PhotoDude.com

Fri. Apr 22, 2011

We Know Where Your Are, Because You Tell Us Contantly

It was recently discovered that iPhones and iPads track your location (or perhaps, the locations of cell towers & wifi points near you, to split hairs), and store it in a file that is backed up to your computer upon syncing. This generated much tut-tutting and fretting about the potential danger of that (i.e., none, unless someone takes possession of your phone and/or computer, and then you likely have other problems).

However, many of these same iPhones contain applications for go.walla, 4square, and other apps that are specifically designed to tell everyone where you are. Or alternately, these iPhones are used to post one’s every move via Twitter. Of course, those actions are voluntarily made by the user. Even if they are far more revealing than a secret stored file on said phone.

But I did go to the trouble of downloading an application to retrieve this stored data and display it. You know what it revealed?

Geographically, I’m a very boring guy.

Update: I did notice one oddity when reviewing this data. Along with all the travels in the southeast, it showed one GPS blip in the San Franciso Bay area … which I haven’t visited since 1989.