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Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

(timsh.org)
1957 points apokryptein | 1 comments | 02 Feb 25 17:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.217s | source
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simonw ◴[02 Feb 25 21:19 UTC] No.42911941[source]▶
Anyone understand why an apparently accurate latitude/longitude showed up in one of those traces despite location services not being enabled for the app in question?
replies(4): >>42911991 #>>42911992 #>>42913482 #>>42916172 #
1. rollulus ◴[03 Feb 25 08:37 UTC] No.42916172[source]▶
Thanks for asking. Came here to ask since I was curious about this too. I don't find any of the replies here convincing:

- List of open wifis: AFAIK, and in my experience, apps need special permissions to do anything at the wifi level. And yes, iOS location services use wifi info but it's disabled, that's the point;

- IP back to geo: then why not send the IP itself directly?

- Mozilla location services: same as above, why not send the info you send to Mozilla directly to the data harvester which can call Mozilla itself?