Experts have identified an undocumented function of regular recording of information about the device's geographic location in a hidden file by an iPhone and an iPad 3G tablet, according to the study's authors on the O'Reilly Radar website. The experiment conducted by Digit.ru editors confirmed the accuracy of this data
Information that Apple devices can track their owners appeared last summer, but only now it has been documented that devices secretly store the history of their owners' movements.
The results of this study were presented Wednesday at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference in the United States on applications and services.
Presumably, the current geographic coordinates are determined by the triangulation method relative to base stations of cellular communication and Wi-Fi networks, which is inferior to GPS in accuracy, but, as the authors note, may have been chosen due to lower power consumption.
According to them, a file called "consolidated.db" was discovered by accident while working on projects related to visualizing geo-linked data.
According to the authors of the study, the tracking mechanism appeared in Apple mobile devices along with the fourth version of the iOS operating system, released in June 2010.
According to the authors of the "find", British experts Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, the last of whom worked at Apple for several years, the purpose of storing information is unclear, but in any case, the presence of detailed information on the mobile device, which moreover, stored in an unencrypted form, may jeopardize the security and privacy of the owner.
The situation of violation of privacy is aggravated by the presence of a file with coordinates and time stamps in backups stored on computers with which the user has synchronized his mobile device - and these may be other people's computers.
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Allan and Warden developed a free application that allows you to view the location data stored by devices at specific points in time on a map. The program is laid out with open source and detailed instructions.
An experiment conducted by the Digit.ru edition confirmed that the application works, and the data on the movements of the device owner retrieved from Apple devices are reliable.
To reduce the risk of data compromise, Allan and Warden suggest users to encrypt their backups by selecting the appropriate option in the iTunes app settings. However, the data remains on the Apple device and can be retrieved when backed up to another computer.
Apple's acquisition and use of the location of mobile devices came to the attention of the press and the public in the summer of 2010 when the company changed its privacy policy. Specifically, it added a provision that Apple and its partners may “collect, use, and send each other accurate location data, including the real-time geographic location of an Apple device or computer,” to provide services.
In July 2010, Apple, in response to a US Congress request for the use of user location data, clarified its methods of storing and transmitting such information.
In particular, Apple-made devices can transmit information about nearby cell sites and Wi-Fi networks to the company, which is then used to determine the location requested by the user. In addition, device location data can be transmitted from these devices to the company's servers as part of the iAd advertising platform, launched in summer 2010, to serve targeted ads. Also, location data can be used by third-party applications.
Contrary to the results of the study, Apple explained to Congress that the device's location data intended to be sent to the company is encrypted. Information that the devices were consolidating this data into a hidden file was also not provided.
