Support Our Site
Get Better Gear!
- Kensington Windshield/Vent Car Mount with Sound Amplified Cradle for iPhone from Kensington, $39.99
- SigFx Energy iPhone Case Contains Smart Battery from SigFx Energy, US$69.95
- NAVIGON AG - True GPS Software for the iPhone from NAVIGON Inc., 89.99
- Tweetie 2 from atebits, $2.99
- Snood: Flawed Casual Play from Electronic Arts, US$3.99
Premier Sponsors
Top 5 Free Apps
iTunes New Music Releases
Top 5 Paid Apps
Discover New Music
- Nine Inch Nails
- For years I wanted to make music that sounded like something between Love and Rockets and Ministry. In 1989, Trent Reznor beat me to it with this genre-defining album, and it smacked me upside the hea
- Spoon
Gimme Fiction by Spoon is a terrific album by an Austin band that I was lucky enough to catch on an Austin radio station during a Christmas visit.
The Last 5 Years (2002 Off-Broadway Cast)
- Jason Robert Brown
- The soundtrack to this moving off-broadway musical is heart moving. The lyrics follow a couple in a relationship for five years, one point of view going forward in time, and the other tracing time fr
- The Church
Another of my all-time favorites, Priest = Aura is one of those rare albums where every song is simply fantastic, and a testament to how good pop-rock can be.
Each song immediatel
- Beck
Beck is the modern master of the groove, and Guero is merely the latest example of this. From the opening power chords of "E-Pro," to the Pac-Man cuteness of "Girl," to the dirge-like lullab
Reader Specials
Visit Deals On The Web for the best deals on all consumer electronics, iPods, and more!
News
iPhone Apps Hide Code for Tracking Users
Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 3:00 PM - by Jeff Gamet
The iPhone may be great at helping users track down information on the go, but they may also be tracking information about their users, and reporting back to Apple. It appears that both the Weather and Stock applications on the combination iPod and smart phone contain a piece of code that collects the handheld’s IMEI number and transmits it to Apple.
An IMEI, or International Mobile Equipment Identity, number is a unique code that identifies individual cell phones. It does not identify the cell phone user directly, but since Apple maintains records on activated iPhones, it is possible that the company is linking users to their handheld’s IMEI number.
The information surfaced on the Hackint0sh Web forums where one poster stumbled on the code snippets while trying to make modifications to the iPhone’s Stock application. The piece of code apparently transmits an iPhone’s IMEI number to Apple whenever a stock quote update is initiated.
The iPhone’s Stock application gets information through the Yahoo! stock service, so it is possible that the information is being used to verify that an iPhone is accessing the data and isn’t being used to track user activity. The fact that the code is there, however, has many iPhone users concerned over what information Apple could be collecting without their knowledge.
Recent Headlines
- Apple TV 3.0.1 Update Fixes Missing Content Bug
- Taiwan Leak Shows Verizon UTMS/CDMA iPhone for Q3 2010
- iPhone Moves Into RadioShack
- Dictionary, Dictionary, Dictionary, And More
- The Latest App Store Games: Gravity Sling, RocketBird, Ground Effect, Checkers!
- iPhone Game Developer Sued for Collecting User’s Cell Numbers
- Apple May Be Bringing RFID to the iPhone
Post Your Comments