Somebody's Tracking You

Two days ago, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden revealed that iPhones have been recording detailed locational data for almost a year. Lest you think you're safe because you don't have an iPhone, there's now talk that Android phones store locational data as well.

Not only is this information stored on my phone, it's backed up to my Mac, giving anyone who has access to my computer access to everywhere I've been since June 16, 2010.

How do I know this? Because I downloaded iPhoneTracker, an application that accesses the file on my Mac and, conveniently, allows me to view my location on a map by week.

What does this mean? Why is Apple storing this information? I can't wait to hear.

Here are some of the plots of my location data taken from the iPhoneTracker application.

Wide area view:

Regional view:

Street-level view:

My Social Networking Policy

Facebook. Twitter. Blog. I use those and other online social networking services, and each of them enriches my life in unique ways. I feel more connected with family and old friends than ever before, and I’ve had the opportunity to get acquainted with several engaging individuals that I didn’t know well, or know at all.

On the flip side, these technological wonders also give me a unique opportunity to make an ass of myself before the entire planet. Much of what I say is visible to the world and can be read by anyone and archived, potentially, forever. A seemingly-clever quip I might make today might look very disturbing years later, especially if the context is lost.

So it seems important for me to articulate a policy on how I use social networks. Maybe by doing so my friends will understand better how I behave on the Internet. Also, maybe it will inspire them to consider how they should use these services.

Facebook

Facebook is where I like to interact with people I know. So there are two keys for me having someone as a friend on Facebook. First, I have to know the person in real life. Second, that person and I have to have a mutual desire to interact.

From time to time, I go through my list of friends and remove those I rarely interact with. There are several reasons for doing this, one or two of which I’ll discuss later, but “defriending” someone isn’t any sort of personal reflection on that person. It usually means that the interaction I have with that person on that site, if any, is no longer pertinent. 

Recently I had upwards of 250 Facebook friends, and I culled the list to less than 100 based on this policy.

If I get a friend request from someone I don’t know, I’ll ignore it. If I get a request from someone I do know, but not well, I’ll accept it and see whether we have engaging interaction over the next several weeks. Then I’ll evaluate whether to keep him or her on my list.

Twitter

Twitter is the foundation for my interaction with both people I do know and people I don’t. I have Facebook set to update my status when I "tweet" on Twitter, so the two work in tandem.

But there’s more to the site. Twitter might seem like people shouting disjointed thoughts in a single, loud, crowded room, but it’s more than that. It’s a place where I have made connections with persons I don’t know.

There’s a lot more to Twitter than meets the eye. Several of its more savvy users search Tweets for things that interest them, and respond to those Tweets. For those who use it that way, Twitter becomes a fun community of people with common interests.

Often I’m on Twitter keeping up with comments on live shows, such as American Idol or Arkansas Razorbacks football. Some of my best Twitter buddies I’ve met during those interactions. I won’t ever get to meet most of them in real life, but I follow them and enjoy their perspective on several things.

So it’s my policy on Twitter to make my tweets public for the world to see, and I’ll allow anyone to follow me on Twitter so long as they aren’t spammers.

Blog

My web log is a place for me to express thoughts and opinions that take more than 140 text characters to say. My blog is updated rarely because most of what I want to communicate can be done on Twitter.

My blog has taken different tacks over the 7+ years I’ve been using it. It’s gone from amusing anecdotes to opinions on gadgets and back again to more personal discussion.

But as for policy, there have been some rules that I follow when I blog. I never mention names when it comes to particular persons (other than myself). It’s not a platform for me to rant unless I believe my rants are entertaining.

I’d like to take my blog in a more personal direction, but I don’t want to get into too many details because it’s an open book for the world to read. Those who reflect on their experience from, say, recovering from surgery are sharing details that might best be left private. Perhaps someday they wouldn't want their employer (or potential future employers) to know details about their health issues, so they should be careful.

Other thoughts

I am very careful about how I mention my employer and work-related situations on any of my social sites. Sure, I’ll mention a frustrating day at work, or maybe generally touch on a humorous situation that might have happened, but it ends there. I don’t want to drag workplace situations into the public arena.

How I interact with coworkers also concerns me. Recently I was promoted higher into middle management at my company. I’m concerned about the dynamic my new position causes with some of my coworkers, and I’m reluctant to interact with them. After all, I can’t imagine having your boss on Facebook would be very much fun. As a result, I defriended several of my coworkers trying to be sensitive to the situation they’re in because of my new role.

So there you have it. My policy on social interaction. If you ever find me missing on your friends list, please don't take it personally.

Wi-Fi Hotspots and Theft of Your Personal Data

Ever use an open Wi-Fi network at Starbucks, Panera, McDonalds or elsewhere? Do you mind sharing all the information contained your email account, Amazon account, Facebook, etc., with strangers? If so, you'll want to read this.

Last week one of my favorite podcasts, Security Now!, discussed a new Firefox browser add-on called Firesheep. That software makes it easy for someone sharing certain kinds of network connections (e.g., wireless hotspots) to access personal data maintained on several websites.

According to Steve Gibson, host of Security Now!, the following applications are included:

Amazon, Basecamp, bit.ly, eNom, Facebook, Foursquare, GitHub, Google, Hacker News, Harvest, The New York Times, Pivotal Tracker, Twitter, ToorCon, Evernote, Dropbox, Windows Live, Cisco . . . Slicehost, Gowalla, and Flickr.

Most of, if not all, these sites take precautions to make sure users' passwords are not readable when they log on. Immediately afterward, however, these sites revert to unencrypted communication using a certain methodology for tracking individual users after they've logged in.

It's at that point that it becomes fairly easy for someone else use that tracking mechanism to have the same access to the site as the person who just logged into it.

The ultimate solution is for these sites to maintain an encrypted link with users for the entire session rather than just while entering passwords.

That's going to take a while, but thanks to Firesheep, that might become a priority for each of these websites now.

Meanwhile, steer clear of open wireless hotspots unless you use VPN or some other way of securing your connection. Hotspots offering encryption known as WPA (which most home wireless users have by default) provide some protection against this hack.