Wifi Location Tracking is killing Privacy

<tinfoil hat>

When Google’s “streetview cars” roamed around the world, they were performing wifi scans of their surrounding areas. By mapping the MAC address of your location to the van’s GPS coordinates, they built a map of locations that can accurately find your location, just by knowing the wifi router you’re connected to.

Google claimed this was “by accident”, and many countries objected to the collection of the data and the invasion of privacy.

As of 2010, Google had collected 600 gigabytes of data from over 30 nations. That list is now growing, as each new Android phone that gets purchased has the built-in ability to transfer locations of wireless networks to and from Google’s servers, to help aid in location services on the phone. The unfortunate part is even if you aren’t using these services, Google is still collecting this data via your phone.

So who has your wifi router’s location?

Continue reading Wifi Location Tracking is killing Privacy

You Need a “Find My Stolen Phone” App

If you care at all about your phone, you should have a “Find My Phone” app installed.

Why should you install a “Lost Phone” app?

  1. Your phone has sensitive personal information in it.
  2. If you browse the internet on your phone, if could have account login credentials. (Banks, emails)
  3. Many people put their company’s emails on their phones.
  4. You’d rather try recovering your phone before spending a few hundred $ on a new one.

So which app should you install?
Continue reading You Need a “Find My Stolen Phone” App

How To Fix GPS on T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant

UPDATE:

After switching ROMs and Kernals a few times, my GPS stopped working and the fix below didn’t help anymore.

chui101 created an amazing software patch that seems to fix my GPS issues without any complicated settings.  Try it out if you’re still having trouble with your Vibrant’s GPS.

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The Samsung Vibrant is hands down the best phone I’ve ever used, however it has a shortcoming in the GPS department.
The settings that come preloaded on the Samsung Vibrant for GPS are not optimal for trying to quickly connect to GPS.

Before making the changes below, I could only connect to GPS once per reboot of my phone.

1 – Disable “Use Wireless Networks” – Settings / Location & Security
2 – Dial *#*#3214789650#*#*
3 – Under “Application settings” Change “Operation Mode” to MS Based
4 – Under “SUPL/CP Settings” Change the SERVER & PORT to supl.google.com and port 7276 [ Do not use www. in front of supl]
5 – REBOOT

I also installed “GPS Status” which has a tool to Reset the local AGSP data, and redownload new data to help assist your phone finding the correct location.

The original GPS settings were:

Operation Mode: Standalone
Server: www.spirent-lcs.com
Port: 7275

 

After making these changes, I could now connect to GPS 3 different times, connecting under half a minute, all without requiring a single reboot of my phone.

Source and other alternative code if the above code doesn’t work on your firmware.