Search Results for: satellite

GoGo Experience Over The Clouds – Without Certificate Forgery

Here I am, over the clouds again and an interesting aspect of flying in the US is that they have Internet access on board on many of their flights. Here's how it worked for me while putting together this blog post: On Delta, Internet over the clouds is provided by GoGoAir and I was getting … Continue reading GoGo Experience Over The Clouds – Without Certificate Forgery

My Android Privacy Configuration

I'm always a bit shocked when I hear people saying that “Google and others track you anyway on your smartphone and there is nothing that can be done about it”. I sense a certain frustration not only on the side of the person who's made the statement. But I obviously beg to differ. As this comes up quite frequently I decided to put together a blog post that I can then refer to with the things that I do on my Android based device to keep my private data as private as possible.

The Three Cornerstones to Privacy

In essence, my efforts to keep my private data private is based on three cornerstones:

  • As few apps on the device as possible that communicate with servers on the Internet without my consent.
  • Allowing access to private information such as location, calendar entries, the address book, etc. to specific apps while blocking access for all others by default.
  • Preventing communication of apps with servers on the Internet that I would like to use. Amazon's Kindle reader app is a prime example. It's a good app for reading books but if left on it's own it's far too chatty for my taste.

In some cases, implementing these cornerstones in practice is straight forward while other things require a more technical approach. The rest of this blog entry now looks at how I implement these cornerstones in practice.

More Background On SUPL, A-GPS, the Almanac and Ephemeris Data

After my previous posts on how to trace and analyze A-GPS SUPL requests (see here and here) I thought I'd also write a quick post with some references to more details on the parameters that are contained in an A-GPS SUPL message. When discussing GPS, two terms are regularly mentioned, The 'Almanac' and the 'Ephemeris … Continue reading More Background On SUPL, A-GPS, the Almanac and Ephemeris Data

How To Trace An A-GPS SUPL Request

In a previous post I've described my results of tracing an A-GPS SUPL request from my mobile device to the Google GPS location service and the issues I've discovered. In this follow-up post I thought I'd give an overview of how to setup up an environment that allows to trace and decode the conversation.

How SUPL Reveals My Identity And Location To Google When I Use GPS

In a previous post I was delighted to report that assisted GPS (A-GPS) has become fast enough so I no longer have to rely on Google's Wi-Fi location service that in return requires me to send Wi-Fi and location data back to Google periodically. Unfortunately it turns out that the A-GPS implementation of one of my Android smartphones sends the ID of my SIM card (the IMSI) to the A-GPS server. From a technical point of view absolutely unnecessary and a gross privacy violation.

Read on for the details…

First Time To Fix – When GPS-only Location Is Good Enough And Protects My Privacy – Sort Of

When I upgraded to my recent smartphone hardware (a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Cyanogen Mod) I noticed that the time it takes to get a first location via GPS (first time to fix) is stunningly quick compared to my previous device. Even after not having used the GPS receiver for more than half a day, … Continue reading First Time To Fix – When GPS-only Location Is Good Enough And Protects My Privacy – Sort Of

St. Helena: No Cable, no Broadband Internet, no Wireless

My friends regularly mock me for checking network coverage for places I plan to go on vacation to and that I would feel uncomfortable the moment I ran out of coverage. But it's probably true. So you will understand my shock and disbelief that there is a UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic that … Continue reading St. Helena: No Cable, no Broadband Internet, no Wireless