Last week my employer began using isolved time tracker for our work group. We began using it on 9-21-15. On 9-30-15, it was brought to my attention that my 'punches' were being logged from non-work locations. I believe there is a flaw or defect in the mobile software but I'll forward those questions to the software company. One thing I was able to find in my defense was the Google location log on my phone. I know that these items can be edited. I'm afraid that the edit factor may not allow this log to help my case but it does bring some other questions into play. Im hoping someone here with a higher level of knowledge in the field can educate me.
First question-
My location setting is always on and the location method is set to wifi and networks. I do NOT use the GPS option. How does my phone plot my locations? For example, it shows me at my home address at 6:53 am and then my work address at 7:27 am. I assume it's going off my home wifi connection and then my work wifi once I arrive and connect. I also notice it will show a time of 7:27-8:59 at my office, and once I arrive at another work location (and I would assume), connect to work wifi, the next location appears in my location log at that particular time. So, if Im at building B from 11:15 until 1:50, my location will show 'building B 11:15 am - 1:50 pm.' Not to sound redundant but, does the phone/location log know this because of the wifi connection?
What I am concerned most with is, all of my punch-ins for work are showing they were done from my home. I'm hoping to find a rock-solid way to orove that I was in fact at work when I was supposed to be. Would Sprint have any way of showing my locations at various times without me making any calls, sending any texts, or using any data? Do their towers have a constant lock on me and is there a log the can provide?
Thank you for reading through this long winded message. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I would greatly appreciate any help, advice, or ideas. Many, MANY, thanks in advance.
Mike~
hebejebe said:
Last week my employer began using isolved time tracker for our work group. We began using it on 9-21-15. On 9-30-15, it was brought to my attention that my 'punches' were being logged from non-work locations. I believe there is a flaw or defect in the mobile software but I'll forward those questions to the software company. One thing I was able to find in my defense was the Google location log on my phone. I know that these items can be edited. I'm afraid that the edit factor may not allow this log to help my case but it does bring some other questions into play. Im hoping someone here with a higher level of knowledge in the field can educate me.
First question-
My location setting is always on and the location method is set to wifi and networks. I do NOT use the GPS option. How does my phone plot my locations? For example, it shows me at my home address at 6:53 am and then my work address at 7:27 am. I assume it's going off my home wifi connection and then my work wifi once I arrive and connect. I also notice it will show a time of 7:27-8:59 at my office, and once I arrive at another work location (and I would assume), connect to work wifi, the next location appears in my location log at that particular time. So, if Im at building B from 11:15 until 1:50, my location will show 'building B 11:15 am - 1:50 pm.' Not to sound redundant but, does the phone/location log know this because of the wifi connection?
What I am concerned most with is, all of my punch-ins for work are showing they were done from my home. I'm hoping to find a rock-solid way to orove that I was in fact at work when I was supposed to be. Would Sprint have any way of showing my locations at various times without me making any calls, sending any texts, or using any data? Do their towers have a constant lock on me and is there a log the can provide?
Thank you for reading through this long winded message. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I would greatly appreciate any help, advice, or ideas. Many, MANY, thanks in advance.
Mike~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you were on location and your device connected to your work WiFi, your IT/IS Department should have logs of that connection, they may need your MAC address to verify, but that should be proof enough.
Related
Hey everyone,
I'm experiencing a couple minor issues with my MyTouch 4G Slide and wanted to see if anyone had any input.
First is the weather location... when I am at work my phone's weather location always gets all weird. It happened with my G2 (before this phone) as well. On the G2, it would show my location as in Japan. With the MT4GS, it shows as Denver CO. It updates when I leave the building, but it is still frustrating for numerous reasons. First, the time on my phone switches to Denver's time zone while at work. It throws me off whenever I look at my phone. Also, after I leave and the location updates, it doesn't update the time zone. I have to go to Settings -> Date and Time, and uncheck and recheck 'Automatic' for it to switch back to the correct time zone. Finally, while Maps will read my location just fine, other location-based apps seem to be thrown off as well.
One other question is about the hardware keyboard. I have Prediction turned on in settings but it never works. It's nice with the hardware keyboard because I can skip the alt+ keypresses for punctuation and it inserts automatically, and it will capitalize I, etc. If I'm not mistaken, this hasn't worked since the recent HTC update that moved us to Google Play Store.
If anyone has fixes and/or other info about these issues, I'd appreciate your input! Thanks so much.
Are you connecting to your work's wi-fi automatically when you are there? It could be that the location information (which would affect weather and time) is using your IP address info. I know when I connect to my wi-fi at home, it will alter my location to a nearby suburb.
Fuzi0719 said:
Are you connecting to your work's wi-fi automatically when you are there? It could be that the location information (which would affect weather and time) is using your IP address info. I know when I connect to my wi-fi at home, it will alter my location to a nearby suburb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wish! Our WiFi doesn't even show up on my phone... they must have the SSID hidden. I think it's because the building is older, and it must have lots of concrete or something because radios, cell phones, etc don't work well in here. Mine only works because my desk is right by the main entry door and a few windows. I'm assuming that the GPS signal could get thrown off by that as well. I'm just hoping since Maps can locate me that maybe I could fix the rest of the location-based services.
retrokick said:
I wish! Our WiFi doesn't even show up on my phone... they must have the SSID hidden. I think it's because the building is older, and it must have lots of concrete or something because radios, cell phones, etc don't work well in here. Mine only works because my desk is right by the main entry door and a few windows. I'm assuming that the GPS signal could get thrown off by that as well. I'm just hoping since Maps can locate me that maybe I could fix the rest of the location-based services.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It may not even be getting a GPS signal, instead relying upon the location data of the celltower you're linked with. I've seen the location info being off by neighborhoods, but not to the extreme you've mentioned.
Uncheck the automatic update, then it will stay in the right timezone.
Also, I use swiftkey x, it has the best word prediction, and works great with the hardware keyboard.
yellowjacket1981 said:
Uncheck the automatic update, then it will stay in the right timezone.
Also, I use swiftkey x, it has the best word prediction, and works great with the hardware keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the recommendation! The app is downloading now and I'm already excited because of the amazing reviews it got. I'm sure I'll love it. I was hesitant to uncheck the automatic setting because I want it to sync the time... but now that I think about it, once the time is set from the network... why would it need to sync? Unless I do a battery pull or something.
So if you are walking around in public with wifi enabled - you are allowing stores to collect data such as how often and how long you are in their stores.
SOURCE
Wow that's kinda scary. Nice find, thank you.
Why is the right door always locked?
I don't find this nearly as unnerving as the NSA tracking me; if I don't like it, I can take my money elsewhere. We can't "opt out" from government tracking us. Retailers analyzing this data makes them more efficient; has the potential for reducing their advertising and marketing budgets, lowering their costs in one area, helps them lower prices in the long run.
erikoink said:
Retailers analyzing this data makes them more efficient; has the potential for reducing their advertising and marketing budgets, lowering their costs in one area, helps them lower prices in the long run.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that to an extent this isn't really a big deal; so Dillards knows that you spend more time shopping for men's clothing than women's shoes.. Who cares right? Problem is, will they stop there? No, they wont. We don't know what information could be (easily) collected (and sold) in the future, that is the problem. Today its "customer 74593654 spent and hour in the store total, 20 minutes in refrigerated goods, 10 minutes in the deli, and 30 minutes in canned foods". But tomorrow, it could be "John Doe who visited our store for an hour today, mostly connects to these two wifi points; they must be his home and work locations. We sell his information to our partners in those areas."
I don't really think that they're tracking (or able to track) that type of information. They're just taking advantage of the way the 802.11 discovery process works.
When a WiFi device is on and not associated with an Access Point (AP), it announces it's presence and attempts to discover a nearby AP. APs respond to these queries with their BSSID and SSID which then gets listed in your device's list of connection options. If it's a "hidden" AP, it will only respond if the discovery query includes a specific SSID. Instead of responding, all it does is log the querying devices MAC Address and timestamps it. Other APs can compare the Rx signal strength and approximate the location of the device.
As far as I know, unless and until your device actually associates with (connects to) the AP, no other communication occurs. If there are any WiFI engineers in here that know of a way to force a device to associate to an AP remotely and request it send data that it isn't configured to send, I'm willing to be corrected.
WiredPirate said:
So if you are walking around in public with wifi enabled - you are allowing stores to collect data such as how often and how long you are in their stores.
SOURCE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd like to bump because im honestly curious if anyone knows what kind of info they could pull from our phones through this.
erikoink said:
I don't really think that they're tracking (or able to track) that type of information. They're just taking advantage of the way the 802.11 discovery process works.
When a WiFi device is on and not associated with an Access Point (AP), it announces it's presence and attempts to discover a nearby AP. APs respond to these queries with their BSSID and SSID which then gets listed in your device's list of connection options. If it's a "hidden" AP, it will only respond if the discovery query includes a specific SSID. Instead of responding, all it does is log the querying devices MAC Address and timestamps it. Other APs can compare the Rx signal strength and approximate the location of the device.
As far as I know, unless and until your device actually associates with (connects to) the AP, no other communication occurs. If there are any WiFI engineers in here that know of a way to force a device to associate to an AP remotely and request it send data that it isn't configured to send, I'm willing to be corrected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for explaining that better.
Perhaps you connect to their free wifi, it's tempting if you want to save data or maybe you are in an area with bad reception.. Couldn't they then gather more personal information?
WiredPirate said:
Perhaps you connect to their free wifi, it's tempting if you want to save data or maybe you are in an area with bad reception.. Couldn't they then gather more personal information?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, now if you associate with (connect to) their network, that changes things. But let's explore that hypothetical:
Have you ever heard of a "captive portal"? You see them in airports, hotels, anywhere with a so-called "guest wifi network", whereupon if you connect to their network and try to go to a website, it first redirects you to a page. And this page requires you to enter a password, or answer a survey, or agree to their terms and conditions. I'm sure we've all seen these.
Let's say that part of their terms are you must download their smart phone apps as a condition of connecting to their network and allowing you to be routed onto the global internet. Lets also say that in order to install the app, you have to grant the app certain permissions. Among these reading from areas of your phone, you might not want people reading from. As you suggested in a previous post, your list of saved WiFi networks, etc. Then yes, they could start gathering additional data. In this case, it's still your choice to use their resources, you still have the choice not to. Their network, their rules.
I will say this though.. be careful of how your device is configured. I think the setting is available that tells your device to connect to any available open (unsecured) WiFi network. I would advise anyone to disable this. Once your device connects to any network, and you an IP address on said network, then something could make a connection attempt to a vulnerable/compromised device (whether that be the network owner, or another compromised or rogue device) running some kind of Trojan service that responds to certain requests without you knowing. This of course, would be illegal and if they got caught doing this then they would face a huge backlash from their customers. I doubt they'd attempt something like this.
Mac address is worse enough.
Today's data is aggregated, ALWAYS.
You can buy it you can sell it... There isn't just one source.
Cameras in the shops running track analysis and soon facial recognition, mimics and so on.
Your mac address? Your router knows it.. And so your provider has access to it. He also has your ip.
Your ip? Most websites you visit and some more tracking / advertising sites.
So, as your mac is known, data sold, we assume your owned devices are well known.
Now we don't need anything else than a WLAN to track your GPS like location.. Beside.. This is how android WLAN location service works. Did I say android? Sorry, it is an exclusive google service.
You can:
Adapt your behavior .
Use tor or i2p.
Host your own services.
Encrypt everything.
And again, adapt your behavior... Elseway no onion routing brings any advantage.
So, if you are willing to go the painful road, opt out of most things.. You can't opt out of your phone providers data collection, if you still want a mobile phone.
But still... ANY data reduction is the right way.
The data is and will be more and more widely used, aggregated and abused.
It is time to realize that there won't be any freedom in the modern world - this IS the new world order.
Forgot one freedom: you are free to be a consumer and a product.
And for people arguing with laws... Laws can and will be changed... In the name of safety.
Sent from mobile.
My apologies if this has been posted elsewhere. I found a loosely related thread on google's support forum, but nothing here.
Bought a Nexus 5 and I've been trying out Straight Talk ATT and I've been noticing these problems, most likely all related:
I've been getting notification delays for push data services. Namely, my work email(exchange) and gmail. Sometimes the notification won't even come through. I'm up to a half hour on my last one, still waiting on it. SMS works just fine. Haven't tested MMS, particularly because I don't get many of those. The data connections does work though. I can manually load pages just fine, if a bit slow at first like the ping is astronomical. Almost makes me think it's establishing a connection each time.
When I check the color of the wifi or cellular connection icon, it's frequently orange. Most of the time it will quickly resolve itself to white in the few seconds it takes to check it. From what I understand, orange means it's having trouble talking to google services? This shouldn't affect exchange notifications.
I'm getting poorer connections quality than I expected. I live in Ithaca and while my home has poor Verizon connection(so I expected similar from ATT), I've barely found any place at work or the mall that can hold ANY LTE signal or a decent HSPA signal. HSPA speed tests give me under 0.5mbps up/down, while the only LTE test I've been able to run gave me 2.5/1 up/down.
The aforementioned thread on google's forums mentioned flashing 4.4.0's radio apk, has anyone else tried this?
Which APN setting affects the data part of the connection? Is it just the APN type?
Bump.
I'm starting to wonder if my problem is exacerbated by my current postpaid VZW phone getting data notifications much quicker. I'm suspecting that Straight Talk has a lower priority on ATT towers, thus why my data notifications take up to minutes sometimes. Anyone know of a way to confirm this?
Always On Push Notifications android app
I am not sure if anyone is following this thread anymore, but I switched to StraightTalk about a month ago, and have been experiencing huge delays in my google voice notifications as well (among other things). I've tried several different apps to get this resolved, but none have worked for me... so I decided to write my own. It was published to the google play store this morning (Android 2.3+ currently). If anyone sees this, please try it out, and let me know what you think.
It's called "Always On Push Notifications". I can't post a link right now because this is my first post on these forums though.
maucer said:
I am not sure if anyone is following this thread anymore, but I switched to StraightTalk about a month ago, and have been experiencing huge delays in my google voice notifications as well (among other things). I've tried several different apps to get this resolved, but none have worked for me... so I decided to write my own. It was published to the google play store this morning (Android 2.3+ currently). If anyone sees this, please try it out, and let me know what you think.
It's called "Always On Push Notifications". I can't post a link right now because this is my first post on these forums though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What fixed it? I find I have to archive my old messages/call logs for it to not lag.
MrObvious said:
What fixed it? I find I have to archive my old messages/call logs for it to not lag.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure what you mean, but I was noticing similar issues with my Nexus 5 on ST using ATT towers. While on LTE at the office, my connection was always great, but if I wasn't actively using my phone, my cell signal would go orange, and all of my notifications were significantly delayed. Furthermore, even trying to browse the internet with an orange signal would just idle and sometimes would not complete at all.
The app I wrote attempts to prevent this by simply keeping your connection active. It does this by manually sending out a heartbeat using the Google Cloud Messaging service approximately every interval that you define in the app. This helps keep your notifications flowing. On top of that, the application will also make a very small data request (~60 bytes), to help prevent the APN from timing out your connection.
I have found that those two things are enough to fix the issues I have had with StraightTalk.
maucer said:
I am not sure what you mean, but I was noticing similar issues with my Nexus 5 on ST using ATT towers. While on LTE at the office, my connection was always great, but if I wasn't actively using my phone, my cell signal would go orange, and all of my notifications were significantly delayed. Furthermore, even trying to browse the internet with an orange signal would just idle and sometimes would not complete at all.
The app I wrote attempts to prevent this by simply keeping your connection active. It does this by manually sending out a heartbeat using the Google Cloud Messaging service approximately every interval that you define in the app. This helps keep your notifications flowing. On top of that, the application will also make a very small data request (~60 bytes), to help prevent the APN from timing out your connection.
I have found that those two things are enough to fix the issues I have had with StraightTalk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That answered it. It must be a StraightTalk thing. Weird.
New observation on this problem:
- GMail notifications not arriving
- When I check I see that the WiFi icon is orange
- Phone is still connected to the internet, I can browse, but icon remains orange and no notifications arrive
- Only when I disconnect/reconnect Wifi does it recover
I also discovered that the WiFi icon actually turns orange at the moment that Google tries to send me a notification. It can be fine for hours before that.
It turned out that this only happens when I have the cellular radio turned off, by turning on Airplane Mode and then turning WiFi back on. With the cellular radio on and connected to the network, even with Mobile Data turned off, everything is fine with WiFi.
I think it's an authentication bug with Google Services. Somewhere in the message notification sequence it tries to either authenticate your phone or perhaps locate it via the cellular network, and if it fails then the connection to Google Services is flagged as faulty. The failure could be caused by having the cellular radio off, or perhaps by being in a bad reception area.
Hi Everyone,
I am after a bit of help if possible.
A friends has recently been having issues with messages appearing on his phone relating to what he's been doing. I will describe the symptoms below and wonder if anyone might be able to recognise them and shed some light on what's happening.
The messages are appearing not as traditional messages but as alarm clocks. When these alarms go off the name of the alarm is the message. For example "how's your brother" when his brother is at the address.
They appear to be able to see what my friend is doing. They were messing around in the kitchen and an alarm entitled "don't mess around in the kitchen" went off.
They have also been related to shops they've visited so I suspect they have access to the location history of the phone.
All of the devices it has happened on have at one stage or another been connected to their wifi network but, once disconnected from the wifi the messages are continuing even when connected to the mobile network.
I have looked on the phones, which are a mixture of Android and iOS devices and can't find any obvious malicious software on any.
The only common denominator is that they have at some stage been connected to their wifi.
Does anyone recognise this behaviour and is able to offer any guidance?
If so is the person responsible likely to be within range of their wifi or is it possible remotely?
Any help appreciated as it's starting to really creep them out!!
thehappyotter said:
Hi Everyone,
I am after a bit of help if possible.
A friends has recently been having issues with messages appearing on his phone relating to what he's been doing. I will describe the symptoms below and wonder if anyone might be able to recognise them and shed some light on what's happening.
The messages are appearing not as traditional messages but as alarm clocks. When these alarms go off the name of the alarm is the message. For example "how's your brother" when his brother is at the address.
They appear to be able to see what my friend is doing. They were messing around in the kitchen and an alarm entitled "don't mess around in the kitchen" went off.
They have also been related to shops they've visited so I suspect they have access to the location history of the phone.
All of the devices it has happened on have at one stage or another been connected to their wifi network but, once disconnected from the wifi the messages are continuing even when connected to the mobile network.
I have looked on the phones, which are a mixture of Android and iOS devices and can't find any obvious malicious software on any.
The only common denominator is that they have at some stage been connected to their wifi.
Does anyone recognise this behaviour and is able to offer any guidance?
If so is the person responsible likely to be within range of their wifi or is it possible remotely?
Any help appreciated as it's starting to really creep them out!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can give you two ideas come to mind
This is someone who has installed spyware on the target device likely without owner knowing
There are paid developers who make programs that can access a phone in incognito mode viewing all activities from there pc or phone actually trigger the target device to take photos open the mic and listen to anything going on and more much more like viewing passwords typed sites visited
There's one that costs like 399$ for a year subscription its very very advanced crap! And people mainly use these to catch cheaters or watch there loved one be a pervert during there alone time lol....
I would factory reset phone and or search in apps downloaded and look for any unusual icons that don't represent normal Android O.S
Best of luck
Sent from my Nexus 5X using XDA Free mobile app
I recently,(as a novice!), ran an ipconfig to see if I could deduce why my wired connection was sucky. I discovered what it seems is a piggy back on my network. I logged into my modem to make sure ipv6 and other perts were disabled and haven't been able to log into my modem since. (Hacker locked me out?) Anyways after following permissions through various apps, programs, cms prompts, PowerShell, etc it seems I have a ghost machine on my pc,(STILL NOVICE-ish!), and I am trying to track it down. Because of my suspicions on who it may be I am not ready to call law enforcement for help. Any advice is appreciated! I used to work from my pc, but my security software provider was unable to help cause ,I think, my email is being re-routed and screened, and since I work with sensitive info and all my devices were set to keep me from finding answers I needed(permissions, and url redirects) I am crying for help. My savings is gone and I need to be able to work on the computer! Thanks!
XDA Visitor said:
I recently,(as a novice!), ran an ipconfig to see if I could deduce why my wired connection was sucky. I discovered what it seems is a piggy back on my network. I logged into my modem to make sure ipv6 and other perts were disabled and haven't been able to log into my modem since. (Hacker locked me out?) Anyways after following permissions through various apps, programs, cms prompts, PowerShell, etc it seems I have a ghost machine on my pc,(STILL NOVICE-ish!), and I am trying to track it down. Because of my suspicions on who it may be I am not ready to call law enforcement for help. Any advice is appreciated! I used to work from my pc, but my security software provider was unable to help cause ,I think, my email is being re-routed and screened, and since I work with sensitive info and all my devices were set to keep me from finding answers I needed(permissions, and url redirects) I am crying for help. My savings is gone and I need to be able to work on the computer! Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello
Thanks for using XDA Assist.
Given your report, we could not determine the Manufacturer & Model of your device in order to better approach your issue.
I will have to ask you to create a new Thread where you could be as detailed as possible regarding your devices information and issue.
Nice regards and good luck.
THREAD CLOSED
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