Former Apple employee, Pete Warden, and data visualization scientist, Alasdair Allan, seem to have uncovered a rather worrying “feature” on the iPhone iOS4 firmware.
The above map is a map of everywhere that one of their iPhones went with them since they upgraded to iOS4.
This file is stored, unencrypted, on their phone and any backup computers, including timestamps.
Is it just me that finds that kind of disturbing?
Check out a video from the pair about the discovery below:
[Via TUAW]
Thoughts?
Geek for Him says
There are websites out there that have shots of my house and my address and what I do for a living. If someone wants to get to me they can and will. This is nothing new for anything else in the US.
BenJPickett says
The part that is disturbing about this is that it is there ready and waiting for anyone. While we certainly don’t have the level of privacy that we used to this is further degradation of that. And while any cell phone can be tracked like that it currently needs a court order to get that information; same for cameras on stop lights, ATMs, and most other security cameras. The need to have probable cause to acquire these bits is what protects us and helps keep us innocent until proven guilty. This takes that away, and unless fixed will indemnify and convict individuals making them guilty until proven innocent. We are a very blessed people to live in a country that offers these freedoms, and our Constitution was written in a manor to defend, protect and empower all people of this nation. That this life we have been given can be over-written and given away so freely is not a good thing.
I understand that there are also up sides to this, tracking known criminals and such. But let’s get real, 911 has just started talking about supporting texting. Great technology and readily accessible information is used for bad long before it ever gets used for good. Simply because as soon as this information is used to incriminate any criminal, the lawyers are called in about how and why the information was gathered.