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IOS Iphone Privacy Apple

Steve Jobs: 'We Don't Track Anyone' 373

Posted by Soulskill from the truth-is-in-the-iphone-of-the-beholder dept.
fysdt writes "There has obviously been a lot of discussion about last week's disclosure that iOS devices are maintaining an easily-accessible database tracking the movements of users dating back to the introduction of iOS 4 a year ago. The issue has garnered the attention of US elected officials and has played fairly heavily in the mainstream press. One MacRumors reader emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking for clarification on the issue while hinting about a switch to Android if adequate explanations are not forthcoming. Jobs reportedly responded, turning the tables by claiming both that Apple does not track users and that Android does, while referring to the information about iOS shared in the media as 'false.'" Apple has now been hit with a class-action lawsuit over the location-tracking issue.
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Steve Jobs: 'We Don't Track Anyone' More

Steve Jobs: 'We Don't Track Anyone'

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  • Not anyone, really (Score:5, Funny)

    by nastro ( 32421 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @05:29PM (#35934918)

    Not one specific person, anyway. More like "everyone". See the difference?

    • Re:Not anyone, really (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tripleevenfall ( 1990004 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @05:37PM (#35935018)

      I know you're joking, but this is probably the simple answer.

      Apple, Facebook, Google, etc., all see the massive market that is the sale of data mined from consumer behavior. The next step after being caught collecting this data will probably be to claim that it's non-specific, it can't be used to identify you *personally*, and that you've agreed to all of this when you agreed to the TOS/EULA/whatever.

      I'm out of the smartphone biz as soon as my replacement phone arrives by UPS, personally... they're too expensive per month for someone who's usually near a PC to be used simply as ad-serving platforms

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )
        I have an Android smartphone and discovered that I didn't use the actual phone very much and most of my data use was on WiFi.... So I switched to a T-Mobile prepaid account. I get 10 cents a minute phone calls (I only use about 15 minutes a month = $1.50) and if I want to use 3G data, I can buy a "Day Pass" for unlimited data for 24 hours for $1.49. I only use this on the days I am traveling which is only a few days a month. So far I am on track to spend less than $10 a month. I use the phone a lot for da

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Except Apple doesn't really have the same motivation as the other two you list. Facebook? Google? These are companies that make money off of eyeballs and information, and give away products to get them. Apple? They make money off of sales and loyalty. They've even managed to tick off the publishing and advertisement industry by making asking the user to opt-in a requirement for app store publication. What motivation to they have to turn around and track you?

      • > I'm out of the smartphone biz as soon as my replacement phone arrives by UPS

        Ah, you see, if you ordered iPhone, Apple could have been tracking your UPS shipment for you right now.

    • Okay sure. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hojima ( 1228978 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @06:22PM (#35935564)

      Hey guys, you know that profitable thing you think we've been doing? You know, the one that causes bad press. We're totally not doing it.

      -Guy that's being accused

      • Guys,

        Both IOS and Android were written by programmers, who tend to LOG EVERYTHING.

        I provide a vertical, niche market web-based software stack. If somebody asked me if I was tracking them, I'd chuckle and say "No". Because I'm not. I don't care much what users do, we don't do any data mining, it's your data, so why do I want to look at it?

        I'm far too busy fixing bugs and tweaking features to care about mining data! Which brings me to my point: we have extensive logs and can look up every button click, image

    • Also "we" don't track anyone. It's more of a "they," they being the people who pay us money for your location. We only provide the numbers. Those numbers might have a high degree of correlation to your location, time, and social security number. You'd have to look do some type of analysis on those excel files with like google earth to actually "track" someone, and we -never- do that.

  • Then why did Apple (Score:2, Insightful)

    by afidel ( 530433 )
    Then why did they come out with a statement last week saying they *had* to track users to give them the best experience? I'm not buying what Steve's selling.

    • Re:Then why did Apple (Score:4, Informative)

      by tripleevenfall ( 1990004 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @05:38PM (#35935054)

      That statement was actually written more than a year ago.

    • Re:Then why did Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

      by farnsworth ( 558449 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @05:42PM (#35935124)

      Then why did they come out with a statement last week saying they *had* to track users to give them the best experience? I'm not buying what Steve's selling.

      They didn't. Last June they said something to the effect of, "If users opt-in to location services, they are opting in us collecting that information. This is the only way for this system to work." This came up last week in the hubbub about the tower data being stored in perpetuity on the phone. But these are completely separate issues.

      AFAIK, there is no evidence that the tower data is being transmitted anywhere, so it is reasonable for Apple to say that they don't track anyone. They made a device that privately stores this data. I don't think anyone thinks that the way this data is being stored is the right way to do it, but just because the device stores that data, that doesn't mean that Apple is "tracking" you.

      • They could just overwrite each time if there was no collection data set being accumulated. The last location ought to do it for most applications. I could see the last ten locations where there are a lot of towers and you're using GPS. But a history is a different thing. And we don't know that any of the applications use the data, and we don't know that they don't. The only evidence seen so far is that it's a history-- a long history. Was the coder THAT sloppy?

        • For one week every winter, I visit family in Florida. It'd be really nice if my electronics could recognize that I'm going off to Florida again, and prepare all the WPA keys, clocks, and weather applets to reflect my new location for the week. If the cost for such service is that I see unneeded ads for cheap hotels in Orlando and Miami, then so be it.

          • There's nothing stopping them from making opt-in a multi-tier affair. Though I don't see any reason why you'd need more than the current location for your example: the clock and weather update can just reflect your current position. The WPA keys are stored in your device already and are associated with an SSID, the physical location is irrelevant. Certainly, none of those things would require the location data leaving your device.

            • But you already have the option to enable location services and you have the option to say which applications have access to said location services. More fine grained access becomes increasingly less useful, and, the damn location data never leaves the device; you could say that "but it goes to the backup file!" but then if someone that you don't trust have access to your home/work computer then you have a bigger problem than a location database in a portable device.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by icebike ( 68054 )

            It'd be really nice if my electronics could recognize that I'm going off to Florida again, and prepare all the WPA keys, clocks, and weather applets to reflect my new location for the week.

            Any weather app I've used does this automatically. Because it knows where I am. If you haven't noticed this, its probably because you haven't set that permission in your phone, or you have made a poor choice of which widgets and apps to run on your phone.

            Now if you are asking for omniscience, and your phone is expected to know In Advance where you are going, that is totally another thing. Be careful what you wish for.

        • They could just overwrite each time if there was no collection data set being accumulated. The last location ought to do it for most applications. I could see the last ten locations where there are a lot of towers and you're using GPS. But a history is a different thing. And we don't know that any of the applications use the data, and we don't know that they don't. The only evidence seen so far is that it's a history-- a long history.

          I don't think anyone would argue with your point.

          Was the coder THAT sloppy?

          This strikes me as something that you have to have work this way during the test phase of the phone. Possibly it's a "// TODO" that never got done. Possibly it's just a bug. It's not a huge surprise coming from Apple -- they seem to have one of the least rigorous coding practice in the industry.

          In the scheme of things this doesn't seem like the end of the world. If you are in the habit of leaving your phone backups available on an unlocked workstation

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jo_ham ( 604554 )

      They didn't - that quote was from 2010, reposted with deliberate deception by a blog/slashdot troll summary to make it look current to generate some quick ad revenue from page hits.

  • ...You're just holding it wrong.

  • What's that about two wrongs? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by guspasho ( 941623 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @05:36PM (#35935010)

    Is it even important whether Google does it or not? It's still wrong.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by The End Of Days ( 1243248 )

      Why can't Steve use the same trick that 99% of Slashdotters use to justify their political opinions? Fair's fair

    • Google discloses when they need to and gives you a clear way out by disabling that service. If I look at my HTC MyTouch 4G, I can see where I can uncheck the location data collection.

    • Re:What's that about two wrongs? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aralin ( 107264 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @05:45PM (#35935176)

      AT&T, Verizon have much better information than the data stored on those iPhones which are not even transmitted to Apple. Why is there no outcry over the information that the mobile operators have?

      • And they freely share it with the government. There was an outcry about that, but it was ignored when Congress decided to retroactively legalize that sort of thing.

      • Re:What's that about two wrongs? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by coolmadsi ( 823103 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @06:17PM (#35935518) Homepage Journal

        AT&T, Verizon have much better information than the data stored on those iPhones which are not even transmitted to Apple. Why is there no outcry over the information that the mobile operators have?

        The phone companies will need to know where your phone is so they can send incoming messages and phone calls to it. How long they keep this information for is a valid question, however.

        • The phone companies will need to know where your phone is so they can send incoming messages and phone calls to it. How long they keep this information for is a valid question, however.

          And that same exact statement applies to Apple in this case as well. They certainly need location information to provide particular services, but they should be dumping it shortly afterward rather than permanently accumulating it in a file on the device.

          (If it's not clear, I'm not intending to say the parent is arguing otherwise by any stretch of the imagination)

      • Why is there no outcry over the information that the mobile operators have?

        Presumably because there's no smoking gun at the current moment. Same with how we know politicians are generally corrupt, but when you have video footage of a specific politician engaging in bribery, people still make a big deal about that.

    • There's wrong and WRONG (Score:4, Insightful)

      by joh ( 27088 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @06:20PM (#35935538)

      Just as an example: Android sends along the Unique Device ID and the Carrier User ID when sending you location data to AdMob customers. iOS (iAd) sends a random ID that is generated twice daily on the iPhone. What's more wrong?

      And I'm really curious how you want to have fast positioning without knowing the positions of cell towers. Either the phone saves the positions in an internal database (as the iPhone does) or it has to ask external databases every time. And if your phone asks Google's or SkyHook's servers where the cell towers are that it sees, Google/SkyHook then know where you are. You have basically the choice of your phone tracking you in an internal database or have others track your phone in their database. This is somewhat similar to local storage for documents or storing it in the cloud: In the first case someone stealing your phone can get at your documents. Put them into the cloud and someone else already has them.

      I just can't believe that "nerds" are complaining that the iPhone tries to lessen the dependence on external services by building an internal database of cell tower locations. Yeah, if someone steals your iPhone he can see roughly where you have been at least once. But then he also has your address book and your call and SMS history and your browser history and all other data on it. So remote wipe it immediately and be done with it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        God. All you fanbois are stupid and retards in exactly the same way.

        Try to read the following, very slowly. Then try to understand. It's in English. After reading about 5 times, you will come a bit close to the subject. Then ask your mama to give you a cookie to be able to read one paragraph successfully.

        -----------
        From the article which reported this issue:

        "Only the iPhone records the user's location in this way, say Warden and Alasdair Allan, the data scientists who discovered the file and are presenting

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by TRRosen ( 720617 )

          I say Android phones cause your testicles to shrink. My statement is as valid as theirs.

          Oh wait no mines more valid as they claimed to discover something real and reputable researches have known (and Written about) for years. And maybe they should have looked in Androids developers references for the exact location of Androids location Cache file .../data/data/com.google.android.location/files/cache.cell & /data/data/com.google.android.location/files/cache.wifi

    • Re:What's that about two wrongs? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by w0mprat ( 1317953 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @07:28PM (#35936216)

      Damningly for Apple, Google explicitly asks for your consent and lets you opt out without much disadvantage. Apple gives you no choice and burys it in a 16,000 word EULA.

      I'm siding with Google on this one.

  • define "track"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @05:38PM (#35935036) Homepage Journal

    If you're talking about information being sent to Apple then it's a "no". But if you define it as recorded locally, then "yes".

    My take on it is, the device is tracking me, but Apple is not. Anyone know the specifics on the CA/NY law regarding "tracking"? If these are truly "consumer protection laws", then they should be referring to Apple, not the product you've purchased and is in your possession. I don't need a law to protect me from my PHONE.

    • If you're talking about information being sent to Apple then it's a "no". But if you define it as recorded locally, then "yes".

      My take on it is, the device is tracking me, but Apple is not. Anyone know the specifics on the CA/NY law regarding "tracking"? If these are truly "consumer protection laws", then they should be referring to Apple, not the product you've purchased and is in your possession. I don't need a law to protect me from my PHONE.

      If data is being sent to Apple, yes, it is tracking and it is spying. Information is a valuable commodity and if Apple can gather the information at costs approaching free and then resell it to marketing companies, they have a goldmine. After all, AT&T and Verizon own the networks where the iPhone is being used so Apple doesn't even have to pay for the amount of data transmitted. In the end, the consumer pays for Apple's behavior. The consumer foots the bill so that Apple may turn around and sell th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sribe ( 304414 )

        If data is being sent to Apple...

        Well, the file in question is not sent to Apple, so there ;-)

        There may be some info sent to Apple, according to Apple's own disclosures rather than anything coming from security researchers, but that is supposed (again, according to Apple) be anonymized.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sribe ( 304414 )

      I don't need a law to protect me from my PHONE.

      It's a GPS device. Do the greedy morons suing have a clue what a GPS device is generally expected, by its users, to do???

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tftp ( 111690 )

        Do the greedy morons suing have a clue what a GPS device is generally expected, by its users, to do?

        A GPS device tells you where you are, and may keep a record of your movements if you enable it. If such a recording function is provided, there is a way to browse tracks, upload them to a PC and to delete them. GPS devices don't log your movements forever, until police decides to check where you have been and looks into that file. iPhone does that.

    • Re:define "track"? (Score:4, Informative)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @06:23PM (#35935570) Homepage Journal

      If you're talking about information being sent to Apple then it's a "no". But if you define it as recorded locally, then "yes".

      We know the information is being sent to Apple, and we know the official reasons "why" too: for advertising purposes, and to build a competing location database for Skyhook. Essentially, iPhone users are being used to "war drive" for Wi-Fi points and provide GPS coordinates for them.

      But, hey, don't take my word for it. Use Apple's instead [apple.com]:

      To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services.

      Yes, they say it's anonymous in this part of the privacy policy. Unfortunately earlier they explain that it's sent along with a "unique device ID" so while they're correct that it's anonymous by the dictionary definition (your name is not attached) they most certainly can track a single device.

      (Oh, and the "for advertising purposes" is higher up in the policy: "We may collect information such as ... unique device identifier, location, ... where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.")

      • "We know the information is being sent to Apple."

        No we don't because it isn't. It is stored locally. Location based services are sent to Apple but that's a different matter.

      • Re:define "track"? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @08:46PM (#35936924)

        We know the information is being sent to Apple

        You're conflating two different issues.

        Contrary to what you said, we do not know that this information is being sent to Apple. We do know that some data is sent, of course. If I say "Allow" for sharing my location info with random app X, then random advertiser Y that has an ad in app X will have access to my data as well, since X gets it and shares it with Y. All of those are opt-in at the time they occur, are limited to a single app, and occur for a specific purpose. They're also obvious and are what those passages you cite are talking about. They're not in question.

        What is in question is whether or not this data, which is always on, is always updating, and is comprehensive for a number of months is being sent back and used. As best as I can figure, all signs seem to be pointing to it not being used. Running down the list of reasons backing up that idea:
        1) Steve Jobs has actively denied that it is being used that way. See summary above.
        2) It makes no sense to store it locally forever, since sending it immediately is easier, safer, and closes the window for publicity nightmares like this one.
        3) Apple has always placed the greatest importance on the customer experience, and this harms it.
        4) Apple has been proactive in protecting the privacy of their customers, including recently, since it improves the user experience (e.g. see the publisher-hated App Store policy change regarding subscription data).

        Essentially, we have no basis for believing that this information is being sent to Apple, aside from the general distrust that we all place in large companies (which they've rightly earned). The only plausible explanation I've heard so far is that this is simply a cache that was poorly coded and grew larger than expected. That is, it's no different than what Android has, except broken.

  • Looks fake to me, probably an iFan trying to take bad press away from Apple. For one thing Apple or Steve Jobs would make a public statement before sending a simple, one-line email to a customer. In fact Apple has refused to comment on this issue. For one thing he would not claim that the iPhone does not track this data since anyone with an iPhone can use the free tool to see where they've been.

  • FTA (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "The location data is often far removed from a user's location. Schlesinger says he thinks it may be picking up cell towers and WiFi hotspots, neither of which will necessarily be that close to a person with a phone. Schlesinger and Levinson both say the tracking would not be much use in finding a certain person. The real issue is that the file is unencrypted when it is synced to another device.

    Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/137806/20110425/apple-hit-with-class-action-suit-over-tracking.htm#ixzz

  • with that woman"

    Did you believe him too?

    • Bill Clinton: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

      Steve Jobs: Sorry, but your phone proves otherwise.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      The only time that question mattered (in court where lying was perjury) he asked the judge for a definition of "sexual relations." And the judge responded with a definition that did not include fellatio. As such, Clinton would have committed perjury if he had said "yes" to the question. But, because of the judge's error, he got falsely labeled a perjurer.

      Sometimes, like this case, it's more important to know who's asking and what definitions they are using.

      From what everyone is saying, Apple is not tra

  • Care for facts? (Score:5, Informative)

    by joh ( 27088 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @06:00PM (#35935354)

    It has meanwhile been debunked that this file tracks the location of the iPhone. It draws a map of locations of cell towers. The positions in this file are not the position of the iPhone when the user used a location app, the positions are the locations of the cell towers the iPhone saw in this moment. This is pretty clear now. The cell tower ID is the UNIQUE ID of the database, there are only clusters of tower locations saved at the same time with locations miles apart and NONE of these are the actual position of your phone.

    Some real world testing: http://www.willclarke.net/?p=247 [willclarke.net]

    And yes, this also paints a rough picture of where you used location services, because only the stations around the places where you used location services are in this database. But: The stations are miles around your real position and since there is no signal strength info saved triangulation is not possible. I have found stations recorded that were up to ten miles away from my true position and hardly any stations nearer than half a mile (you'd need to stand right under a cell tower and use Google Maps there to have the position of the iPhone and the tower match by accident, so this happens almost never and the data shows exactly that).

    So: The iPhone builds a local database with a network topography map and never throws it away. If it would throw that info away it would need to ask external databases (of Google or SkyHook) instead to learn the coordinates of the towers that it sees. By doing so it would neccessarily TELL these providers where it is.

    Basically you have the choice of your phone tracking you (very roughly) in an internal database or have someone else providing an external database and by this tracking your phone. The iPhone does the first, Android does the latter (and Android even sends the Unique Device ID along). Believe it or not, but technically Jobs is right. The iPhone tracks you in an internal database, but with Android Google tracks your phone in external databases.

    I don't expect many people to understand that though. Even with much explaining to basically neutral people hardly more than 5 of ten understand how positioning works and what it implies. Or what a "Unique Device ID" is.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )

      It seemed that this was pretty obvious almost immediately, when people started looking at the map of "locations" and saying "but I've never been to a lot of these places and the ones I've been to are MILES off course". It seemed the obvious conclusion was that it was likely retaining tower positioning data. Now, perhaps in some people's lives this is enough information to provide unwanted tracking (it might not locate what block you're on, but it might be enough to note what city you've been in and when), s

    • With just a teeny bit more data, it COULD be used to describe your exact position though.

      All that is needed is a pingtime from the towers. 3 towers, and you have a triangulated position. (or, rather, could triangulate the position painlessly.)

      I can see the benefits of having this information inside the phone-- It would enable much cleaner handoffs between towers, if the phone knew where it was, what direction it was going, and what towers were nearby that could offer service. However, the world being the w

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by joh ( 27088 )

        With just a teeny bit more data, it COULD be used to describe your exact position though.

        All that is needed is a pingtime from the towers. 3 towers, and you have a triangulated position. (or, rather, could triangulate the position painlessly.)

        Or much easier: Since this is only the "assisted" part of "assisted GPS" and the iPhone usually has a perfect GPS fix half a minute or so later, the iPhone could then just save that perfect true position of itself into an eternal log file.

        But the point is: It doesn't.

    • Just out of curiosity, what's the minimum geographical accuracy required before this behavior becomes "not OK", where it can be abused? The police are already using [pcmag.com] the current set of data to provide another point of evidence that you were in the area where they say you were.

      Here's another question: if Apple could get a GPS location as efficiently as recording cell tower UIDs, is there any reason to believe they wouldn't? It sounds like the only reason they store cell tower UIDs instead of GPS data is bec

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by joh ( 27088 )

        Just out of curiosity, what's the minimum geographical accuracy required before this behavior becomes "not OK", where it can be abused? The police are already using [pcmag.com] the current set of data to provide another point of evidence that you were in the area where they say you were.

        Here's another question: if Apple could get a GPS location as efficiently as recording cell tower UIDs, is there any reason to believe they wouldn't?

        I think they're build that internal network map exactly because they CAN'T get a GPS location in any way fast or efficiently. If they could, they wouldn't bother with all that and just have the phone get a GPS fix if the user wants to know where he is. Additionally, all this is usually just the first step of assisted GPS. Half a minute later the iPhone has a GPS fix. And still this precise location data gets not saved to this database. If this would be for evil purposes, they would save this precise data, b

    • Your response should be widely reproduced by the media to calm down all this hysteria. The problem is that Apple will have to at least settle this out of court. Privacy is important but knee-jerk lawsuits should be thrown out of court.

  • This is either a phony message or a lie by Steve Jobs. Both are possible.

    • This is either a phony message or a lie by Steve Jobs. Both are possible.

      They're not mutually exclusive either, this could be a -phony- lie that didn't actually come from Steve Jobs, though I suppose that wouldn't really matter.

    • Nice false dichotomy. Maybe it's a real message and true. Maybe it's a phony message but still true. All are possible.

  • Apple claims that a database of all the wifi or cell transmitters your device has seen - in order to store your "location history" - is patentable, and have filed US Patent Application 12/553,554 to that effect:

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/53886728

    So if Apple doesn't do location tracking, and Android does, why is Apple trying to patent it?

  • Sigh, Steve (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cyberllama ( 113628 ) on Monday April 25, 2011 @07:03PM (#35935982)

    Regardless of what you may believe about Steve Job's contributions to the world and to personal computing, you really can't deny that he's a pretty big asshole (maybe not a "total" asshole, but at least an 85% asshole). Here we have him simultaneously slinging some rather deceptive mud at Android while simultaneously lying totally.

    Apple tracks you. There's a file. It's created. It keeps track of all the locations you've been to. That's tracking, Apple is doing it. Therefore, Apple is tracking you. End of discussion.

    Now what Apple might NOT be doing is *collecting* the tracking information they gather. They may simply leave it to rot on your phone without gathering it to a central location and parsing it. That does not mean Apple is not tracking me; it just means Apple does not know where I am. There's a big difference there, but both things *matter*. If Apple is tracking me, that means the record exists -- whether Apple has it or not is the only point of concern. The mere fact that it exists means that it can therefore be used against me by LEA, malicious software, and thieves. The record should not exist, but it does, and Apple needs to own up to that mistake and fix it, or acknowledge it and make it public knowledge. If Steve Jobs says "Apple does not track you", then he is explicitly and blatantly lying. If he wanted to address Apple's intent, or practices, or whatever -- he could, but saying that Apple does not track me is tantamount to saying that the file does not exist -- which is provably false. In short, it's a lie.

    Does Android track people? Sometimes. If you run maps, it forwards that location data to Google which is anonymized and used for traffic pattern analysis etc. It does not track me all the time. Latitude does, but that's opt-in. Without enabling latitude, there's no personally identifiable record to be stolen/subpoenaed/abused. Moreover, unlike Apple, we know Google does this because they say so. They do not hide it, they put it front and center, and explain why they do it and how to opt out of it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Calibax ( 151875 ) *

      Putting a file on a phone that contains local cell tower data does not equal "Apple tracks you", much as you seem to wish it did. Android phones store the same data, apparently for the same purpose.

      Apple does clearly state that they do gather anonymous data, despite your vehement statements that they don't. And you can turn it off if you want.

      Sorry to interrupt you. Feel free to go back to your ranting now.

  • One way to keep your tracking app from being used against you in a court of law is to destroy its credibility by filling it with implausible information.

    Attorney: "Would it be correct to say that you have relied on the defendant's phone location database to place him at the protest rally?"

    Cop: "That's correct."

    Attorney: "According to my client's phone records, he had breakfast that day in Berlin, lunch in Sydney, dinner in Vancouver, an a nightcap in Santiago. Can you explain how that is possible?"

    Cop:

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