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Category Archives: Security

Why is my iPhone logging my location?

04 May
Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

Apple officially acknowledged the growing controversy over the logging of location data on the iPhone and iPad. They have published a Q&A on their website which clearly states:

Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

It then goes on to address the other concerns that have been commonly used in articles hyping the issue:

Quote from acknowledgment:

The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

Interestingly Apple does admit that this wasn’t entirely well thought through and are considering the lack of ability to completely disable the function a “bug”

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

Apple has now released IOS 4.3.3 which:

  1. makes the location cache size smaller, thus limiting the amount of data collected on your location (and presumably the amount of time that can be traced back)
  2. No longer backs up the cache information to your iTunes account on your computer.
  3. Allows for complete disablement of the cache when you turn off the location option in your settings.
If you are not using an application that needs location services, why not take the safer route and turn off the feature until you find you need it?  As odd as that sounds to many iPhone users, a quick check of a few iPhones near me revealed that 3 out of 7 users (highly informal poll I know) did not have their location services on and were quite happy with their iPhones.

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Posted by on May 4, 2011 in Apple, IOS, iPhone, Security, Technology

 

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Obama Birth Certificate search results yield malware

28 Apr

It’s long been a tactic of ne’er-do-wells to capitalize on topical issues to deliver malware.  Today is no different.  Many of the “1st page” Google image results for “Obama Birth Certificate” yielded images which had embedded exploits which would take advantage of known browser and/or Java vulnerabilities.

When you think about it, this is a very effective mechanism for malware delivery.  In our post-physical newspaper society, many get their news from online news sources.  Of that many, some will consistently goto the same sites to get information, the rest will simply search for (dare I say Google) what specific piece of news they are looking for.

Malware authors are well aware of this and capitalize on it quite often. While users may have become more aware of this when looking a links in a typical Google search, they may not be as aware when doing searches on images (like have occurred recently with Charlie Sheen and the Obama Birth Certificate searches).

So what can you do to help protect yourself in this ever changing malicious environment we call the Internet?

  1. As a “safe browsing technique” – try to use known, “reputable” new sites when you are looking for topical information.  I will concede that just because news site is well known does not make it immune from being hacked or to be delivering malware.  But the chances are much less with those sites than general unknown sites.
  2. Certainly use caution with all pop-ups that ask you to download, install, or run anything.  Also do not rely on the little red X to close those windows.  Chances are, it won’t do what you expect it to.  You are best off to bring up your system processes and just kill off your browsing sessions and start over.
  3. Make sure you operating system and security applications are kept up to date.  If you stay current with your patches and keep your security protection suite updated, you have reduced the opportunity for any of the known exploits to actually work on your system.
Follow these precautionary steps and you could be “winning” too…
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Posted by on April 28, 2011 in Google, malware, Phishing, Security, SPAM, Technology

 

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Cell Phone Pictures are Risky Business

04 Apr

I’ve spoken (but not yet written) on this and think it’s worthy of posting to read:

Check Your Settings: Cell Phone Pictures Are Risky Business – Yahoo! News

 
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Posted by on April 4, 2011 in Android, BlackBerry, Bluetooth, Facebook, iPhone, iPhone HD, mobile, RIM, Security, social engineering, Technology

 

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