Comment by pieter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pieter | Hacker News Reader

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data

I hate it when companies use 'encrypted' like it would somehow make your data more secure in their hands. They mean here they use something like SSL so snooping the traffic is impossible, but of course they can still read what you're sending, otherwise the information would be useless to them.

The claim that apple can't identify the source of the data is also highly dubious. If they wanted to, they could probably correlate your IP with the IP used to access your iTunes account. That they don't do this is one thing, but claiming that they can't is something else.

EDIT: come on HN, since when did we start downvoting stuff you don't want to hear? This is a valid point, if you have critizism just leave a comment. If you want to downvote something, do it on the summary comments. Sheesh.

I understand being cynical but in this case the keyword is anonymous. The encryption is for protecting in transit like you said.

In order to populate their wi-fi/location database they really don't have to send over a person's IP to the server. In fact its something they don't want I would assume as it adds absolutely no value to the data. They already know who you are and where you are don't they?

They receive your IP address because that's how IP works; otherwise they wouldn't have an address to send data back (and IP packets with a spoofed source IP are dropped immediately). They might not do anything with it, but they definitely have access to it.

I was specifically talking about storing your IP along with the location data. That makes no sense as it does not add value to the data.

They have access to it sure. But they have access to it through a lot of other methods. In fact they even have your credit card information. You gave to it them :)

Sure, that's why they say "anonymous". If they do not delete the IP address as soon as technically possible they are lying about the anonymous part.

This is not about ability. This is about trust. They say the data is anonymous which means they are obligated to disregard the IP address and to not log it anywhere.

"This is not about ability"

Sure it is. That's exactly what the following statement means: "Apple cannot identify the source of this data". How can you interpret that as anything else but their ability of identifying the source?

The statement is obviously not true; if they were forced to, by a government agency for example, to track the location information from a user from that point on they COULD; saying they can't is wrong IMHO.

The correct thing to say here is that they can, but they don't, unless forced to. But I guess that isn't the message Apple wants to communicate.

If you want to be super petty about it, sure. I don't think that sentence is supposed to be read that way.

Out of context, that is what the statement would read. But with context I would read it as "Apple cannot identify the source of this data 'stored without IP addresses with us'"

Isn't most wifi NAT with DHCP? what use is a big list of ip's like 192.168.1.45? They might be able to track you from the MAC address maybe?

>EDIT: come on HN, since when did we start downvoting stuff you don't want to hear? This is a valid point, if you have critizism just leave a comment. If you want to downvote something, do it on the summary comments. Sheesh.

You must be new to HN, any post that can be construed as criticizing Apple, whether legitimate or not will either be ignored or downvoted. On the other hand, anything justifying Apple's actions, whether true or not will be heavily upvoted.

You must be new to HN too, or you haven't actually read many HN Apple discussions

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