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Sure. But the choice should be upto the user. If they want to send fake data then they should have the right to do that. It's my phone, so if I want to set my

by Jonnax 7y ago

Sure. But the choice should be upto the user. If they want to send fake data then they should have the right to do that. It's my phone, so if I want to set my location to another country I should be able to. Of course this should be on a per app basis. An SOS button app? This is a niche usecase.

majewsky 7y ago
> An SOS button app? This is a niche usecase. Not at all. In fact, more and more emergency services providers (i.e. the callcenters where 911 gets you) get your location automatically when you call them. I'm not entirely sure though if they only geolocate by cellphone tower, or if the handset also sends location data along with the emergency call. I vaguely remember hearing about this being "supported by all modern phones" or something, so it might be the second. In this case, you absolutely don't want faked location data because it could cost lives.
- einr 7y ago
  That's not an app, and it would be trivial to hardcode a device to send its true GPS location when an emergency number is dialled. Your phone already knows the distinction between emergency numbers and normal ones.
- kube-system 7y ago
  The mechanisms supporting those features are mandated by law and couldn’t legally be subject to user-selected permissions. Those mechanisms are not running as untrusted applications on the OS anyway, I believe most/all of them are implemented in radio firmware.
dbcurtis 7y ago
Interesting. Can’t wait for my Librem 5 to arrive because it enables experiments like this. I can imagine a 3-way (or more) switch. Give Lyft my GPS for right now so my driver can find me. Always block GPS on some apps, and provide fake random GPS to all others. Would be interesting to try. Of course not everyone will run a Librem (understatement). But interesting ideas might find their way into more mainstream platforms.

by Jonnax 7y ago

majewsky 7y ago

> An SOS button app? This is a niche usecase. Not at all. In fact, more and more emergency services providers (i.e. the callcenters where 911 gets you) get your location automatically when you call them. I'm not entirely sure though if they only geolocate by cellphone tower, or if the handset also sends location data along with the emergency call. I vaguely remember hearing about this being "supported by all modern phones" or something, so it might be the second. In this case, you absolutely don't want faked location data because it could cost lives.

einr 7y ago
That's not an app, and it would be trivial to hardcode a device to send its true GPS location when an emergency number is dialled. Your phone already knows the distinction between emergency numbers and normal ones.
kube-system 7y ago
The mechanisms supporting those features are mandated by law and couldn’t legally be subject to user-selected permissions. Those mechanisms are not running as untrusted applications on the OS anyway, I believe most/all of them are implemented in radio firmware.

dbcurtis 7y ago

Interesting. Can’t wait for my Librem 5 to arrive because it enables experiments like this. I can imagine a 3-way (or more) switch. Give Lyft my GPS for right now so my driver can find me. Always block GPS on some apps, and provide fake random GPS to all others. Would be interesting to try. Of course not everyone will run a Librem (understatement). But interesting ideas might find their way into more mainstream platforms.