Steven Jobs is spying on you

I know you all ♥ your trick little iPhone and Apple is all that stands between you and the evil empire that is Microsoft (for the record I don’t think they’re evil so much as clueless hacks who produce second rate products).

But did you know that your iPhone is storing a record of every place you carry it, whether it is turned on or not?

True enough.  This is why smart criminals won’t have a cellphone at a sit down.  In fact most of them can be set to listen to everything within a 15 foot radius remotely without your even being aware of it.

Here’s what John Aravosis at Americablog thinks-

Holy crap. This is for real. I just ran the software and found the secret file on my laptop, detailing where I’ve been over the past year, including lots of details of where I visited in Vegas last year during the Netroots Nation conference, where I’ve been to in DC, and Chicago. It even shows you, over time, where I’ve been. Watch the video below I made of the data using the software I link to above. It show where I’ve traveled, and when I traveled, and how much. It gets a lot more detailed, in terms of location, I’m showing you the general view.

And it’s actually much worse than the video shows.  The guys who uncovered this, and who made it possible for you to see your own data, have washed the data slightly – it’s FAR more detailed than my video shows below:

A detailed record, second by second, of everywhere you have been over the past year.  And anyone with an iPhone knows that the damn phone knows where you are within a few feet.  It seems they’re only using cell tower data, rather than GPS data, but still, that data is pretty accurate if you’re in a bit city.

For those of you who don’t know how tower triangulation works your cell phone is constantly seeking the best signal.  By recording the strength (which translates to distance for the most part) you can use a compass and three known reference points to locate yourself “within a few feet” just as John says.

I’m still trying to decide if “bit city” is a typo or another piece of jargon I have to memorize so I can appear hip.

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    • on 04/21/2011 at 13:39
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