The Internet is Wrong - Volume 1
Tuesday, 26th April 2011, 14:03

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Almost Every Website Reporting the iPhone Tracked Your Location Was Wrong

Oh where to start on this one, so many fish, so many, many fish. Do we look at how everyone is talking about Apple yet Google are doing the same thing, possibly more than Apple is? Which is wrong because it makes this all about Apple, when it is actually as much about Google?

Do we laugh at the uproar over your phone knowing where you are, when it is just collecting data that your mobile phone company probably already does anyway? Is that not like getting shocked that your land-line house phone knows every time you are in the house whenever you make a phone call, when your call provider is sending you an itemised bill with those calls on every month?

Let's perhaps first look at some scare mongering by Wired, a reputable magazine which is usually better than this. Firstly it shows a letter Apple sent in reply to a questioning one from two Congressmen. One thing this letter does clearly say, is that your iPhone will collect geo-location data and send it to Apple, but anonymously. I'm not quite sure what that word means to some people, but in the IT industry it is pretty clear, it means what it says.

But is making such a fuss about this geo-location tracking wrong? The answer is simple, it neglects a load of far more important facts which relate to one simple thing. Your iPhone data is not encrypted, when it is backed up to your PC it might not be encrypted there either, unless you choose to make it so. This is all iPhone data, not just the tracking information it stores locally.

Anybody who has their iPhone nicked should be far more worried about having any email accounts set up on it compromised, the fact that names, addresses and phone numbers for all their contacts are also on there, as will be username/password restricted access for websites you've chosen to let it remember. Not to mention anything private you've stored away in apps.

The issue here is that none of your personal data on the iPhone is encrypted, not that it tracks where you have been every so often. Making the geo-location the issue is wrong, it isn't one, and it's one of the least interesting bits of data your iPhone carries about you. Sure, a stalker might find it useful, but no more than following you around. Criminals will find other data on there far more useful.

But the other side of the argument isn't being helped by the likes of David Pogue from The New York Times, when he claims that time honoured wrong statement of, "I have nothing to hide. Who cares if anyone knows where I’ve been?" Let us not forget the hilarious antics of Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who in his newspaper column laughed off the issue of identity theft by proudly displaying his bank details. One amusing reader signed him up for a £500 direct debit for the British Diabetic Association.

So if anyone was responsible for a double homocide around the times and locations David Pogue shows in his article, you might want to consider planting evidence in his home and placing a quick call to the local police. Actually please don't, it's a horrible way to prove a point and I'm sure he's a lovely man.


Jason Hiner Calling 3D a Scam Was Wrong

Oh wow, another case where do we start here. Jason Hiner of TechRepublic posted a piece last Thursday entitled "Stop being duped by the 3D scam." in which he claims, amongst other things that, "There’s only one reason why the entertainment industry keeps relentlessly pushing this at consumers — it’s a transparent attempt to bleed more money out of people." What did he think they were doing with every entertainment product before it? Does he think that DVDs were about saving the starving in Africa? That CDs where all about bringing cultures of the world together through the medium of song?

Anyway, he calls it a scam, which is in all senses of the word, wrong. I've seen bits of Avatar demoed on a 3D TV, it is definitely 3D. I took the glasses off and the effect was gone, the image was blurry and double, I put them back on, the image was back in 3D. You can argue about whether you like it or not, about how much you want to pay for it, that is opinion. A scam it is not, and I'm pretty sure if Mr Hiner targeted a specific company or person with his comments on some form of media in the UK, he'd struggle to win any subsequent Libel case brought against him for his choice of words.

Oh, and he also adds in the line, "In fact, optometrists estimate that up to 25% of people get headaches or nausea from simply watching 3D at all." He then links that to the scientific bedrock that is Fox News, which even itself states, "Based on an unscientific, online survey, the American Optometric Association estimates that 25 percent of Americans have experienced headaches, blurred vision, nausea or similar problems when viewing 3-D."

An unscientific, online survey! Who knows if that figure is actually right or wrong, perhaps a scientific survey might actually show it. Until then, let's just not worry about it, especially when the lack of facts fit the narrative we are trying to push. Or would that itself be a scam?


Share Your Own Wrongs
Found things on the Internet which are wrong and winding you up? Send them to me at trebor[at]ku.oc.reweiver and I'll promise to at least look at them and get annoyed. Together maybe we can clean up this mess! Though I expect not. Previous Page

Posted by Robert John Shepherd