Facebook messenger, leaking your location like a sieve
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So Facebook messenger, leaks your location like a sieve...
No
Shirlock, amirite?A newly-released tool lets you easily track the movements of other Facebook users and plot them on a map, by scooping up the location data they have shared in Facebook Messenger chats.
Marauder’s Map is named after a magical chart from the Harry Potter novels that shows the location of every person in the grounds of Hogwarts School.
But the new Marauder’s Map is real, not fictional.
“The first thing I noticed when I started to write my code was that the latitude and longitude coordinates of the message locations have more than 5 decimal places of precision, making it possible to pinpoint the sender’s location to less than a meter.”
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Here is the code...
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Which is another reason I won't be installing FB Messenger.
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@g.jacobse said:
Which is another reason I won't be installing FB Messenger.
All you have to do is turn of the GPS in the messages, people have been scared of that app for no reason. There's no more reason to be scared of it than Facebook in general. Sure people flipped because of the permissions it asked for but, all of them were legit and made sense for a messaging app.
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@g.jacobse said:
Which is another reason I won't be installing FB Messenger.
It's something that you control and is very obvious in the app. This is not a reason for concern or avoiding the platform.
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Other than advertising to you, I really don't understand why FB is providing that information in the first place!
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Some people really like to show off where they are all the time. I turn it on when I am traveling but not anywhere around home.
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@Dashrender said:
Other than advertising to you, I really don't understand why FB is providing that information in the first place!
You don't tend to like full communications with people in general. You aren't seeking ways to be more and more connected. I certainly appreciate this functionality. This stuff is what allows people to find each other and do things like meet up and discover who is around. When you are an introvert, technologies to encourage meeting in person makes no sense. When you are an extravert it is the most obviously awesome thing ever.
And for those of us who travel often, it is nice that people can check where you are instead of asking constantly.
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@scottalanmiller said:
.And for those of us who travel often, it is nice that people can check where you are instead of asking constantly.
This is exactly how I use it.
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Most people I'd be talking to on Facebook would know where I am anyway. So if they have the GPS info it wouldn't mean anything.
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I guess I'm more concerned my home/auto will be broken into because it's obvious I'm away just by looking at my FB feed.
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For me it has connected me with SpiceHeads a few times when they see where I am. Kinda cool to get to hang out with others when I am traveling even when it's not expected.
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@Dashrender said:
I guess I'm more concerned my home/auto will be broken into because it's obvious I'm away just by looking at my FB feed.
It's not your feed. You have to have messaged them with GPS enabled on that message.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Most people I'd be talking to on Facebook would know where I am anyway. So if they have the GPS info it wouldn't mean anything.
This is my thoughts!
As a matter of fact, after a recent trip one of my FB friends said something that seriously made me question posting as much as I do there. I do have my FB profile locked down so that only friends of friends can see my posts, and even that I think is to much at times. Sure I don't mind those I trust to know where I am.. but FB, and most social media, aren't meant for only those you know and trust.. it's meant to be, well.. social.. and the leakage from FB is horrible.
I realize you live your life from a different perspective - AKA flood them all with to much data, I just can't bring myself to be there.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I guess I'm more concerned my home/auto will be broken into because it's obvious I'm away just by looking at my FB feed.
It's not your feed. You have to have messaged them with GPS enabled on that message.
You're feed can do this too.
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@Minion-Queen said:
For me it has connected me with SpiceHeads a few times when they see where I am. Kinda cool to get to hang out with others when I am traveling even when it's not expected.
So you FB messaged someone and they saw you were in, say Chicago.. and say.. hey let's hang out? or did you post something on your FB feed, with people you already at least had a casual acquaintance of and then they messaged you about getting together?
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@Dashrender said:
I guess I'm more concerned my home/auto will be broken into because it's obvious I'm away just by looking at my FB feed.
You should not have car thieves as friends then.
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People saw my post from a specified location and said hey you are close to me, want to meet up for a drink. Very weird the first time it happened. But kinda cool now that I have done it a few times. Then messaging gives them my specific location and allows them to get me where I need to go.
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@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I guess I'm more concerned my home/auto will be broken into because it's obvious I'm away just by looking at my FB feed.
It's not your feed. You have to have messaged them with GPS enabled on that message.
You're feed can do this too.
Only if you specify it too by tagging your current locations. It doesn't do it by default.
