Thursday 22 April 2010

We Know Where You Are

Location-based Internet services make our lives easier, but also pose some risks and dangers. In this episode, we look at ways of maximising the benefits while minimising the risks.

Listen to the episode here, or download it as MP3:


MP3 File

Examples

  • Facebook updates, Twitter tweets, LinkedIn updates, etc. can all be done from mobile devices. This doesn't necessarily include location information, but users often do voluntarily disclose their location directly or indirectly
  • YouTube videos can be geo-stamped
  • Photo-sharing sites allow geo-tagging.
  • For sites like Foursquare and Gowalla, your location is the main feature
  • Conference attendees often tweet to a Twitter back-channel during the conference. Indeed, some conferences actively encourage this now.
  • Internet/GPS-enabled heart-rate monitors can post your exercise routine to, say, Facebook.
  • mapmyrun.com encourages users to share their runs on-line; and includes iPhone apps to do this automatically for runs, walks and bike rides
  • Many iPhone apps ask for permission to record my location
  • Twitter has a new Tweet With Your Location feature

Other sites we mentioned

4 comments:

ChrisP said...

ThreatPost reports that a couple of security researchers have exploited flaws in the design of the GSM phone network to identify the owner of, and locate any mobile phone handset.

Chris said...

This New York Times article describes how technology enables us to monitor, track and share various aspects (including location) of our lives.

Chris said...

According to the LA Times Technology blog, Apple has updated its privacy policy for iPhone and iPad owners, to include a paragraph noting that once users agree, Apple and unspecified "partners and licensees" may collect and store user location data.

Unknown said...

It's worse than this, Chris. The "once users agree" statement is correct, strictly speaking. But in practice users HAVE to agree, or they won't be able to use iTunes anymore (and that's an essential part of an iPod, iPhone or iPad).