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Response time may vary as email is only reaching the iPhone at this moment. Hoping to have connection fixed before thanksgiving but it’s in Verizon’s hands now. I’ll be sure to duck into a cafe or two as well.

As we all know there is a lot of spam in the blogosphere comment section.  Right now I have comments set to needing approval of admin, since this blog is new, comments are limited, and the spam is terribly obvious.  It means that as things get busy in daily life and I get more and more used to random spam but not the random person it may be a day or two before I get around to posting your comment.  IF it’s REALLY IMPORTANT please find a way to make sure I know you’re not spam:)  Or see if you can reach us by email – info@msmac.net or find us on facebook http://facebook.com/msmacconsulting or click that facebook icon at the top right of the banner and comment on our page.

Most important of all is apologizes to all this may inconvenience.   No offense intended :)

Did everyone hear about it? There’s a file in your iPhone that can store your location. Many many people are writing about it, are up in arms about it, have different reasons to be upset.

It’s called Location Services, you can find the on/off switch in your General Control panel. You know how when you use an App to check in and it knows where you are? Location Services. Or you turn on Google Maps and there it is, that red pin showing you WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW! Location Services!

So what is all the yelling about?

I personally got inundated by articles about it all. I read the researchers “concern” about the open unencrypted file IN YOUR OWN PHONE that people: a spouse, ex-girlfriend, researchers, can use to TRACK YOU! We won’t mention that if you have Location Services turned on you are likely to also be playing Four Square on Facebook, and the stranger you said yes to as an innocent friend request already knows where you’ve been.  Of course since the researchers found out you can use that data to track where someone has been, and worried it was unencrypted, (a file open to the user who can get into the data section of someone elses iphone,) these two dudes told everyone about it and made up some free software to build a map out of the data as well, in case the spouse, ex-girlfriend, stalker didn’t know enough on their own how to interpret this info – look FREE TOOLS!  Sigh.

The sadly prosaic truth is computers and people who make programs for computers tend to save information.  Cache files, hard drive transfers, log lists of everything, including where location services has been.  Sometimes there’s a reason, sometimes there isn’t but even in my own computer life I have had one to many times when I wish a year later that I had recorded that one thing that didn’t seem important at the time. If, as a phone designer, you want to save time, memory, and battery you don’t have the file that is in use by MOST of the games you play (i have to deny turning location services on ALL the time when I play games) encrypted, or people will start screaming about performance of their phone.

The fact that you are using a cell phone, or the internet, should tell you that your privacy is not guaranteed.  Read all the Terms and Conditions you sign. You would have to jump off the e-bandwagon altogether to be sure you have the expectation of privacy, of course that’s just in your cyber life, check the Patriot Act for real life issues on the same subject.

Steve Jobs recently replied to the dust up via a short and to the point email reply

“Q: Steve,

Could you please explain the necessity of the passive location-tracking tool embedded in my iPhone? It’s kind of unnerving knowing that my exact location is being recorded at all times. Maybe you could shed some light on this for me before I switch to a Droid. They don’t track me.

A: Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.”

Of course there is also the longer version of an answer that apple gave in reply to Al Franken’s demanding questions.

The whole things feels like political and media base showboating to me.

And really, how different is this from living in the small town where the grapevine has already told your momma what you were up to over at Chuck’s garage the other day?

In conclusion, you don’t want to have a file saving data on where you have been? Open Settings, General and turn Location Services to off.    It may change some of your App experiences for you on the phone but it may be worth your peace of mind.