The iPhone tracking fiasco and what you can do about it
By now you've no doubt heard about a certain iOS database file called consolidated.db. It made quite a splash yesterday when a pair of researchers, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, from O'Reilly Media announced the "iPhone tracking software" the duo had "discovered hidden on the phones." Here's the problem: they didn't discover it, at least not originally. The file, known to hold large amounts of geolocation data collected from WiFi access points and cell-towers, has been probed by forensic experts ever since the retail launch of the iPhone 4 back in June of 2010. Hell, Sean Morrissey and Alex Levinson published a physical book on the topic back in December 2010, entire excerpts of which can easily be found on Google. So either the team from O'Reilly is being disingenuous with its claims or it's being lazy. Regardless, the story laid dormant for months until the O'Reilly team was able to visualize the data in a very personal way. Running the team's open-source iPhoneTracker software to see the detailed locations of our worldly travels is absolutely fascinating. Imagining the same data file in the hands of a stalker, misguided detective, or a jealous lover is downright creepy. But how is it possible that an issue like this has avoided the tech community at large for more than a year? And more importantly, what can you do about it? Read on to find out. Update: A timely discovery from Vishal -- here's a note from Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell [PDF] to Congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton, providing a detailed look at its privacy policy, presumably regarding this issue.
Untrackerd wipes stored location data on your jailbroken iPhone
The iPhone and iPad seem to be storing location data about your travels using cell tower information. Whether you believe that Apple is secretly spying on you or just storing the locations of cell towers for some purpose, such as speedier connections to said towers, if you don't like it, you now have an option. Ryan Petrich, a renowned jailbreak app developer, has released a free little utility called "untrackerd" that runs in the background and continuously cleans stored location history data. You will, of course, have to have a jailbroken iPhone or iPad to install the app from Cydia, but if you're not happy about the possibility of your iPhone or iPad's location history being accessible, then head to Cydia now and install the 37 KB app from the BigBoss repository for peace of mind. [via 9to5Mac]
