IPhone, the location of the registry-Android sparks privacy concerns

Discoveries on how Apple iPhones and Android Google keep track of all where user s every day send shocks through tech and privacy communities. Sen. mprnkonia El, D-Minn., and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Assistant, separate letters late last week to Apple CEO Steve jobs and asked him to provide details about how and why iPhones and iPads compile and store data Historical logs timestamp of each user's location and called Saturday for Markey. official Congress of Apple and Google. Personal information may be Unprotected location for the personal vocabulary is expressed, says The letter to Markey. tasks came after two British researchers Alan Alasdair warden Pitt, revealed the discovery of the mechanism for registering a quietly introduced by Apple iPhones and iPads in the early-to mid-2010 announced on Friday., Google lpikojo grasp. The guard disclosed the existence of a similar feature location listing on Android, the discovery by the Swiss scholar, Magnus Ericsson; Wall Street Journal and verified the evidence collected by the Los Angeles-based researcher Kamkar Sami, shows how most Android phones around the world already has an active GPS location coordinates to the coordinates of any nearby WiFi networks, back to Google at least the past six months, Apple did not respond to interview requests. Senior Manager of Google's public affais, Chris Gaither, said that the company does not do interviews. Instead, the search giant issued a brief statement confirming the location of the data is transmitted back to the Google servers, but it should be noted that it is tracking such data to certain people. Meanwhile, the tech and privacy communities are abuzz with discussion. One big risk for the Apple iPhone ifyour patrons or iPad is lost or stolen, says IDC analyst al Hilwa application development. It's easy to come up with schemes to author for users, such as people or bosses to spouses to work, says Hilwa. Apple and Google are in intensive control on one of the hot new sectors: tech s around the service will rotate the exact location of the consumer. Revenue derived from the so-called location-based services are expected to swell up 8.3 billion by 2014, more than 2.6 billion in 2010, according to tech industry research firm, Gartner, a British researcher. Allan, last week, Bangkok and stumbled upon a file stored on the hard drive of his MacBook laptop with 29,000 locations a timestamp log of every place he went on the previous 300 days. The file is created on the iPhone, was automatically his laptop computer when it is synchronizing the two devices.Alan's research partner, the warden, created a software application that plots the location data interactive map time stamp. The application is simple to download free for use by any Mac owner. The warden is working on a version for people to sync iPhones to don t Windows PCs. We know exactly what triggers the registry, says warden. See We register with frequent intervals as every few minutes longer, and we don t know what format It is. it is not clear whether Apple is going to somehow these enable data for location-based marketeers. Location data is used more and more to customize the online ads, to help parents keep track of their youth and to help prevent fraud charge, says cybersecurity analyst Chenxi Wang, at Forrester Research. None of these scenarios justify year s worth of storage location dataSays Wang. It continues to surprise me how companies always choose the privacy-intrusive features such as default.aspx Kamkar, Los Angeles, says he discovered that all of the recently purchased Android phones are set up to continually report on specific GPS coordinates, as well as the coordinates of the nearby houses WiFi networksBusiness to Google, He says, Google can. coordinate timing and frequency of use of the telephone to find the exact home address and owner s Android. If your phone is in the same location during the night, they know where you live says Kamkar. If the location of your phone is in motion, they guess that you re driving, even calculate how fast the car moving. Kamkar says also, Android devices track coordinates of any nearby WiFi systems, even those encrypted. If you have an Android phone, Google knows where you are, say Kamkar. Even if you don t you own Android phone, but not your neighbor, Google can triangulate who you are by tracking only your wireless network. "to disable this tracking by phone Android is to turn off the GPS and the wireless, he says, but today people., Especially those under 30, aren t tends to turn innovative features, says Fran Maier President TRUSTe Privacy programs, rather than a Web site on Wednesday, TRUSTe's plans to release the survey results showing 44% of 18-to 20-year say they feel safe and in control when using mobile devices. Privacy is a big deal now, even among young people, says Meyer. But they believe they re smarter, more adept at managing their information older than Even people., reflective mprnkonia comments in a letter that American jobs are maintained in many location data can be abused by criminals and bad actors. Rep. Markey asks jobs if he is afraid of how wide array of accurate location data recorded by these devices can be used to track the minorsAnalysts, expose them to harm potential and experts. Tech Google Privacy is likely to face similar questions. There seems to be this huge industry behind closed doors with business models premised in the collection of massive amounts of detailed information, says Hilwa. Only the Government can introduce regulatory sanity back into it's addressed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ. To report corrections to vabarot, contact standards editor Jones Brent. For consideration of publication in the newspaper, send your comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, telephone number, city and country for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections. usatoday.com. We have updated the guidelines of the conversation. Changes include a brief overview of the process of reduction and explains how to use the button "report". Read more.

N.Y. case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers

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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of ?pedophile!? and ?pornographer!? stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn?t need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.

David Duprey, AP

A poll conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance found that 32 percent of respondents acknowledged trying to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn't theirs

David Duprey, AP

A poll conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance found that 32 percent of respondents acknowledged trying to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn't theirs

That new wireless router. He?d gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.

?We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night,? the man?s lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, ?Doldrum.?

?No, I didn?t,? he insisted. ?Somebody else could have but I didn?t do anything like that.?

?You?re a creep ? just admit it,? they said.

Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale. Their advice: Password-protect your wireless router.

Plenty of others would agree. The Sarasota, Fla. man, for example, who got a similar visit from the FBI last year after someone on a boat docked in a marina outside his building used a potato chip can as an antenna to boost his wireless signal and download an astounding 10 million images of child porn, or the North Syracuse, N.Y., man who in December 2009 opened his door to police who?d been following an electronic trail of illegal videos and images. The man?s neighbor pleaded guilty April 12.

For two hours that March morning in Buffalo, agents tapped away at the homeowner?s desktop computer, eventually taking it with them, along with his and his wife?s iPads and iPhones.

Within three days, investigators determined the homeowner had been telling the truth: If someone was downloading child pornography through his wireless signal, it wasn?t him. About a week later, agents arrested a 25-year-old neighbor and charged him with distribution of child pornography. The case is pending in federal court.

It?s unknown how often unsecured routers have brought legal trouble for subscribers. Besides the criminal investigations, the Internet is full of anecdotal accounts of people who?ve had to fight accusations of illegally downloading music or movies.

Whether you?re guilty or not, ?you look like the suspect,? said Orin Kerr, a professor at George Washington University Law School, who said that?s just one of many reasons to secure home routers.

Experts say the more savvy hackers can go beyond just connecting to the Internet on the host?s dime and monitor Internet activity and steal passwords or other sensitive information.

A study released in February provides a sense of how often computer users rely on the generosity ? or technological shortcomings ? of their neighbors to gain Internet access.

The poll conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry group that promotes wireless technology standards, found that among 1,054 Americans age 18 and older, 32 percent acknowledged trying to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn?t theirs. An estimated 201 million households worldwide use Wi-Fi networks, according to the alliance.

The same study, conducted by Wakefield Research, found that 40 percent said they would be more likely to trust someone with their house key than with their Wi-Fi network password.

For some, though, leaving their wireless router open to outside use is a philosophical decision, a way of returning the favor for the times they?ve hopped on to someone else?s network to check e-mail or download directions while away from home .

?I think it?s convenient and polite to have an open Wi-Fi network,? said Rebecca Jeschke, whose home signal is accessible to anyone within range.

?Public Wi-Fi is for the common good and I?m happy to participate in that ? and lots of people are,? said Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that takes on cyberspace civil liberties issues.

Experts say wireless routers come with encryption software, but setting it up means a trip to the manual.

The government?s Computer Emergency Readiness Team recommends home users make their networks invisible to others by disabling the identifier broadcasting function that allows wireless access points to announce their presence. It also advises users to replace any default network names or passwords, since those are widely known, and to keep an eye on the manufacturer?s website for security patches or updates.

People who keep an open wireless router won?t necessarily know when someone else is piggybacking on the signal, which usually reaches 300-400 feet, though a slower connection may be a clue.

For the Buffalo homeowner, who didn?t want to be identified, the tip-off wasn?t nearly as subtle.

It was 6:20 a.m. March 7 when he and his wife were awakened by the sound of someone breaking down their rear door. He threw a robe on and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down to see seven armed people with jackets bearing the initials I-C-E, which he didn?t immediately know stood for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

?They are screaming at him, ?Get down! Get down on the ground!? He?s saying, ?Who are you? Who are you??? Covert said.

?One of the agents runs up and basically throws him down the stairs, and he?s got the cuts and bruises to show for it,? said Covert, who said the homeowner plans no lawsuit. When he was allowed to get up, agents escorted him and watched as he used the bathroom and dressed.

The homeowner later got an apology from U.S. Attorney William Hochul and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Lev Kubiak.

But this wasn?t a case of officers rushing into the wrong house. Court filings show exactly what led them there and why.

On Feb. 11, an investigator with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees cybersecurity enforcement, signed in to a peer-to-peer file sharing program from his office. After connecting with someone by the name of ?Doldrum,? the agent browsed through his shared files for videos and images and found images and videos depicting children engaged in sexual acts.

The agent identified the IP address, or unique identification number, of the router, then got the service provider to identify the subscriber.

Investigators could have taken an extra step before going inside the house and used a laptop or other device outside the home to see whether there was an unsecured signal. That alone wouldn?t have exonerated the homeowner, but it would have raised the possibility that someone else was responsible for the downloads.

After a search of his devices proved the homeowner?s innocence, investigators went back to the peer-to-peer software and looked at logs that showed what other IP addresses Doldrum had connected from. Two were associated with the State University of New York at Buffalo and accessed using a secure token that UB said was assigned to a student living in an apartment adjacent to the homeowner. Agents arrested John Luchetti March 17. He has pleaded not guilty to distribution of child pornography.

Luchetti is not charged with using his neighbor?s Wi-Fi without permission. Whether it was illegal is up for debate.

?The question,? said Kerr, ?is whether it?s unauthorized access and so you have to say, ?Is an open wireless point implicitly authorizing users or not??

?We don?t know,? Kerr said. ?The law prohibits unauthorized access and it?s just not clear what?s authorized with an open unsecured wireless.?

In Germany, the country?s top criminal court ruled last year that Internet users must secure their wireless connections to prevent others from illegally downloading data. The court said Internet users could be fined up to $126 if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected line, though it stopped short of holding the users responsible for illegal content downloaded by the third party.

The ruling came after a musician sued an Internet user whose wireless connection was used to download a song, which was then offered on an online file sharing network. The user was on vacation when the song was downloaded.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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