[LINK] iPhone/iPad contains secret location tracking log file

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears

> Security researchers have discovered that Apple's iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner's computer when the two are synchronised.

> The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone's recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner's movements using a simple program.

> For some phones, there could be almost a year's worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple's iOS 4 update to the phone's operating system, released in June 2010.

> "Apple has made it possible for almost anybody – a jealous spouse, a private detective – with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you've been," said Pete Warden, one of the researchers.

Details and an example application for extracting and viewing the log
via a computer an iOS device has been synchronized with @
http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

It should be noted that this is using mobile phone tower location
tracking - less accurate but the tracking has been 24/7 constant since
the iOS 4 upgrade unlike GPS which would need to be outside and
manually activated.
Additionally, as location services are part of the operating system
there does not yet appear to be anyway to disable the logging
functionality.
Presumably jailbreaked devices will be patched over the next couple of days.
It is typically not possible to install a previous version of the
operating system on an Apple iOS device unless countermeasures were
taken when upgrading. Each update is digitally signed individually to
a device via iTunes and the licence (called SHSH Blob) for the old
version of the operating system must be saved at that point in time to
be replayed for downgrades.