Mozilla Location Services

These two are the ones I was previously referring to. Despite “mozilla” in the name, the connection to the location services is made by the Librem 5’s system processes (“geoclue”) and has nothing to do with Firefox.

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I believe this is mozillas method to get accurate location without GPS using “wifi position system”. Google has something similar, and of course much more accurate as everyone with an android phone is participating unknowingly. I believe you get the option to opt in to the mozilla location services when you first set up your librem 5 phone.

I think this is a really good initiative, however this might not last long because of it being patented Retiring the Mozilla Location Service · Issue #2065 · mozilla/ichnaea · GitHub

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Location services are disabled by default in PureOS; you need to enable it manually either in initial setup or system settings. It uses Mozilla’s service, not Amazon’s; it only sends nearby cellular towers and WiFi APs in order to determine your location without using GPS, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t happen “as frequently as every 5 seconds” (more like every few minutes, and only when running some application that requests location).

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It is frustrating to read how those guys who are commenting on the shutting down off Mozilla’s location services.
Like they own my privacy and they decide what is good for you and me.
Especcially @the.stinger is convinced he is doing the world a favor. Yuk.

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I self-host services to prove otherwise.

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But my issue is with gathering all the location data of so called public devices. Also do I find it very privacy invading that so many apps collect this data without needing to. This automatic and accepted gathering is just another reason to go away from big tech.

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*Publicly visible devices

Just like a home is not a public place these devices are not public devices.

Just like a home is publicly visible and does not change locations these AP’s are publicly visible and do not change location.

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I know the difference between them, thank you.
If only the location service collector and/or apps did respect that there is a difference between public and private .

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Sounds like you’re implying things that are publicly visible shouldn’t be recorded and shared publicly in your eyes if they are privately owned? Am i interpreting you correctly?

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Is it possible to self-host a location service for geoclue?
In fact I’d like to have fast geo positioning in only a few places where I spend the most time. So, the private storage of WiFi APs coordinates, may be stored directly by the phone, will be usable.

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If it’s up to me I would have nothing being collected, but that is far out of my power. :muscle:

In my country law defines “public” everything in the public space. Hence Google is allowed to take a picture of my street, house, car etc. I strongly disagree, but have no influence in the matter.

Same for radio-waves. It they (the transmitting radio’s) can be detected in the public space, they are “public”.
One isn’t allowed to listen to what’s being transmitted though, but one is allowed to register that beacon/radio where it can be found (city, street, GPS coordinates).
Again, I strongly disagree, but have again no power or influence on the collecting of such info.

I’m disgusted about the single minded view of developer’s who only see the big advantage (= money) of collecting data and wipe every comment about the negative side of collecting it off the table.

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I answering your question: Yes.

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It should be with your own Wi-Fi geolocation service.

Otherwise, you can use a static source:

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There used to be the ICBM html meta tag for example Munich:


<meta name="ICBM" content="48.169822,11.601171">
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That’s more for locating servers though. This topic is about locating clients.

In today’s world that tag doesn’t work very well anyway. If you have a Content Distribution Network (CDN) then it doesn’t work at all. Even if you have a larry-low-tech pair of redundant servers, it doesn’t work (unless the servers happen to be in the same place, which is not ideal from a redundancy point of view).

In either scenario, this problem only applies if the server is incapable of adjusting the tag dynamically i.e. is purely static content. Adjusting the tag dynamically is of course possible but may come at a performance cost.

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True but if an ICBM is used for access denial, it is also likely the client will also lose any services.

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