Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden

My Life According to the iPhone's Secret Tracking Log Alexis C. Madrigal Apr 20 2011, 6:12 PM ET Tweet More Email Print I know I should be upset. Apple was secretly creating a log of all my travels by triangulating the nearest cell tower to my location. They've been doing it for a year and storing the data in an unencrypted file, and no one knows exactly for what purpose. "Okay, Apple, why is an iPhone log file recording lat/long location coordinates? Seriously, why?" observers like Declan McCullagh have rightly asked.So,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], yes,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Apple should explain itself and/or just stop this data collection.In the meantime,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], though, I've been playing with the software that the guys who discovered the logfile,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, released. It allows you to access and visualize your own data and I find myself fascinated staring at this automatically generated record of where I've been. There's my life, surreptitiously recorded by my iPhone. I particularly love the little series of dots out in West Virginia, which were recorded while I was flying around with James Fallows, and those dots near the Milwaukee Airport,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], where I made peace with Chili's.I find the data is best at the metro-region scale. The national stuff is OK, as you can see above, but the secret trove is best when you're looking at the car trip-level. Here,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], each little clump of cell phone pings reminds me of a story. There's the time I went to Great Falls, and another time to an Audubon bird-watching preserve,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and Annapolis, and a trip down to Richmond. I can see where I travel in the city and what terrain remains unexplored.Out of curiosity, I'd love to see other people's maps. We might as well make the best of this weird privacy snafu.

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