Apple Can Now Track You Indoors

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Imagine the ads your iDevice will display if you take it to the bathroom with you. :eek:

Using Wi-Fi signals, WiFiSlam determines a user’s location within buildings, which has implications for shopping, advertising and social networking. According to WiFiSlam, its technology can pinpoint a smartphone with 2.5 accuracy.
 
It amazes me how people find having their every move tracked, acceptable. It's like getting voluntarily tagged like an animal.

And now, oh joy! They get to let the world know exactly when and where they take a shit. It's like facebook, but you don't have to type anything.
 
It amazes me how people find having their every move tracked, acceptable. It's like getting voluntarily tagged like an animal.

And now, oh joy! They get to let the world know exactly when and where they take a shit. It's like facebook, but you don't have to type anything.

The only solution is to go back to dumb phones.


That's right, they all do it. Often it isn't even the manufacturer, but rather that free game you downloaded and play on the shitter.
 
Apple's research team are definitely going to TURN a lot of possible future users off from purchasing their device. Even so, educated people (some - not all) are way TOO intrusively inquisitive, way too curious about other people's business. That's a mental health issue the public should have Congress address. ;)
 
But how does it know my crapper is 27.53 feet north by northwest of my wifi router? The only place this could happen would be in a place like a mall - but I don't connect to the network there... I call shenanigans?
 
For those that haven't figured it out yet.. those static bags hard drives come in as more useful than just throwing away.


Just sayin.
 
With 2.5 accuracy of what? What unit of measurement is that supposed to be? Furlongs? Leagues? Fortnights? Iambic Pentameters?

Anyway, if you're worried about it, either turn the phone off, stop carrying it with you everywhere, or don't own one.
 
It is illegal for POLICE to racially PROFILE someone, when in fact police really don't know someone's nationally. Congress has to investigate these acts conducted by product manufactures, websites and advertisers of indiscriminate PROFILING of your whereabouts. They have a mental health issue and they DO NOT HAVE A NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, unless you choose to allow them via an agreement. My guess is, NOT many would agree to a form of blackmail to use their product, software, web browsers, etc. Mayor Bloomberg, who is acting like a child... it's MY football and you WILL play by MY RULES. Guess what? Bloomie wants a CITIZENS DRESS CODE. God knows he banned Soda, food, Cigarettes, Alcohol and GUNS. Now he is going to tell adults what they can illegally wear in New York. Yet, Apple is allowed to PROFILE their users. [sic] :rolleyes:
 
This makes the cops nice and lazy and easier for you to disappear if you really need to. You can still legally buy pre charged dumb phones at any corner store around here.
 
2.5 what?

"accuracy" is not a unit of measurement
 
This makes the cops nice and lazy and easier for you to disappear if you really need to. You can still legally buy pre charged dumb phones at any corner store around here.

Good Idea! You can still register it with a fake name and yet still be tracked by cell-tower triangular method or digital satellite through voice communications, if big brother HAS a reason to zero in on you, lol... they can and will. It's the little pest-key guys i.e. Apple, Google, Yahoo, website advertisers that don't have a need to know where you are at all times or creating a personal profile i.e. tracking your locations or web-sites you visited.

They ARE profiling anyone using their digital services, even dumb phones, your text and voice messages are documented and stored to memory. :eek:
 
I think you folks got your corporation stereotypes all mixed up. Google's the one with which you have to worry about ads and tracking.

Apple will just think you're in another city. :)
 
But how does it know my crapper is 27.53 feet north by northwest of my wifi router? The only place this could happen would be in a place like a mall - but I don't connect to the network there... I call shenanigans?

By signal strength of your router and routers nearby. It's the same reason why Android phones request that you turn on wifi when trying to find your location, or even how the first iphone was able to reasonably determine where you were.
 
By signal strength of your router and routers nearby. It's the same reason why Android phones request that you turn on wifi when trying to find your location, or even how the first iphone was able to reasonably determine where you were.

Still doean't make any sense. Residential routers could be anywhere in the house. On top of that even if connected to the network, the phone has at best a public IP address with which to figure out what ISP the router is on. That is going to narrow it down to a city at best.

The only way this is going to work is if the WiFi hotspot is setup in a known location and that information is shared with Apple.
 
It likely works by collecting the location of routers based off averages of the GPS location of phones that are connected to said WLAN MAC. So it will take some time to create a large enough and averaged out database to provide a proper location. Then if someone has the GPS disabled (Or it isn't working indoors) they can provide a fairly accurate position based on what WLAN MAC your device is on and other ones pinging in the area.
 
Apple's research team are definitely going to TURN a lot of possible future users off from purchasing their device. Even so, educated people (some - not all) are way TOO intrusively inquisitive, way too curious about other people's business. That's a mental health issue the public should have Congress address. ;)

So... you are saying every twitter user is a genius?

I'd go another way on this theory....

I'd say it's simply an artifact of humans being social creatures.
 
So, I hear you all on the triangulating (or whatever) it's doing against router signals, and comparing that to a database of GPS locations. That would get you in the ballpark.

But signal strength is affected by walls, z axis, and static bags as pointed out by others :) But let's say that none of that matters, and they get perfect triangulation and they know EXACTLY where on the earth I'm standing - let's say as accurate as one inch, including z axis. They still don't know that the spot I'm standing in is my bathroom, or that another location is my kitchen. Now presumably they could pay a mall to give this information up, and a mall wouldn't care - "sure I'll take that money." But in my house? I'm still doubtful...
 
Something about that guy from Star Trek doing point five past light speed and a kestrel run in 12 parsecs comes to mind when reading the unquantified accuracy measurement.
 
Something about that guy from Star Trek doing point five past light speed and a kestrel run in 12 parsecs comes to mind when reading the unquantified accuracy measurement.

You did that on purpose didn't you? I applaud your ability to make my eye twitch with the need to correct it.
 
Good Idea! You can still register it with a fake name and yet still be tracked by cell-tower triangular method or digital satellite through voice communications, if big brother HAS a reason to zero in on you,


thats why it took 10 years to find osama
 
But let's say that none of that matters, and they get perfect triangulation and they know EXACTLY where on the earth I'm standing - let's say as accurate as one inch, including z axis. They still don't know that the spot I'm standing in is my bathroom, or that another location is my kitchen. Now presumably they could pay a mall to give this information up, and a mall wouldn't care - "sure I'll take that money." But in my house? I'm still doubtful...

a) do you have friends who visit you, and would be willing to provide that information; perhaps in the form of a game: tag 10 bathrooms to get a free whatever in ZangaVille?

b) behavioral profiling: People (and phones) tend to go to the bedroom in the evening and stay there for about 8 hours. Bathrooms may be the first room after the bedroom in the morning, and before the bedroom in the night. I'm sure you could come up with heuristics for living room and kitchen.
 
Still doean't make any sense. Residential routers could be anywhere in the house. On top of that even if connected to the network, the phone has at best a public IP address with which to figure out what ISP the router is on. That is going to narrow it down to a city at best.

The only way this is going to work is if the WiFi hotspot is setup in a known location and that information is shared with Apple.

It's not the only thing they are measuring. They can also use the gyroscope, magnetometers, accelerometers and barometers on the phone, and phones around it to measure. This better explains it. http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/03/26/what-exactly-wifislam-is-and-why-apple-acquired-it/

And 2.5 is 2.5 Meters, or around 10 feet.
 
What is a way to stop all this tracking? It's getting pretty bad. Even with android, given it's by Google, we're probably constantly being tracked too. I'm sure it tracks everything else like what you do on your phone etc...
 
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