Big Brother Is Watching You with iPhones

[Opaque]

NPR has a crazy fucking story.

Researchers at the University of Exeter discovered that iPhones using the latest operating system keeps detailed records of where you've been.

At the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference, Peter Warden, of Data Science Toolkit, and Alasdair Allan, a researcher at University of Exeter, said they were looking to visualize information on phones. It might reveal things you didn't even know you were carrying around said Warden.

On their iPhones, they found a file simply titled "consolidated.db" and it had a series of latitude and longitudes. Perhaps, the researchers thought, the phone would store a week's worth of locations for the pictures they had taken. Then they took the data and put it on a map and were surprised with what they found.

"It turned out to be pretty much a year's worth of data for every cell [tower] that we've been through since we upgraded to iOS4," said Warden.

Credit goes to Josh for posting this on Facebook. I don't know why he didn't post it here, though. Shit is nuts.

[icarusfall]

Yeah, a friend posted this earlier on fb. Shit like this is unacceptable.

[Josh]

It is way lame, but not as lame as it could be.

[Opaque]

It's more the implications of what it could turn into.

I mean, they could potentially use stuff like this as evidence in court. Is it legal to keep this kind of information without your expressed consent? TNL lawyers?

[Josh]

It's stored locally on your computer. It's on you if it's not encrypted.

[MechDeus]

I just use foursquare at the houses of the people I murder. It's easier for me to keep track that way.

[Nash]

It is way lame, but not as lame as it could be.

Just wait.

[Fe 26]

This is awesome. I wonder how long it will be before this information is sued to get someone off or convicted.

[Rhydant]

Well then, I'm really glad I didn't upgrade to iOS 4. Ha.

This would cause more of a shitstorm if people didn't love Apple so much. If this was found on a Windows-based phone? Mother of God, people would be rioting. But it's only been a few days. Let's see how pissed people get.

[icarusfall]

I think the difference there is in the size and spread of the company.