Support Our Site
Get Better Gear!
- Notability For iPad: Much More Than A Note Taking App from Ginger Labs, Inc, US$0.99
- Scosche’s RH656m Headphones With Microphone Are Wonderful from Scosche, US$129.99
- IPEVO’s Typi Folio Case & Keyboard for iPad is First-rate from IPEVO, US$79.99
- Scosche’s boomSTREAM BT Speaker: Features & Compromises from Scosche, US$99.95
- FX Photo Studio HD: iPad Painting of Effects Made Easy from MacPhun LLC, US1.99
Top 5 Free Apps
iTunes New Music Releases
Top 5 Paid Apps
Discover New Music
- David Bowie
- It must be a lonely place to be considered David Bowie's worst album by just about everyone, including the artist himself. As the last album before Bowie "rebooted" and formed the band Tin Machine, "N
- R.E.M.
- In the long series of R.E.M.'s evolution, this album (finally?) showcases their ability to capture on tape what had been happening in the live for years: heartfelt, sweat-filled performances that just
- Brian Eno
- In his first proper solo release since 1996's relatively cold "The Drop," Brian Eno has constructed a whimsical and ecclectic masterpiece which is arguably one of the year's strongest records thus fa
- Amon Tobin
- The genius is in the beats. Amon Tobin creates fantastic, groovy beats behind beats. "Supermodified" rolls through your expectations of breakbeat music, and turns them up a bit. It's a mellow album, p
Music Has The Right To Children
- Boards of Canada
- This one will haunt you. From the first notes to the last, their sound surrounds you. BOC has put out a fantastic catalogue, and this album is a great starting point for a new listener. Jump straight
Reader Specials
Visit Deals On The Web for the best deals on all consumer electronics, iPods, and more!
News
iPhones Likely Tracking Apps, Not Users
Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 3:00 PM - by Jeff Gamet
Following a report that Apples iPhone may be using unique identifier codes to track user activity, some clever iPhone users in Germany started tracking the data that their handhelds were transmitting. The verdict: It looks Apple is receiving generic application identifiers, not user-specific information.
The concern over the possibility that Apple may be tracking individual iPhone user activity began when code in the Weather and Stock applications appeared to show that Apple was collecting the units IMEI, or International Mobile Equipment Identity, identification number every time a stock quote or weather update was requested. Since each iPhone has a unique IMEI code, and Apple collects user information when an iPhone is activated, there was some fear that the company might be linking the codes to the user and tracking individual activity.
Instead of individual user activity, however, it appears that Apple is receiving the identifier code, or UUID, for the application that is requesting data, and nothing about the user or the data they are receiving.
The docpool.org blog checked the UUID codes for the Stock and Weather applications on more than twelve different iPhones and found that they were the same. The code for the Stock application is A021D9E9-28F3-4144-AC1D-D1344D703D39 and the code for the Weather application is EDF47604-CDF8-47D8-9BDF-F0E0E8E9A1D4, and thats what was transmitted to Apples servers.
The confusion over what information each iPhone transmits may have stemmed from Apples use of the character string "IMEI" in each applications code. Since that usually indicates a device-specific identifier, the natural assumption was that Apple was harvesting information about individual user activity. For now, however, it looks like Apple is honoring iPhone user privacy.
Recent Headlines
- Reading, Writing, & Saving the World
- Free Retro Gaming for iOS - Activision’s Kaboom!
- Apple Adds Chomp Bits to iOS 6 App Store Discovery
- Notability For iPad: Much More Than A Note Taking App
- Scosche’s RH656m Headphones With Microphone Are Wonderful
- Tim Cook & Larry Page Reportedly Discuss Patents
- Analysis: Amazon Kindle Fire Sold Out, Kindle Fire 2 Pic Leaked
Post Your Comments