Microsoft Reveals Your Location

Android Users Beware

Microsoft Reveals Your Location

Microsoft has collected the locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other Wi-Fi devices around the world and makes them available on the Web without taking the privacy precautions that competitors have, CNET has learned.

The vast database available through Live.com publishes the precise geographical location, which can point to a street address and sometimes even a corner of a building, of Android phones, Apple devices, and other Wi-Fi enabled gadgets.

Unlike Google and Skyhook Wireless, which have compiled similar lists of these unique Wi-Fi addresses, Microsoft has not taken any measures to curb access to its database. Google tightened controls last month in response to a June 15 CNET article, and Skyhook uses a limited form of geolocation to protect privacy.

Microsoft assembled the database through crowdsourced data gathering from Windows Phone 7 devices and through what it calls "managed driving" by Street View-like vehicles that record Wi-Fi signals accessible from public roads. Its Web interface is, the company says, intended to provide "search results, weather, movie times, maps and directions based on a device's current location."

CNET has confirmed how Live.com's interface works independently and also with Elie Bursztein, a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford Security Laboratory who recently analyzed Microsoft's application programming interface, or API. He plans to summarize his findings in a related talk with two other researchers at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas next week.

Bursztein recommended that Microsoft adopt some of the same limits that its competitors already have. "I think what Google does is the smart thing to do," he said. "It's a pretty good solution."

Microsoft declined repeated requests since Tuesday to respond to a list of questions, including whether the database includes only Wi-Fi devices acting as access points, or whether client devices using the networks have been swept in as well--something that Google did with its Street View cars. A May blog post touts "Transparency About Microsoft's Practices," but doesn't provide details.

If Microsoft collects and publishes only the Wi-Fi addresses of access points, the privacy concerns are lessened. But hundreds of millions of phones and computers are used as access points--tethering is one example, and the feature is built into Apple's OS X operating system--meaning that their locations could be monitored.

It's true that Wi-Fi addresses, also called MAC addresses, aren't typically transmitted over the Internet. But anyone within Wi-Fi range can record yours, and it's easy to narrow down which addresses correspond to which manufacturer.

Someone, such as a suspicious spouse, who can navigate to the About screen on an iPhone or a laptop's configuration menu can obtain it in a few seconds as well. And hobbyist hacker Samy Kamkar created a proof-of-concept code last year that uses what's known as a cross-site scripting attack to grab the location of Wi-Fi routers that can be seen from an unsuspecting visitor's computer.