iPhone tracker

In the last week, one of the bigger news hitting the Net - and I was not talking about the 1Malaysia email - was the unveiling that iPhone has been secretly recording its geolocation on the go without the user's knowledge or consent. Talk about breach of privacy.

Studying the news further, I decided to download the said software and try it for myself. And it was surprisingly easy.

First of all, head to this link. Load the software - appropriately named iPhone tracker - on the machine where the iPhone or iPad was synched. On loading, the program would search for the hidden geolocation data file and read them up. Within a few seconds, without even needing me to point the software to any target, I was presented with a map representation of the data.

I have been in JB, Langkawi and KB since I used the iPhone unit according to the program. And they were right.

Before you go all upset about the whole thing, I must point out that you must have your unit synched on the Mac for the data to be read. The program, as far as I can tell can only be run on a Mac - but I need to confirm this though. One can only read the data on the computer, so there was no chance for the data to be accessed remotely.

However, this did not explain the need for the data to be kept in the first place. One wonders who would have access to the data as I was sure, the data could be uploaded to a net server should Apple wished to do so. And when that happened, there would be no telling what it would be used for. It can be as benign as being used for targeted advertising. Or worst still can be used to profile the user as terrorist or to be uses retrospectively in the court of law. What ever it was, the fact that it was taken without consent would certainly tarnish Apple's image no doubt.

Jogging time

After a few months hiatus, I decided to start jogging again this morning. Been feeling rather sluggish in the last fortnight, and coupled with the fact that I have been away most of the past few weekends, I didn't have opportunity for that.

The area I lie here in Gombak was on the hilly side and the streets were quite narrow, with some sharp bends and hidden junctions. Last November, I nearly got hit by a van who appeared around a corner at high speed. I managed to jump off the road but caught my sneakers on the curb and took a tumble. I suffered only a few cuts and bruises luckily, enough to get a ticking off from Anita .....

New Case?

Puan Anita had a morning off today and she went to catch Magika with an old schoolmate of hours. Apparently it was so hood, she was harping on it all afternoon. After her return, we headed out to KLCC. I wanted to get a Moleskine pad - the last one ran out of pages, and if you're interested, Kinokuniya was doing 20% discounts for October. I also wanted to browse for a case for my iPhone.

After about 10 minutes at the Machines - an Apple retailer - I went for a case by Mophie with an extra battery. It made the phone slightly bulkier but not by much. Minimal weight increase but double the juice. Unfortunately the case charges but failed to transfer the juice to my phone. I suspected one of the switches was faulty. Will gave to take it back to the shop tomorrow after work I guess.

We had dinner at Harrods. There was a crowd building outside the Philharmonic entrance when we left. They were waiting for the Sheila Majid concert. I'm sure it was a great one. Shame we can't go and see.

Update on Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 10:47PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

The Morphie case is now working perfectly! Woot!