eh?
I had not realised it was standard practice to leave GPS enabled at all times, must be getting old.
Google, it seems, is very, very interested in knowing where you are at all times. Users have reported battery life issues with the latest Android build, with many pointing the finger at Google Play – Google's app store – and its persistent, almost obsessive need to check where you are. Amid complaints that Google Play is …
I leave mine running without issue. I figure anyone sad enough to want to track me constantly will get pretty bored doing so.
In some cases, having it publicly viewable is useful from two perspectives: (1) people don't have to ring me to find out how long I'll be / where I am / etc and (2) if someone accuses me of being in a place / not being in a place, I have evidence to the contrary.
That said, such material is not intended for, and not authorised for, marketing purposes.
I have other reasons for not using the Google Play store, chiefly among them being they don't accept my non-Gmail-based Google account as being valid. I use the f-droid store instead, and would recommend it as an alternative.
Were I not in excess of 3000 miles away someone knowing might not be a good idea.
I don't live in a world where I have to fear such things. So you know where I live: big deal. It's not like you're permitted to come here and burn down the house now is it? Or my workplace.
More to the point, I bet your information is about 2 days old. It might change again later this week, and the mode of transport does not matter much: a car doesn't necessarily go faster in traffic.
"That said, such material is not intended for, and not authorised for, marketing purposes."
HA! you fool! The day you accepted the Android EULA(*), you authorised Google to use that information for whatever they want.
(* Which no doubt, you were deemed to have done simply by starting up your phone)
HA! you fool! The day you accepted the Android EULA(*), you authorised Google to use that information for whatever they want.
However, they cannot send me marketing material as I do not have a Google Play account with them. So it's no different to that APRS tracker. Yes you can try analysing it, but you'll get bored in pretty short order as it's much the same each week.
Whether you have GPS on or not doesn't matter much any more, at least not in any relatively well-populated area. Now they've built out their wifi access point location database, Google can locate you extremely accurately in any place where there are more than a couple of wifi access points in range whether you've got GPS on or not. Android can use wifi-based geolocation even if wifi is 'disabled'. I think there's somewhere you can 'turn this off', but of course, you're relying on Google's goodwill, I've no idea if that really works or not.
On my Adroid phone WiFi's disabled too.
Oh, but that's that's just a start. Don't forget about Bluetooth, to defend against beacons. And of course, airplane mode so they can't track you by cell tower triangulation.
Downside is, that effectively turns a smartphone into a ca. 2000 Palm Pilot. But that's the price of privacy in the Age of Relevant Ads.
Upside is that you can save a lot of money on the data and calling plan...
Let's see...
GPS off ... check
WiFi off... check
Bluetooth off... check
NFC off... check
data plan, noonexistent... check
Power off... maybe.
All good then, as much as can be.
Leaving WiFi on means you can be tracked to the nearest 2-3 meters, and there are commercial services that do that and sell the data to hundreds of corporations.
Unfortunately, cell phones have to advertise where they are and be tracked, so calls can be routed to the cell where the phone is. There's no way the 'phone system could probe the cell network of the whole world to locate a phone.
So it's axiomatic that a functioning mobile phone can be tracked without GPS, WiFi, NFC or Bluetooth.
The difference is that the cell location information is normally limited to the service providers running the cell network, and agencies with legal access to that information. The combination of WiFi/Mobile Data and GPS/AGPS makes this type information available to all apps with some tracking function.
I run will all comms except the phone disabled, but mainly because of battery life.
Power off... maybe.
lol, recently I had a brilliant idea: went for a week to a place where no plug was to be found to recharge (and spare battery was shite).
With my mobile off overnight I found out with some shock that the battery went down overnight, something like 20% (and I didn't leave it out in the cold). Very sneaky, I thought, so it still runs, even if it doesn. So next night I took the battery out, smartass. No further loss of battery life, hurrah. And the next night. Only that on that next night's morning, when the battery went back in, the phone told me it's 1 Jan 2000, and couldn't find any networks for a very, very long time. Not, that it mattered, but left me scratching my head: why can't they save some basic data to a backup memory... I guess a matter of extra couple of cents to fit some tiny extra battery...
<para>On my Android phone WiFi's disabled too.</para>
Nope. I think if you read the fineprint, WiFi can still be accessed by apps (Googley ones) when it's 'disabled'. I think they just ping it on periodically and scan nearby access points, without trying to connect to anything.
As a hilarious UK Border Force Agent informed me, when I commented that I was not looking forward to replacing my passport with the new biometric edition:
"Resistance is futile"
Feature phones are still 'a thing'; I suppose.
Feature phones are still a thing, and they are even more private when you allow the battery to discharge completely. Track me now, guys!
I am not defeating the purpose, though. A charger in the car brings the phone to full function in a few seconds, in the event of car trouble or other unusual circumstance. It doesn't need to charge a bit first. If there's a preplanned circumstance when a mobile phone will be useful, like meeting someone away from home, I can easily charge the phone; it reaches full charge really quickly compared to smartphones, and it can be on standby a week or more before it nags me for low battery (and it's about 7 years old, with the original battery).
Otherwise, I use old-fashioned land lines to talk to friends or family. If I am out and about, I finish whatever I am doing. I'm then free to return home and call anyone I want.
I didn't need to be constantly connected in the 80s and 90s (I didn't get my first mobile until well into the 2000s), and I'm still the same individual I was then. Why, back in my day, I... well, never mind.
Feature phones are still a thing, and they are even more private when you allow the battery to discharge completely. Track me now, guys!
I am not defeating the purpose, though. A charger in the car brings the phone to full function in a few seconds, in the event of car trouble or other unusual circumstance. It doesn't need to charge a bit first.
Shouldn't even have to discharge it with a lot of feature phones. Feature phones (at least the ones I've had) tend to have accessible, removable batteries. You could just open the battery housing and slip in a piece of paper over the battery contacts. When you need to use it, just open it and remove the paper.
You can turn that off too, as usual it is hidden(you can turn all tracking off in Android, but you have to find the right switch in the wrong place).
Wi-Fi scanning can be turned off by going into Settings - > Location -> (click on the 3 dots icon) -> Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning.
Now every time you turn on your location services the bugger will try to social engineer you into enabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning.
Best is to use Cyanogenmod (or other) without the pesky Google apps. There are alternative "stores" from F-Droid(Open-source) and Amazon.
Here is a good atricle on how to "secure" your phone with CM, they have listed all those hidden switches:
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy
I have a Nexus 5X with CM, Privacy protect turned on for all apps(including the build in ones) outbound firewall(AFWall+) and anon VPN service. So I am really considering buying Nokia 3310 and a Garmin GPS device :)
<quote>Nope.</quote>
Yep.
When you set up the phone you have the option of turning it 'off' so that NO applications can access your location via gps/wifi, or turn it 'off' so that they can.
I leave wifi and gps on all the time. No untoward battery drain, not unwanted prompts for app installs... Maybe it's cause I don't use data; maybe it's because I don't use public wifi. Whatever it is, Google doesn't seem to know with any certainty where I am except if I'm at home or at work.
I've just checked my location history. It had me scratching my head until it dawned on me that Google is using the GPS data embedded in photographs (presumab
Google can locate you extremely accurately
Oh no they can't.
Simply because I don't have an Android. And no iPhone or Winphone either. This has some downsides, but insofar as those are actual downsides for me they're mitigated by carrying a N900 (being used as a WiFi-connected browser only).
I have pretty much every wireless component turned off bar the GSM until I actually need them.
But even then, I still use xprivacy as defence against apps (including Google's) accessing things they shouldn't. Xprivacy is better than Google's own access system as in theirs they seem to be letting their own apps through and not allowing the user to control them.
Oh, and I'm still on KitKat 4.4.4!
yes, for a vast majority it's a standard practice to leave GPS enabled (probably because this is how it was when they first got it on contract, and they never found out, how to turn it off (so you say, you actually have to TURN ON gps to find your location on your smartphone?! I thought it was like always on...). Likewise wifi, automatic updates, data over mobile networks, brightness full on (great colour palette on that phone, shame not to use it). The vast majority NEVER go anywhere near their phone "settings" menu, never mind the evil art of rooting. After all, it leads down the darkest bottoms of hell with a black screen and (usually) green lines of text lurking at unsuspecting humans.
But there, a beacon of light, a friendly hand of Google to help you out. And why not to trust them, with such a cuddly, lively, sun-lit logo? Thank God for GOOGLE!
"I had not realised it was standard practice to leave GPS enabled at all times, must be getting old."
Indeed. I don't really understand the logic of leaving every bit of wireless shenanigans you can constantly enabled, and then complaining that they're actually being used and running down your battery. It takes maybe half a second to enable GPS or wifi or whatever, you simply swipe down to get the menu and hit the relevant icon. Any meaningful use of those services takes far more user interaction than that anyway - typing something to search on maps, entering wifi passwords (you're not letting your phone connect to every open wifi network it sees of course), and so on, so it's not like you're adding a ton of inconvenience. Leaving them all permanently enabled is just utter stupidity with no benefit to the user at all.
I had not realised it was standard practice to leave GPS enabled at all times, must be getting old.
Given the length of time that it can take to locate enough satellites to find one's position with any degree of accuracy it can be convenient to leave GPS permanently on. I seem to use positioning often enough that (a) it's a fag to wait for the GPS to do its thing if I keep turning it off, and (b) Google will know where I am most of the time anyway.
If I really want Google not to know where I am I'll turn the phone off, but that has its own implications for convenience.
MOST USERS AREN'T COMMENTARDS!
Sorry for shouting this, but it has to be said v e r y s l o w ly and loudly on here sometimes.
You may turn everything off, wrap the phone in foil and carry it in a Faraday cage. But most users think that the Satnav is a force of nature that has been collected from a deep cave and locked into their phones by magic.
Way too many apps seem to want GPS when WiFi accuracy or Where-was-I-last or Pick-from-a-list accuracy are good enough. (And even if I weren't a geek, battery life means I usually have it turned off.)
I'm more likely to use Yelp to ask about a restaurant near some specific city (e.g. home, or where I'm going later today) than near where I am now, but even if I'm not doing that, whatever level of location resolution it gets should be good enough.
I'm more likely to use weather for a specific location (home or work) than "here" - I can see if it's currently raining outside, and don't need 10-meter resolution to tell the temperature when it's actually using readings from the nearby airport anyway.
The GPS HW is always available -- if 911 wants your location, they will get it. When you "turn off" GPS, all you do is stop all applications from getting it. Except 911.
And when I say GPS -- your phone doesn't use GPS that much. It locates you via the cell towers, and you can't avoid that. So permission is turned on/off for your *location*, not necessarily from GPS.
I wonder how evil Google will have to get to start to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth?
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The National Trust app is ver good at telling me when I've arrived at one of their properties - though I'm normally aware of ths due to the need to show my membership card! Perhaps I'll start becoming worried when they stop asing to see the card and start welcoming me by name (something I think some banks trialled doing)
just tried to get a list of the permissions a randomly chosen app has requested on my phone (a non-rooted Android), and cannot find out why it wants each ... is everyone else copying Google's lead, or as Google realised others have gotten away with it for ages, or are they all just as bad as each other?
Question - I don't have any iDevices, so honestly don't know how Apple stacks up here. On a recent iPhone, can I get a list of what permissions each app has, and why?
At least with marshmallow or above you can retrospectively deny permissions (even if the app claims it needs them). YMMV but after installing any new app I religiously deny things that serve no apparent purpose to the app. Very few apps actually crash, and those that do get uninstalled.