Google's web mapping can track your smart phone.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - If you have Wi-Fi turned on, the previous whereabouts of your computer or mobile device may be visible on the Web for anyone to see.

Ashkan Soltani, security researcher "Someone who doesn't have a lot of information about me can track me down. You can find where someone lived previously and where someone moved to."

Google publishes the estimated location of millions of iPhones, laptops, and other devices with Wi-Fi connections, a practice that represents the latest twist in a series of revelations this year about wireless devices and privacy, CNET has learned.

Android phones with location services enabled regularly beam the unique hardware IDs of nearby Wi-Fi devices back to Google, a similar practice followed by Microsoft, Apple, and Skyhook Wireless as part of each company's effort to map the street addresses of access points and routers around the globe. That benefits users by helping their mobile devices determine locations faster than they could with GPS alone.

Only Google and Skyhook Wireless, however, make their location databases linking hardware IDs to street addresses publicly available on the Internet, which raises novel privacy concerns when the IDs they're tracking are mobile. If someone knows your hardware ID, he may be able to find a physical address that the companies associate with you, even if you never intended it to become public.

Tests performed over the last week by CNET and security researcher Ashkan Soltani showed that approximately 10 percent of laptops and mobile phones using Wi-Fi appear to be listed by Google as corresponding to street addresses. Skyhook Wireless' list of matches appears to be closer to 5 percent.

"I was surprised to see such precise data on where my laptop--and I--used to live," says Nick Doty, a lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley who co-teaches the Technology and Policy Lab. Entering Doty's unique hardware ID into Google's database returns his former home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle.

Here's how it works: Wi-Fi-enabled devices, including PCs, iPhones, iPads, and Android phones, transmit a unique hardware identifier, called a MAC address, to anyone within a radius of approximately 100 to 200 feet. If someone captures or already knows that unique address, Google and Skyhook's services can reveal a previous location where that device was located, a practice that can reveal personal information including home or work addresses or even the addresses of restaurants frequented.

Link:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20070742-281/exclusive-googles-web-mapping-can-track-your-phone/