Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

https://wingu.se/2023/11/30/only-apple-can-do-allow-apps-tracking-users-location-without-consensus.html

776 299 3 years ago

coldcode• 3 years ago

FYI, that API requires entitlements to be used, which are only available if you request them from Apple and justify their use. It's not a general-purpose API any app can use.

lxgr16• 3 years ago

That’s not really any consolation, since (according to the article) Apple has granted that entitlement to WeChat and Alipay.

Yes, these are “super-apps” and Wi-Fi hotspot services are probably part of their offerings, but that’s just more reason this should be a user-grantable permission like “local network access”. If I don’t care for the hotspot feature, I don’t want the app to have that capability.

MBCook3• 3 years ago

Certain apps have always gotten special treatment. If it’s big enough to mess with phone sales they’re allowed nonsense a normal dev would be permanently banned for.

Ex: all the stuff FB has been caught doing over the years

My understanding (no first hand experience) is that WeChat and Alipay are basically required in China. If a phone doesn’t have them, it’s worthless and won’t sell.

So naturally they too can do nonsense that would get the rest of us booted to space.

breakfastduck2• 3 years ago

Chinese state supported spyware spies on you? I'm shocked!

nottorp• 3 years ago

Adding another layer to the discussion is the fact that major apps like WeChat and Alipay have already implemented this capability.

So only the big apps can spy on you? The poster is Chinese so he cares about those 2, but how about facebook and google?

squarefoot• 3 years ago

Spyware can be hidden in every piece of closed software, hardware, firmware with access to communications, so unless someone makes a 100% open device, from the first bit to the last screw, there's no 100% guarantee to be free from spyware.

JKCalhoun6• 3 years ago

Most entitlements though trigger a privacy prompt to allow the user to disable the functionality. Without writing a test app, I don't know that this is the case with this entitlement.

I think it should ask the user's permission.

salawat3• 3 years ago

Keep in mind that in a corporate context, not asking the user for permission or explaining what/why you are doing something is the (sociopathic imo, but nevertheless) norm. To the degree you do disclose something like that it is inevitably hidden away or obfuscated by being put somewhere in the UX that no one ever really goes.

Like seriously. I had the argument before;

Architect: we're going to fingerprint users. Me: are you going to disclose that? Architect: Of course not. Me: It's their device. You should ask. Architect: That defeats the point. Me: You either don't understand property rights, or clearly have issues with the concept of consent.

The entire IT space has been decades of building while eliding the fact these experiences are fundamentally being driven on someone else's hardware.

But that's just the world we live in I suppose.

filleokus2• 3 years ago

But if Facebook/Instagram/Messenger (or Alipay / WeChat as mentioned in the article) has this entitlement and does fishy stuff, I guess this can actually be a large privacy issue?

Does Apple do any analysis of entitlement usage and withdraw them when abused? A similar thing I remember is the Facebook VPN "scandal" where I think Apple withdrew the Facebook enterprise signing certificate?

qwytw2• 3 years ago

What do entitlements have to do with not asking for user permission though? Seems like separate issues.

paxys3• 3 years ago

Is that better or worse? "Don't worry you or I cannot exploit this, only large corporations and data aggregators can."

j45• 3 years ago

That’s almost worse that it’s kind of a side door to the users rights. That’s generally only available to groups with the resources or know how to get it.

I understand it’s not ubiquitous.

lloeki• 3 years ago

that API requires entitlements to be used

Lately I've witnessed a number of apps asking for Local Network permission ("Foo would like to find and connect to devices on your local network") when they have no business doing so in any possible way that I can think of.

sroussey• 3 years ago

Many do this if they play video, mostly to enable chrome cast.

dwaite3• 3 years ago

Chrome Cast. There is no OS-level service for it to introspect the network looking for screens to cast to, so each app has to drop in a SDK - which then has to have permission to search the local network looking for screens.

This was improved in recent iOS, but I never count on Google updating their SDKs to take advantage of iOS features on any sort of schedule. Even when they do, it will require third party apps to individually update as well.

gustavus• 3 years ago

FYI, that API requires entitlements to be used, which are only available if you request them from Apple and justify their use. It's not a general-purpose API any app can use.

Well as long as it is just Apple that is deciding who can track me without my permission then that's okay I totally trust my corporate overlords for the wise and great Apple is incorruptible and without fault.

thomastjeffery• 3 years ago

Did Apple audit their code, then? Why in the world should anyone trust Apple to be responsible?

mrtksn5• 3 years ago

TL;DR: Apps can access the nearby Wi-Fi hotspot SSID and MAC addresses through an API that is intended to help with connecting to hotspots. Then they can use this info to look-up in databases that collect SSIDs based on their locations.

Seems like a valid concern, though the author's writing style can be off putting since has a tone with an agenda.

However, AFAIK apps need to declare the use of this API and have a good reason for it(you fill up a form explaining why you need it and Apple has to agree to grant you the privilege). So, most likely your flashlight app is not tracking you.

I'm sorry you don't like it but that's the truth, the author left out crucial details to make it juicier.

INGSOCIALITE• 3 years ago

i wouldn't be worried about my flashlight app tracking me, i'd be worried about the large players who probably GET the use of this API, google facebook etc etc.

secondcoming• 3 years ago

If that app has ads then your info is being sent to advertisers.

Why would a flashlight app even need your location?

mrtksn5• 3 years ago

As I said, it's a valid concern. However the author forget the mention that you need to apply and get approved to use this API. I find it dishonest and alarmist.

Here's the request form that you fill up for it: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/hotspot-helper/

dylan6042• 3 years ago

I would absolutely be concerned about a flashlight app doing all the nefarious things. A flashlight app? Today? Still? Really? It's one of those apps that's absolutely useless since the OS provides this feature natively now. It is absolutely the type of app I would assume has no reason other than harvesting data.

datadrivenangel• 3 years ago

Except that there are data collection SDK companies where you can get paid as a developer in exchange for installing an SDK that will send customer data to the company. It's one way to monetize an app a little bit more.

froggertoaster• 3 years ago

off putting since has a tone with an agenda

completely agree, I read 2 sentences and closed it.

yunohn2• 3 years ago

Sure, entitlements need approval from Apple. But clearly, apps are able to get it for undisclosed reasons and use it for tracking. Obviously, this goes against Apple’s guidelines and should be dealt with swiftly, especially now that it is public knowledge.

ghusto2• 3 years ago

TL:DR; Apps can access the nearby Wi-Fi hotspot SSID and MAC addresses through an API that is intended to help with connecting to hotspots. Then they can use this info to look-up in databases that collect SSIDs based on their locations.

This is the whole story. Thank you for writing it, and sorry that you're getting downvoted for it.

I'm sorry you don't like it but that's the truth, the author left out crucial details to make it juicier

I wish there was a way to know when people had downvoted with "this is true but I don't like that it's true".

mrtksn5• 3 years ago

I wish too. I hate it when I don't know why I'm downvoted.

JohnFen2• 3 years ago

Those crucial details don't really seem to make it much better to me.

peddling-brink2• 3 years ago

Docs: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/technotes/tn3111-i... I’d guess a review would stop the smaller spam apps, but not the big players, as noted by the author and other commenters.

JKCalhoun6• 3 years ago

Thanks. The docs confirm that an entitlement is required to call this API — still does not make clear to me whether the presence of the entitlement brings up a prompt allowing the user to deny the use of the API.

peddling-brink2• 3 years ago

If it does, it would be for network, not location. Per the rules, this isn’t a location api, except it actually is.

Iirc Android has always asked for location to enable Bluetooth, I wonder if there are similar apis there?

otterley• 3 years ago

If you care about this, the best thing you can do to get Apple’s attention is to fill out the form at this site: https://www.apple.com/contact/feedback/ and select “product feedback.”

Doing so was instrumental to persuading Apple a few years ago to add an option “allow only once” when apps asked for permission to access the user’s current location.

donohoe• 3 years ago

How is it any different than an app that makes an request to their services API, thereby getting IP address which in itself can be used to get location information?

There is always a vector for abuse, and I think Apple has taken large steps to reduce that. I find this story a bit of a non-event.

lxgr16• 3 years ago

There’s a huge difference!

Wi-Fi positioning is usually accurate within a few meters; my IP is frequently on the other side of the globe (when using a VPN or just roaming globally).

filleokus2• 3 years ago

IP gives you a rough location (like which city at best), SSID/BSSID can give you street/building level accuracy if it's in a database like https://wigle.net

Considering the scale of these apps, I'm guessing they have internal wifi<->location databases with fairly great accuracy.

mrpippy• 3 years ago

It’s worth noting that use of NEHotspotHelper requires a special entitlement (com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotHelper) that you have to apply for, and presumably Apple won’t grant unless your app has a legitimate need for it.

That said, this maybe shows an incompatibility between Apple’s privacy strategy and “super-apps” like WeChat and AliPay. When a company shoves all functionality into one app, that app suddenly has all the entitlements, and it’s harder to tell when and how any sensitive data is being used.

The West generally doesn’t develop apps this way. For example, Comcast has a separate “WiFi Hotspots” app. Although LOL, they posted 2 days ago that its functionality is being combined into the main Xfinity app. Maybe the West is catching up.

bhpm• 3 years ago

Musk wants Twitter to be a super app.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23808796/elon-musks-x-eve...

nequo• 3 years ago

com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotHelper

Where do you revoke this entitlement on iOS? Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network? Or is this something else?

yunohn2• 3 years ago

AFAIK entitlements are not necessarily exposed as toggles.

lencastre• 3 years ago

General > Reset > Reset Location and Privacy Settings

tick_tock_tick2• 3 years ago

This is one of the special ones so you're not allowed to; Apple picks for you per app.

turquoisevar2• 3 years ago

You can’t revoke entitlements, entitlements is the term used for developers who indicate that they intend to use a feature.

Users are asked for permissions and those permissions can be revoked. This entitlement doesn’t correspond with its own unique permission, either it works without permission from the user or it might be bundled into Local Network or Location Permissions.

kridsdale1• 3 years ago

Facebook is a SuperApp. It had a WiFi-hotspot-finder in it for years.

JKCalhoun6• 3 years ago

I love when I launch an app and then get a bevy of requests to access my Camera, my Microphone, my Contacts, etc...

I nope out and if the functionality of the app is trashed, so goes the app....

Google Maps constantly hounding me to turn on precision location services, asking me if I am navigating for a friend and to allow access to my contacts... Wow, no.

readams• 3 years ago

You don't think location is useful for a map ... ?

layer8• 3 years ago

Is there a way for an end user to see which apps have this entitlement?

rkunde3• 3 years ago

I don’t think you can unless you have a jailbroken device. If I remember correctly, entitlements are store in the AppStore receipt file.

karmakaze2• 3 years ago

presumably Apple won’t grant unless your app has a legitimate need for it.

Increasingly clear that Apple is in charge of what happens on your devices not the users themselves.

intelVISA• 3 years ago

Wasn't it ever thus?

hayst4ck• 3 years ago

It might surprise you but a lot of people want that and buy apple specifically because of that. I would even go so far as to say it is a major competitive advantage.

tjoff• 3 years ago

Big whoop. Consent is paramount and the assumption here that apple and you have aligned interest is pretty darn weak argument.

The only thing of note here is that apple don't want you do know about it, which kind of circles back to aligned interests...

rullelito• 3 years ago

So Apple decides which companies should have your location data? Niiiice

_justinfunk• 3 years ago

Credit: This article was written with the assistance of ChatGPT for the purpose of refining my English writing.

I appreciated this disclosure. The English was still a bit clunky - but it was a great use of the technology to open up the article to a wider audience. It felt sincere to me.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

App that needs it will get it one way or another, is just not easy

eduction• 3 years ago

I thought users were prompted to give permission for this already? I get asked if I want to give “local network” access to apps sometimes (- lot these days actually) which I take to mean the ability to see local WiFi hotspots. I almost always deny this (and after reading this just turned it off for Spotify). I think the dialog that asks for permission could be improved, though, as most people don’t realize this can be used to deduce their location.

rkunde3• 3 years ago

That’s for sending and receiving local network traffic, eg. talking to devices on the same subnet, and discovery of Chromecast and similar targets.

Edit: AirPlay does not require this permission.

graftak2• 3 years ago

You’d think that AirPlay would be abstracted away by an OS API that does the local network discovery itself.

Hippocrates• 3 years ago

I don't believe it is necessary for airplay, but probably is for Chromecast, Sonos, and many devices to establish ad-hoc connectivity for setup and operation.

I take this popup to mean that they want to fingerprint and locate my home network or backdoor it somehow. I ALWAYS deny this access unless the app specifically requires it, and that is rare.

WiFi based geolocationing should be a well known privacy threat by now. The popup should really communicate that better and provide tighter controls.

dwaite3• 3 years ago

AVRouting in iOS 16 allows for a Media Device Discovery Extensions, which allows for a proper ChromeCast or similar app to provide media streaming in the same interface as AirPlay.

So far there doesn't seem to be any traction by Google to migrate to this.

teekert• 3 years ago

I take it to mean that it will scan my lan (plus tailnet?) for services. Like a Hue bridge or a Sonos speaker or a Chromecast etc.

iamcalledrob3• 3 years ago

As a developer, the annoying thing about the "Local Network" permission is that:

1) It's poorly implemented. Unlike other permissions, there's no way to explicitly trigger the prompt. It just pops up at Apple's discretion. There's no way to give it a "soft landing" for cases where it's necessary for core app features. And there's no way to check if the permission has been granted or not.

2) More importantly: Apple's own apps don't trigger this warning, which makes the playing field unfair. AirPlay etc. work seamlessly, whereas any competitor's tech doesn't. And as a developer, since you can't tell if this permission has been granted or not, you're left with a poor user experience.

I'm particularly fed up of (2). If Apple is going to introduce restrictions, they need to apply to their own apps as well. AirPlay and AirDrop need to each ask for Bluetooth and local network access. The Photos app needs to trigger the "Select photos, Allow All, Deny" prompt on launch. The Camera app shouldn't be able to write to the photo library without triggering the same prompt too.

That gives them an incentive to design the user experience around these restrictions well, and maybe be more creative with how to solve for this too rather than confusing dialogs.

Currently they have a disincentive to design this stuff well. Any iOS developer that's had to work with these APIs knows that they are designed absolutely awfully with arbitrary and unexpected limitations.

woah2• 3 years ago

The developer of the Camera app already has access to all the photos in your Photos app. What benefit would a prompt have for the user?

thombles• 3 years ago

No argument from me but regarding workarounds for (1), accessing ProcessInfo.processInfo.hostName has been a reliable pop-up trigger for me for a long time. Eskimo also offers some (esoteric) suggestions for how to notice if your network operation has been denied due to lack of permission: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/663852

tinus_hn5• 3 years ago

One should realize that what they call ‘track user locations’ is actually ‘get a list of visible SSIDs’.

Should be behind a permissions check, but not the end of the world.

umanwizard2• 3 years ago

Visible SSIDs are absolutely used to fingerprint location.

dmboyd• 3 years ago

At least in the early days, every iPhone maintained a local lookup table between ssids and gps coordinates in a SQLite database.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/752872/security-apple-o...

stavros7• 3 years ago

"Get a list of visible SSIDs" is exactly how phones derive your location. There's little distinction between seeing SSIDs and seeing GPS coordinates for 99.9% of the population.

tinus_hn5• 3 years ago

Back in the real world SSIDs are a very coarse and not very reliable way of locating devices. You are exaggerating.

handsclean• 3 years ago

It’s the same thing. Listing visible SSIDs and comparing them to very comprehensive databases is the whole way precise geolocation works in many devices, like MacBooks. I think even phone navigation has GPS much less precise than you see on screen, and the extra precision is gained with this technique. Making this technique really work is a large part of the reason Google drove or walked every street in the world with their recording gig.

ycombinatrix3• 3 years ago

One should realize that what they call ‘track user locations’ is actually ‘receive GPS radio signals’.

Should be behind a permissions check, but not the end of the world.

lol

ynniv• 3 years ago

I thought local network access and WiFi details also required location services access for this reason.

andirk• 3 years ago

Whether the user is aware and opt _in_ is the issue, right? But all of the network signals that are triggered by web applications, phone apps, OS, isn't it almost always possible to get SOME information about a user's geo location?

There's a theory that Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht leaked his location via a Captcha on a website, despite actively covering his tracks.

I think Bitcoin's Satoshi is/was an Australian bloke living in Japan because of his wording + timestamp on posts.

I was able to send a friend a little hello message via a Facebook ad by hyper targeting them (before fb disallowed that), which also confirmed their location.

gruez3• 3 years ago

There's a theory that Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht leaked his location via a Captcha on a website, despite actively covering his tracks.

How?

Arch485• 3 years ago

Assuming this is actually the case, probably a lot of heuristics that got "close enough" to his actual location.

thih9• 3 years ago

Which popular apps use that? Is it possible to check this?

Like most here, I don’t have Wechat or Alipay installed. But I’m interested in e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat, Chrome, Firefox, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.

rsync3• 3 years ago

I know I sound like a broken record but I really do think app stores owe us the ability to see, in advance, what permissions an app will request.

I shouldn’t have to download and install the app just to see what kind of behaviors it is going to attempt.

The app stores know this information and it would be trivially easy to present it in the details of the app prior to down loading.

breakfastduck2• 3 years ago

Yeah, this should absolutely be standard.

sneeze-slayer2• 3 years ago

In the Play store it is possible to see what permissions are required and data is collected.

CharlesW• 3 years ago

I know I sound like a broken record but I really do think app stores owe us the ability to see, in advance, what permissions an app will request.

Beyond what Apple already does? https://imgur.com/a/ouEqiGG

paxys3• 3 years ago

Reading through the linked docs, this API seems to specifically be for apps created by owners of WiFi hotspots to help users connect to those hotspots (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/h...).

NEHotspotHelper allows your app to participate in the process of authenticating with hotspot networks, that is, Wi-Fi networks where the user must interact with the network to gain access to the wider Internet.
NEHotspotHelper is only useful for hotspot integration. There are both technical and business restrictions that prevent it from being used for other tasks, such as accessory integration or Wi-Fi based location. Before using NEHotspotHelper, you must first be granted a special entitlement (com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotHelper) by Apple.

Which makes sense, but then why exactly are apps like WeChat and Alipay granted this entitlement?

iforgotpassword2• 3 years ago

Because the Chinese market is too important. For wechat you can maybe argue that it's a "super app" and probably also can be used to connect to wifi hotspots, but for alipay I fail to come up with an explanation..

physicles• 3 years ago

Alipay is also pretty much an everything app (it also has its own ecosystem of mini-apps built on Alipay's platform). Except for the social aspect, it's nearly interchangeable with WeChat.

paxys3• 3 years ago

The sensible move would really be to break up these "everything" apps. Sure WeChat may have a wifi service, but if it is being used by 0.01% of the user base then why is everyone else forced to approve the permissions? Creating a separate "WeChat Wifi Connector" takes zero extra effort on their part.

gruez3• 3 years ago

API seems to specifically be for apps created by owners of WiFi hotspots to help users connect to those hotspots.

VPN apps also seem to use it: https://github.com/pia-foss/mobile-ios/blob/4618b55161ec5b8b...

n2d4• 3 years ago

I don't know about Alipay, but afaict WeChat needs this feature for WeChat Wifi, which lets users connect to internet hotspots from their WeChat accounts https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzI1NjA0NzQzOQ==&mid=265026...

smith7018• 3 years ago

I’m sure that’s valid but I’ve worked for mobile app companies and can guarantee features like this are added just to get the entitlement.

samstave2• 3 years ago

The complexities and capabilities in the Chinese(well, most asia) mobile market are remarkable.

I always find it funny when people boast about how great certain things are in the US without ever have traveled to HK, Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing etc...

Most people dont realize just how entangled mobile life is in Asia, way more than in the US.

vinay_ys• 3 years ago

Even if only genuine hotspot apps got the entitlement, it is not a user-friendly privacy-first design. Such API use should trigger a user-visible permission dialog before apps get background-notified and user should be able to select the one of "allow-once, allow while using, allow-in-background, never" and the app activity should show up in app privacy reports.

TylerE2• 3 years ago

Not sure I agree - in fact pretty sure I don’t. Having lots of permission dialogs just trains users to mindlessly click yes on everything, because they just want to do the thing, not think about how the sausage is made.

_heimdall• 3 years ago

Its a more basic question to me, why do these apps need a special entitlement? Couldn't they ask users for permissions like any other app, presumably with a good reason to go along with it since location is needed for some features?

gorbypark• 3 years ago

Apple wants to gatekeep the feature for "legitimate" uses. If it was just another permission, random flashlight apps (as the joke goes) would ask for the permission and _n_% of people would just blindly accept it. Then, of course, Apple would get blamed for allowing random flashlight apps to track people's location. Of course this could all be done via the regular app review process, but Apple seems to have decided on a few permissions they want to keep super locked down (CarPlay is another, to avoid blame for when someone crashes while using some CarPlay app).

diebeforei4852• 3 years ago

This is functionally a Location Services feature, so the user should grant location permissions to use this.

I am not sure how it works in practice.

lxgr16• 3 years ago

Apparently the entitlement is not required in a few other conditions, listed here [1] by Apple:

    1. application is using CoreLocation API and has user's authorization to access precise location. [This seems harmless – the app already gets the precise location anyway here.]

    2. application has used NEHotspotConfiguration API to configure the current Wi-Fi network. [This seems to be the scope of the article!]

    3. application has active VPN configurations installed. [This one is quite surprising to me!]

    4. application has active NEDNSSettingsManager configuration installed. [No idea what this is exactly, but it seems similar to the VPN one.]

[1] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/679038

Tigress8780• 3 years ago

These "super apps" get special treatment everywhere.

Many phone manufacturers even automatically grant certain permissions when these apps are installed (the list is sometimes hard-coded into the system), since there are people who do not understand what is "permission", and they blame the phone manufacturer for not being able to use WeChat/Alipay.

tqwhite• 3 years ago

My iPhone asks if I want to allow an app to access the Local Network. I assume that this

1) means that Apple does cover this situation and

2) my opinion that the phrasing "Apple allows applications to track user locations without authorization" is contemptible

are both true.

0x0• 3 years ago

Pretty sure that's a different thing just to prevent tcp/ip connections to other devices on your local subnet after you have already joined a wifi.

lern_too_spel3• 3 years ago

That's a different permission. My understanding is it is not necessary to read WiFi details, which just needs an entitlement from Apple and no user prompt.

lutoma• 3 years ago

I think that prompt is for something different.

cdme2• 3 years ago

My most blocked domain in nextDNS (which runs on all my devices) is metrics.icloud.com. books-analytics-events.apple.com is in the top 5 as well.

rsync3• 3 years ago

Hmm … I don’t see that in my nextdns logs. Is that a custom block you put into place or are you using a different filter list then I am?

cdme2• 3 years ago

I’ve got the native blocking ruleset for Apple added.

captn3m0• 3 years ago

Now I'm curious - which other apps have this entitlement? Is there a way for me to find out which apps on my phone have this entitlement?

mannyv• 3 years ago

They're not tracking locations because they're not using GPS.

They are checking the environment for stuff that might have known locations, which is different. You can do the same with bluetooth/BLE.

panarky3• 3 years ago

This is a distinction without a difference.

The user must be in control of whether their location is disclosed to an app.

extraduder_ire2• 3 years ago

You can do the same with bluetooth/BLE.

Not anymore you can't. Sometime before 2020 apple, and also google, started treating BLE scanning as an operation needing location permissions. (I had to deal with this transition while submitting an iOS app that connected to a BLE device which actually had a GPS module in it)

As of now, I still have to turn on location on my android phone to connect to some BLE devices.

bdavbdav• 3 years ago

Same difference as far as a user is concerned. And BT/BLE explicitly asks for permission.

x1sec• 3 years ago

SSID / BSSID is often enough to pinpoint the location. Recently someone debated this with me, so I asked him what his wifi AP name was, then proceeded to provide their home address.

How? By searching it in https://wigle.net.

That ended the debate quite swiftly.

ralmidani• 3 years ago

This is one of the majors problems with completely locked-down platforms. Assurances that the owner of the platform respects your privacy and prevents others from violating it are really just a pinky promise.

vlovich1232• 3 years ago

I think the perspective can be incorrect. No one expects Apple to get it perfect. Computing platforms are legitimately hard to secure, especially when you’re talking about privacy which is a lot more amorphously defined culturally vs typical CS security which is defined as subverting technical access controls.

The key question is whether Apple will play a curator role in trying to reign in the ecosystem. They have in the past (eg Uber was doing shady shit and there was a game of chicken to get them to stop). Of course Alipay and WeChat may be harder especially how Apple China is such a huge market for Apple and critical to their success now. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple adjusts to this over the next few years.

Open platforms also have this problem and also operate on pinky promises (perhaps even worse) so I’m not sure the point you’re trying to make unless it’s that “well if this problem isn’t solved I’d rather have an open platform”. The problem with that argument is that there are many issues and this is only one failure case which may be addressed in the future whereas open platforms have this one and many more that are unadressed.

thund• 3 years ago

Open platforms can be reviewed and fixed more easily and faster

kevinsync2• 3 years ago

Whenever location data collection comes up, I always think about that Seinfeld episode where Kramer is receiving misdialed MovieFone calls -- at first he just talks to the person and reads the movie times out of the newspaper. Very helpful.

Eventually, he starts emulating the phone menus, asking the caller "Using your touch-tone keypad, please enter the first three letters of the movie title, now."

When this doesn't work, he blurts out "Why don't you just tell me the movie you want to see???"

Why in the holy hell do app developers who are trying to provide some kind of location-specific data not just ASK YOU WHERE YOU ARE? "I'm in Los Angeles" would suffice 99% of the time. If you go to Idaho, and care enough, change your location in that app -- now you get local bulletins about russet potatoes instead of encampment fires.

This is a rhetorical question, no need to answer it, just screaming into the void.

ryandrake• 3 years ago

I know you said not to answer, but for everyone else, apps can already do this using the OS's native permission controls, as of iOS 13 with the "Allow Once" option and as of Android 11 with the "Only this time" option.

WendyTheWillow4• 3 years ago

You want to change your location in every app manually, even when your device has a GPS receiver installed?

mikepurvis• 3 years ago

A happy medium would be if as part of the location-granting prompt, you could tell the OS "just give a city-level fix— this app doesn't need to know exactly where I am".

0cf8612b2e1e3• 3 years ago

As someone who keeps GPS off, absolutely.

Not that I think I can trust the phone actually disabled the GPS, but there is no reason my movements need to be tracked and recorded in detail. Make them go through the effort and pull up all the cellphone towers I ping.

Day to day, there is a very good chance I am still in my home city as first configured.

extraduder_ire2• 3 years ago

It'd make for a useful additional option, as long as the app doesn't know it's happening. There are already ways to spoof GPS location, as many pokemon go players know.

iOS already has an option to give a very loose fix to an app.

kevinsync2• 3 years ago

Not every app -- but I feel like different apps demand different techniques, and tend to descend the gradient from most-intrusive to least in terms of permissions. That said, I'm not a privacy freak; I have no personal qualms about approving location services for a lot of apps. Go nuts, I don't care.

For instance, mapping or Waze needs your current GPS coordinate at all times. This doesn't bother me because I'm being tracked myriad other ways, even if I don't give permission -- cameras in every gas station and store, license-plate-reading cameras on police cars and traffic lights, StarLink in my Subaru, the SSID technique described in OP blog, credit card transactions at the pump, GPS coordinates from a passenger who did grant permissions (and we happen to be Instagram friends, so we're forever connected), an AirTag hidden in my gas tank, on and on and on.

It might seem like overreach for a paranoid person to need to grant location services to Papa Johns to order pizza, but that app may have legitimate reasons: expedited discovery of the nearest brick-and-mortar, realtime delivery tracking, order-abuse prevention or prediction (why are you placing orders repeatedly to locations all over the country, even if they're prepaid?), unwanted, craven marketing, backend revenue streams selling your data to Satan, etc.

Other types of apps, like Nextdoor or Tinder, don't actually need your exact location. They need to know generally where you are, but having precise coordinates isn't in the best interest of the user (see recent Feeld disaster where exact locations were prominently displayed on profiles [0]). On top of that, Nextdoor revolves around the neighborhood you live in; if you're traveling, it shouldn't update the feed based on your current location, nor let you join neighborhoods you're visiting in a transient manner just because of a GPS coordinate.

Then, consider that native-OS permissions popups are obtuse at best; many people simply want to have some tactile understanding of their choices.

My 70 year old father could understand if an app asks "Hey, generally where are you located? I'll send you coupons" and he can reply "XYZ, State" once, and that's the end of that. A boilerplate permissions modal that doesn't explain the difference between precise and approximate location, while simultaneously not visually showing what "approximate" even means (is it a loose radius centered on your precise location? how loose exactly? or is it a tile on a fixed grid? is it the entire city? etc) to him is no different than just constantly polling GPS+SSID in the background. "THEY know where I'm at!"

What I'm really getting at is most app permissions have terrible UX/UI, and operate opaquely.

It is not at all clear what you're sharing and with whom, and they tend to have three options: 0%, 1% and 100% (no access, access to one photo at a time when you choose, or access to every photo on your device; no location, give your location once and never be able to view what you submitted or update it, or precise location at all times, etc).

What if I only want to receive a specific segment of a brand's communications? (ex. let me know about upcoming events, but I'm not interested in new merch). Any bozo can implement that for an app that's willing to actively categorize their communications, but most have no interest in taking on the responsibility.

It's just a shame that users and user experience are rarely considered when designing most apps and websites. Corners are cut by design, liability is aggressively and intentionally limited from the top down, and decisions are made for structural and financial reasons at the expense of the humans wasting their time or money using any given app, when it could be so much better (with less effort!)

[0] https://mashable.com/article/feeld-app-down

sneeze-slayer2• 3 years ago

Since Android 12, there is the option to choose between providing "precise" and "approximate" location data to an app. I have found it quite nice, even if it sometimes breaks a random app if a developer hasn't planned to use it.

https://www.howtogeek.com/763227/what-are-precise-and-approx...

toasted-subs• 3 years ago

Apple sometimes provides a prompt for letting photos be shown. Seems like sometimes they expose all your photos to application without asking.

Seems worse to give your users a false sense of security.

dang2• 3 years ago

We've heard complaints that this title is overstated, and I'd be happy to replace it with a better (i.e. more accurate and neutral) one, if anyone has a suggestion?

joshstrange• 3 years ago

"iOS apps can track a user via SSID scan with a special entitlement"

I think that best describes it? Not sure but I agree the title as-is doesn't really ring true after reading the article.

crotchfire• 3 years ago

I think the title is fine.

Pesthuf• 3 years ago

This three class developer system on iOS is ridiculous. There's the normal developer who can do little more on iOS that you couldn't also do with a web app. There's the "blessed" developer with special entitlements that lets them violate the privacy of their users in new and fun ways and also provide features nobody else can so the normal developers can't compete with their app. And then there's Apple and for their apps, the restrictions everyone else has to deal with are little more than suggestions. Wouldn't want third party apps to compete with Apple's on their own platform.

If there's a legitimate use for these entitlements, everyone should be able to use them. And the ultimate choice for what an App should and shouldn't be able to do should be in the users' hands. But Apple needs to protect their shareholders from this horrid vision of the future.

aurelien• 3 years ago

Apple is evil

EchoReflection• 3 years ago

case study in the power of word choice, this “headline” reads “Apple allows SOME iOS apps to track"... but the actual article to which this page links does not include the word "some", making (imo) Yingyu's article seem to indicate a much more nefarious situation.

happytiger• 3 years ago

Wait until people learn about Google sidewalk if they think this is bad.

It is fundamentally intrinsic to the technology of most digital technology that: 1) their very data-driven nature leads to information gathering, and 2) the colossal and inherently inexhaustible recurring revenues in that data collection will always pull organizations and their leadership towards data collection at scale.

The only conceivable framework for preventing information collection is to attach data privacy to the individual as an human right. Even “opting out” as an intrinsic default won’t be enough, though it is regulators’ and industries’ favorite kick-the-can strategy.

Otherwise it’s just a question of time, as the incentive for profit is overwhelmingly attractive to companies, regulators and markets.

Apple, for all the talk of privacy, cannot maintain the fiction of privacy while simulaneously answering to shareholders with a scale advertising business or really any advertising business of any revenue importance at all. Their promise of privacy for users died spiritually if not practically the moment they decided to dramatically expand their ad business, as it shifted the company from serving users as their customer with devices to making those same users the product to be sold.

So this kind of thing is inherent and will continue to emerge from Apple. The opt-in, limited nature of who is allowed access matters very little. Just follow the incentives to understand corporate behavior.

KindAndFriendly• 3 years ago

For the last few months, I am consistently receiving spam calls (on my mobile number) shortly after I left the house regardless of weekday, time etc.

I never thought about the idea that an app can track when I leave my (most frequently) used WiFi and derive from that I left home.

tremarley2• 3 years ago

And unfortunately, there is no way to truly turn off WiFi & Bluetooth on iOS devices.

RedComet• 3 years ago

Certainly the button in control center doesn't anymore, but the toggle in settings doesn't do it either?

tremarley2• 3 years ago

There isn't any toggles in the settings that fully turns off Bluetooth or Wifi.

Apple knows that it is a nuisance, but their incentivized by their Find My program

forward12• 3 years ago

Can we talk about the fact iOS/macOS turns on the Wifi and Bluetooth radios after each system update? Almost as if the devices were made deliberately to maximize spying, contrary to the marketing lullabies.

emmo• 3 years ago

Yeah I find this incredibly annoying.

ShakataGaNai• 3 years ago

Hanlon's razor: Apple is just lazy and defaults all these things to on, rather than keeping tract of the settings since they are used or needed by 99% of people. Apple loves its Bluetooth keyboards and mice, after all.

forward12• 3 years ago

I don't think so. Apple likes to collect data as much as anyone else, they're just better at hiding it with euphanisms.

To wit: iOS requires precise location be enabled just to show weather on the home screen; I can't set a static location and just get the weather report for that place.

The whole thing just reeks of willful surveillance anti-patterns.

graftak2• 3 years ago

The latest iOS allows more (all?) automations to run without user acknowledgement so I made one that fully disables my WiFi when I leave my home.

This does not solve the entire problem of course, but at least alleviates some of it.

m463• 3 years ago

turn off location services, your phone still contacts ls.apple.com

deep links, they go deeper than you think.

ibeacons provide very precise indoor location, think of all the behavioral data a store app can collect.

apple is not really your friend.

seriously, apple should let you

- know what is running

- know what network traffic happens

- control these thigns

- run your own programs

I would love an ios firewall program or non-neutered little snitch

cglong• 3 years ago

I wonder if Android's corresponding API has this same vulnerability. Based on my reading, it doesn't seem like it https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi...

bengale• 3 years ago

Is this how Tado does home WiFi detection for geofencing?

Our company has an app that does geofencing and we’ve had no end of issues getting it to work consistently. This would have been useful.

raylad• 3 years ago

Is there a similar capability for Bluetooth?

I am trying to understand how TikTok can suggest "people you may know" when I have not shared my contacts, but have sat next to those people recently.

Bluetooth seems the most likely.

Apple allows some iOS apps to track user locations via lists of nearby SSIDs

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