It is also a question of standards. Currently, there is no standard for sharing your location on PCs. However, the iPhone and the Android platforms have a built in security mechanisms for location sharing. This is excellent progress. However, while the iPhone has it right (requiring the user to decide about location sharing no matter how the location is retrieved), the Android has it wrong. The fact that location can be retrieved through WiFi positioning without the user’s consent is a major loophole, which application developers can exploit.

Finally, presenting the question of location-sharing as an all-or-nothing issue is just wrong. The fact that our location can be tracked does not mean that it should be tracked all of the time by everybody. Cars have GPS and credit card companies track our transactions, but I would be very angry if this information was sent to the wrong hands. I think you would be to.

You claim that just because traffic reports have been online / on TV for years, showing the relative traffic speed, that people’s cellphones are being monitored for this?

Piffle.

Wireless networks have enough to keep up with just handing the call over from tower to tower, versus plotting average speed for individual users. If this were the case, shouldn’t I see -every- street on Google Maps ‘traffic’ layer show up with a speed indicator? Well, I only see major interstates, and even then, only in densely populated areas.

Ever look *really* closely along these highways? If not, well I’ll clue you in: there are RADAR DEVCES along the roadway. Want some photos of some on my commute every day? Just let me know!

This is how they’ve been able to show freeway speeds on TV for the last decade and some. Even back when Analog cell reception was sometimes the best available and used by the majority of callers.

If this absolute junk of a post have any credibility then every computer in the world has the exact same “Security Flaw”; wireless not needed. Please notice the use of scary music to build yet more hype. Of course the real answer is, “BULL CORN!” No sane, reasonable person considers this a security flaw.

Besides, Google uses everyone with the network provider enabled as a WIFI scanner for their network. If you’re concerned about your location being reported, turn off your cell phones [android not required] (tower id with data connection is known) and turn off your WIFI (all AP, long/lat, tower id, etc, is known). How do you think they are able to map traffic flows online? Guess what, its not helicopters and companies have been doing that long before Android existed.

In short, no security flaw exists so one has to be created. If you are concerned about your locality being detected, you’re only option is to not be on the Internet and never use a cell phone or credit card; and hopefully you don’t have a modern car with a GPS built in. Period.

just download and explore . . . . . .

Cool stuff.

On the practical level, there are possible compromises and trade-offs, of course.

CMU is actually great.