Sorry, I was out taping 802.1x DOS Bombs to cell masts.
MAC addresses are globally unique so it could be using them to do a location look up.
yes thank you Graham, you know I’m in the security game 😉 There can be no possible way that MAC address locations can be known without a billion devices all reporting back to mother,
The “Gears Geolocation API” is the one provided by Google Maps, not by Apple.
yes, and many users report the google one to be wholey inaccurate whereas the apple DB is quite often bang on the money.
I still think we’re on very sketchy ground, particularly where, as in my case at home, the only accessible access point (to my touch) is mine. There are about 3 more visible but they’re all encrypted and all of the access points are private, they are not known wifi networks. Could it be that by saying ‘yes’ to ‘Can we use your current location as the default’ question, I am permitting them to
a. Gather information about access points in my local area
and
b. Use the information that only apple can know, to be used to enforce the database.
For example, no doubt at least one of my neighbours will also have itunes. In fact, I’ll guarantee Keith across the road has it. So now we have two house addresses, two access point mac addresses attached to those addresses and a touch which can see them both. Without a third to trangulate it’s going to plot a straight line between the two houses and locate the virtual access point based on signal strength so we’d expect the location to be nearer my house than Keith’s along that line.
Where do you think it places it? Go on, guess.
