Firefox Add-On To Track Your Location Via Wi-Fi

Barence writes "Mozilla Labs has unveiled a new Add-on that allows Firefox to pinpoint your location based on Wi-Fi signals. The feature, called Geode, is a prototype for the location-tracking technology that will be built into the forthcoming Firefox 3.1. Geode is designed to work with websites that rely on knowing your location, such as mapping and geotagging services. The prospect of Firefox having the ability to track your location raises obvious privacy fears. Mozilla insists users will remain in complete control. 'With Geode, when a website requests your location a notification bar will ask how much information you want to give that site: your exact location, your neighbourhood, your city, or nothing at all,' the Mozilla Labs blog claims."

Big Brother is like a fox on fire

And twice as annoying.

Excuse me while I install this on my son's laptop ... without him knowing.

They'll never track me

I'm wearing my tinfoil underwear.

Oh crap, this means I need to wear underwear at the computer.

Re:They'll never track me

Let's see, based on nearby access points, I'd say you're on Linksys Avenue, Linksysburgh, Linksys County, LI.

Why Not...

Why not let it give the user the option of telling the web site some arbitrary location?

Re:Why Not...

If you'd bother reading to the second sentence: " The feature, called Geode, is a prototype for the location-tracking technology that will be built into the forthcoming Firefox 3.1."

You can't not install it, it's already installed.

Other than that, you seem to be traveling.... you get the point

Re:

Well if you are on Windows you might want to try Kmeleon [sourceforge.net] which is just Firefox without any bloat. Very fast and now that they have easy to install versions of flashblock and noscript I've been using it more and more and it is quite nice and a lot faster than FF3 on Windows.

Going back to hard-wired connection

I sure hope Best Buy still sells that 2-mile long ethernet cable...

... It's an addon, not a cookie.

The addon has to be manually installed.

It's not a piece of malware, it's not surreptitiously installed by remote servers. It's strictly voluntary.

The only privacy concerns which arise from this are if people are not careful enough with the addon to disable it.

Re:... It's an addon, not a cookie.

Except the summary states "the location-tracking technology... will be built into the forthcoming Firefox 3.1."

I'd much rather this remain a separately downloadable add-on.

Re:

I'd much rather this remain a separately downloadable add-on.

It is designed so that every application has to get the agreement from the user first. He/She may choose to permit access to the accurate or approximate coordinates (or to deny access).

Source: heise.de (german) [heise.de]

Re:... It's an addon, not a cookie.

Just being included would make it open to security problems. Someday a vulnerability might let a sight activate it using JavaScript, for example.

I'm a minimalist. If I'm not going to ever use it, I'd rather it not be on the computer at all, especially if it's a potential privacy issue.

And we all know that your average Firefox user will always be going to mozilla for their builds. I doubt a fork that removes this component would gain much traction.

Gee

Gee! It says I'm at work. Like I'd be anywhere else at this time of the day.

Stupid

The default damn well better be "nothing at all" or the lawsuits will be spectacular.

Forgot a function

Geode is designed to work with websites that rely on knowing your location, such as mapping, geotagging services, and location-based advertising.

Hey, they've got to be making money off of it somehow.

Control is not enough

Just like providing DRM systems, there is the danger, when providing this capacity, for websites to begin to demand it, something they can't easily do now because there's no infrastructure to demand it.

Of course, this is a constant danger/possibility - some days I regret that Javascript was invented because a number of sites don't work at all unless I tell NoScript to allow JS on them. Cost of progress, I guess...

Re:

there is the danger, when providing this capacity, for websites to begin to demand it

There is also the source code, freely available and modifiable, which means you could easily tell such websites that your current location is Fuckoff, in the fine state of NoneOfYourDamnedBusiness.

a number of sites don't work at all unless I tell NoScript to allow JS on them.

Hey, it could always be worse. You could always stumble on a site that doesn't work unless you allow Flash on it.

How does wifi "pinpoint your location"?

Does this require each hotspot owner to register the location of his/her hotspot, so that a database can be queried to find the location?

e.g. "I can see access points with MAC addresses 00:60:08:57:3C:D2 and 00:E0:18:77:D6:40 so I know I'm at 37 23.516 -122 02.625.."

How many hotspot owners can be bothered to register their correct location? And re-register it if their IP address changes? How many even change their password?

Re:

They sent vehicles out with Wi-fi scanners to catalog broadcast MAC addresses and then map those wireless devices via their GPS location. All that data is then funneled into a database so the position of the Wireless device can be easily "looked up." The downside is that wireless devices are not static and can be easily moved or turned off. So the database must be constantly updated.

Re:

It could be updated by the users of firefox, assuming the world didnt move to the west 20meters you should be able to figure out a few routers moving at a time. Sounds like a really fun/interesting code challenge.

Tracking an IP

Then I'll create a GUI interface in Visual Basic and see if I can track an IP address

Compatible with what iPhone websites use?

Is there even such a thing anyway?

I hope the Firefox team, Apple, Opera and Google will soon sit down and establish a standard for such things (new metas, new javascript, whatever). Tell Microsoft about it, but don't wait for them.

Also, won't AMD sue for using the Geode [wikipedia.org] name?

Undefined license for proprietary component!

From the included LICENSE.TXT:

"The XPCom component contained within the contents of this extension is licensed by
Skyhook Wireless, Inc. ("Skyhook") and are subject to the Skyhook license and
terms of use (the "Skyhook License"); you may not use this component except
in compliance with the Skyhook License.

You may obtain a copy of the Skyhook License at [need URL]"

I didn't look long, but I could not find any "Skyhook License" on Skyhook's website (which is I guess why they chose not to fill in the URL!). I certainly would not use a product for which the license was in question like this, especially considering the proprietary, binary-only DLLs they provide. Not that I would be able to try it out, since it only includes 32-bit Windows and Mac libraries, no Linux at all.

Buyer beware, as they say...

Other location services

There are other ways to approximate your location when you aren't using wi-fi. As an example, http://www.geobytes.com/ipLocator.htm [geobytes.com] will give you a location derived from your ISP's. Also, a way to set a location in your Firefox profile would be useful for desktop PCs that rarely move. And I should note that Ubiquity is currently using the MaxMind geo-api (http://www.maxmind.com/app/api [maxmind.com]) for very similar purposes.

Firefox 3.1?

And thus marks the end my my upgrade path with Firefox. It's been nice, so long and thanks for all the fish!

Re:Solution to a non-problem?

IP geolocation usually only gets you down to the city level usually and even then the city you get isn't always accurate. Using wifi signals (I assume they keep a keep a database of SSIDs and AP MAC addresses to compare against) should be able to get your location down to at least the city block level which is much more useful.