Iphone users hopelessly lost
Wi-Fi positioning accurate to within one or two continents
THAT APPLE users are pretty much helpless basket cases is a given. But to discover that the pastel-hued gadgets on which they base their designer lifestyles are about as much use as a chocolate teapot is more amusing than a duck shooting Dick Cheney by mistake.
No, actually, that would be more amusing.
Anyway, one of the Iphone's main selling points, other than its ludicrous price tag and lack of features, is its ability to tell gormless users where they are.
The Iphone and Ipod Touch use Wi-Fi access points to work out where they are, based on a database of MAC addresses. The Apple gadgets monitor visible access points to tell users exactly where they are, based on the Skyhook Wireless database of Wi-Fi access point locations, as do Nokia Symbian-based phones and PCs equipped with Skyhook's Loki plugin, but that data is, sadly, open to hackery pokery.
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich found that all you need is a laptop, a Wi-Fi access point transmitter and a database of Wi-Fi access point locations to confuse the things.
The boffins found that they could readily jam the channels carrying real incoming Wi-Fi MAC announcements and substitute others of their own devising on one of the 13 available channels.
By transmitting the MAC address of a different transmitter, they convinced an Iphone that it was on the other side of the city from its real location.
Spurred on by this success, they then fooled one of the overpriced phones into thinking it was in New York, when it was actually in downtown Zurich.
This is obviously not a major problem for the average Apple customer as they can simply ask their carers where the nearest Mac shop or Starbucks can be found. µ
L'Inq
Heise
Comments
Angry article
This is just an angry hatefilled article. No useful information other then to say something bad about Apple.Come off it people, you dont have to own one.
Oh. Right then.
So what you're saying is, it's not so much the iPhone, or even the database in use to check the locations, but actually just the fact that it's possible for malicious parties (with WAY too much time on their hands) to send false signals, that might make someone think they were somewhere they weren't. Since, however, this technique has no obvious monetary upside or useful result, the chance is about nil of anyone besides a researcher who needs to find something to write a paper on actually bothering to do this. And if someone did... Given the range of a wi-fi transmitter, and the number of people and wi-fi spots in the world's cities... It wouldn't matter (at all) anyway. Thanks for the new 'iPhone' news!Wrong title...
Shouldn't that title be "Iphone lusers hopelessly lost"?Y'know, it was fine when Apple was cocking a snook at other OS vendors by making their bundle more functional. But things like this (i.e. not using GPS), the MagUnsafe patented connector precluding third party (i.e. safe) PSUs, dumping OpenFirmware for EFI, hard linking of directories, and a dozen other recent brain-dead decisions, have turned me away from them. Just in time for me to buy a new mobile device.
Thanks Apple. Thanks Canonical.
colored lovely
love the ending.Wow!
That is a lot of Apple hate and bile, I mean seriously, there are some issues there, it's only a phone. Anyway nice to see things are still impartial round here, don't worry it's why I love you!Hmmm..
I don't normally bother posting on here because most of the BullS%1t people speak on here makes me want to hospitalise them, but isn't it strange how none of the MacFreaks have commented on this saying how great and unhackable their gear is??LOL
"This is just an angry hatefilled article. No useful information other then to say something bad about Apple.Come off it people, you dont have to own one."
And look, the article did exactly what it should have: took one of the stuck up, snobbish, fruit-users down a peg or two.
Preach on, Andrew, preach on!
Apple Hate-Mongers need Prozac
Well, I am an Apple user and iPhone owner (and own as well PC's running Ubuntu Linux and various releases of Windows) and the reason we are not defending the security of the iPhone or Apple products in general is....well....we actually can read higher than comic-book level and noticed that no Apple hardware was hacked at all. In what I would dub "a giant waste of time and money" some dudes found that if you (1) jam the GPS locator in the iPhone that is used for the phone to ID what country it is in (which wasn't mentioned in this poor excuse for an article), and (2) jam one of the possibly many WPS channels operating in the area, and (3) transmit your own fraudulent WPS channel over it with a database of bogus MAC addresses, and (4) the iPhone happens to chose the particular channel you took over, and (5) is within range of the bogus transmission, you can make an iPhone (GASP!!) show the wrong location when the WPS capability is utilized. Wow. Yes, I can definately see the security threat there. Imagine when that guy makes a wrong left turn in New Jersey and then thinks he's in Timbuktu!!!! - oh, wait, it will never happen because all the above conditions would need to be met at the same time. It has no practical value and no practical security risk. Although it was cool that they were able to do it.spoofing
yup, there are lots of easier ways to compromise the functionality of an iphone if that's your inclination. Like dropping it in a toilet. Or smashing it with a hammer. Does the WIFI positioning work then? Nope. Stupid iPhone.