Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Researchers display evidence that iPhone 4 records all your travels...

If you didn't already think your smartphone knows too much about you, here's a handy reminder. A duo of UK researchers have uncovered a potentially worrying (and oddly enough, undocumented) feature in iOS 4: it asks your iPhone to record your location constantly, then timestamps that data and records it for posterity. The trouble with this unsolicited location tracking is that the hidden file that holds the data -- consolidated.db -- is relatively easy to uncover and read, making any desktops you've backed your phone up to and the phone itself even bigger privacy dangers than they would usually be. Some extra digging revealed this behavior has been known about for a good while (see Courbis link below), though mostly by people involved in computer forensics. More + video...

Don't miss:
  1. Police in Michigan downloading motorists' smart phone information illegally...
  2. Your cell-phone is tracking your every move, and you may not even know...
  3. Beijing to try out mobile phone tracking system...
  4. EU warns telecom firms against blocking Skype...
  5. Steve Jobs, the iPhone and Foxconn, China's sweatshop suicide factory... 

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