Some of you have probably heard about the Americunt who got arrested because he stole someone else's macbook -- the police tracked the macbook.
Now there's a recent report about a Rusky who was arrested in Pooh-ket for stealing shit, and amongst that shit was -- a macbook.
Now I've said it's all cool how we mac users can track down our stolen macs. Even nicer now that it's a FREE SERVICE from iCloud. But the big question remains:
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Seems a quick Google search isn't pulling up anything. It's all "yeah, yeah, you can do it and it's all cool" but in these days where we're all bitching about how our digital dildos are reporting our every move and whereabouts, one has to wonder how the Find-my-Mac actually LOCATES your mac --- using WIFI??
I mean on the iPhone it's obvious. The iPhone has GPS built in, and can be triangulated using wifi hotspots or found using whatever 3G cell tower it's connected to. The macbook had just WIFI, or so we all think. Perhaps Apple snuck a GPS unit in there that they're not telling us about... but that's just silly, right?
So how DOES a macbook get found using wifi? Does an IP address ALWAYS give your exact whereabouts? What about dynamic IPs that change every time you restart your computer? Or does it use the landline number registered with the connection you're using? How??
I just tried Find-my-Mac to well... find my mac. It did. It didn't seem to work straight away -- took a while, and even then, only seemed to really work when I got off the office connection, connected to a hotspot, and then went on the office connection again. Maybe that did it, maybe it didn't matter.
Dude, are you serious? You really don't know?
Let's just say it has to do with the crowd sourced location database that your (and everyone else's) iPhone are contributing to, every minute of every day.
Apple is able to leverage the location database being built by capturing WiFi locations, and matching them to exact locations via the simultaneous GPS pinpointing of those same devices.
Remember the fake drama news stories about "iPhone tracks where you go", a while back? it's that database (now stored for up to a week, and then returned to Apple after being thoroughly anonymized) which is used to match wifi locations to actual locations.
So let me get this right (if I understood it):
1.) Someone's location is captured in a combination of wifi/3g/gps via an iPhone
2.) Macbook uses same wifi, so it's reported as being in the same area as that iPhone
Damn. SO THAT's what that database is for? So for each network you connect to, there's a specific point on the world map that it notes for that network. So this means it only would work for networks that are in the database -- that if the macbook connected to a 'fresh' unknown network, it wouldn't be found?
Quote Originally Posted by theanimaster
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Damn. SO THAT's what that database is for? So for each network you connect to, there's a specific point on the world map that it notes for that network. So this means it only would work for networks that are in the database -- that if the macbook connected to a 'fresh' unknown network, it wouldn't be found?
It would, as long as that network is geo-locatable via IP.
- if you set up a satellite internet connection in the Amazon rain forest, in heretofore unexplored territory, and logged on with your MacBook, it will most likely have no idea where it is.
- if at the same time, you used your iPhone to get connected, your Macbook should know about its whereabout after a week or so.
It doesn't just use the Apple crowd sourced database - bear in mind that Apple has a relationship with Skyhook (which has been doing this pre-smartPhones), and also bought their own mapping company a while back (PlaceBase). The vast distribution and penetration of iPhones has just allowed Apple to further refine and fine-tune the geolocation database.
Oh, and for what it's worth, RIM has just "invented" IP geolocation:
Wi-Fi Geolocation Has Launched! «BlackBerry Developer's Blog (http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/09/wifi-geolocation-launch/)
Quote Originally Posted by Cthulhu
View Post (http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/computers-technology-and-the-internet-in-thailand/62760-find-my-mac-part-2-the-big-question.html#post1621621)
Remember the fake news stories about "iPhone tracks where you go", a while back? it's that database (now stored for up to a week, and then returned to Apple after being thoroughly anonymized) which is used to match wifi locations to actual locations.
If the news were fake, then how come they have a database of locations?
The drama was fake, not the news - until it turns out that Android does the same thing, except they do *not* anonymize the information (its tied to the device ID), and there was no way to deactivate it and turn it off.