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+---- Thread: location tracking (/showthread.php?tid=11529)
location tracking - ergo owl - 09-18-2020
"Location services turned off - No applications can obtain local information"
Thats what it says on my phone under privacy settings yet, here I sit looking at the pre-installed Maps application showing my position on the map with a 100 meter accuracy.
Whats up with that?
RE: location tracking - barray - 09-18-2020
Maybe if you are connect to WiFi this provides enough information?
RE: location tracking - ergo owl - 09-18-2020
Then what is the purpose of the setting?
RE: location tracking - bcnaz - 09-19-2020
I THINK,,
The maps app does run from the phone, However it does pull the 'maps' from the internet.
The actual maps are not stored on your phone, just the 'App'
And I believe the onboard GPS locates you on the map via the satellite coordinates.
So, No evil Google is tracking you.
You can turn-off your cellular service (in settings ) and still see your location.
RE: location tracking - wibble - 09-20-2020
It's a fair question - I don't know how that setting is supposed to work. I don't think the underlying Geoclue or ModemManager APIs have any checks for app-level permissions. Your location is probably arriving from Geoclue doing a lookup on WiFi AP location and/or Cell ID location.
RE: location tracking - wi_badger - 09-20-2020
In my experience, Maps starts up from Wi-Fi if available, and seems to use Whois information for the IP address - sometimes it shows my location over 100 miles away from my home, at what I assume to be some facility of my ISP. This location varies from time to time, I should start logging this information, correlate it to my dynamically assigned IP, and try to figure out what is really going on.
When Maps has been open for a while, if I am somewhere that sees enough sky for the GPS to lock in, my position changes to the actual location +/- 100 meters or less.
Websites such as Amazon or Home Depot that try to use location services info from the phone do not seem to get any, so I think that the setting works as it should ... Amazon mostly seems to think I am in Seattle for some reason; Madison or Eau Claire are fairly common false locations that they see ... again probably IP address based.
- Yes, it's IP based. When I do a lookup of my IP it matches the incorrect location Maps shows. When I turn off WiFi and go outside the GPS gets my true location. Maps has no memory of this; when I turn WiFi back on, boom, there I am back in the North Woods. Throughout this procedure I had a 3 to 4 bar 4G cell signal, tower location does not seem to be involved at all.
RE: location tracking - devrtz - 09-20-2020
Relevant wiki article
RE: location tracking - wi_badger - 09-20-2020
(09-20-2020, 03:40 PM)devrtz Wrote: Relevant wiki articleInteresting, thanks !
RE: location tracking - bcnaz - 09-22-2020
(09-20-2020, 03:40 PM)devrtz Wrote: Relevant wiki article
Thanks devrtz ! Very informative.
I love my Pine phone(s), but if the GPS is not the exclusive source of my location, ie:
cell towers and wifi triangulation is included in finding my location,
I am very very disappointed in this device.
I do also own a $50. handheld Garmin GPS that gives my exact location with absolutely no connection
to any outside "services".
My handheld GPS is a receive only device, it uses only the satellite signals for location.
I thought the phone only needed the internet to display the maps.
This could open a whole new subject on privacy,
** Should I remove the maps app ?
Would that help prevent wifi triangulation ?
RE: location tracking - wi_badger - 09-22-2020
We are using the word "location" in this discussion to mean a couple of different things; location as reported to the user in the Maps app, for instance, versus location as reported to other entities on the internet, "mostly" for commercial purposes.
As I understand the wiki article linked above, cell and wifi location is used to furnish location data to the user, as in the Maps app; whether that information is passed to others is controlled by the privacy settings. As far as I have been able to determine so far, the privacy settings appear to work, that is to say no location information is being passed along to others. I am just beginning to look into this, but a few days ago I turned on location services to see what happened, and so far no app has requested this information.
FWIW, I don't think any of the most intrusive apps are even available for Linux, for which I am grateful.
A point I am unclear about is my own phone's relation to Mozilla Location ... for some reason I have never seen the Mobian first time setup wizard mentioned in the wiki article; I am still using a very early image (Debian+Phosh, pre-Mobian) that has been upgraded many times ... so I never answered "yes" to sending Mozilla my location. This may be why I have trouble with Maps when on mobile data rather than WiFi ? Also why I seem to only get location from IP and GPS and not from cell ? Maybe I should get an up-to-date image on SD and try how that works.
Worth noting in passing that one obvious leak of location data is to Mozilla Location Services; how much personal identifying information is carried by this channel is something I do not know.
More on this topic, maybe, as I learn more.