Re: Faking Geolocation

To add to your list, there is a Firefox extension (Geolocater) for managing
your location that lets you select a location from a map, specify accuracy,
save several locations that you can switch between, etc. After selecting
"Work", Firefox responds to W3C Geolocation API requests with the specific
lat/lon previously named "Work". (I haven't tested all this myself,
though.)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/geolocater/

And there was some discussion on the Geolocation API mailing list about
faked locations; the spec was even changed slightly to specifically allow
it.

http://www.w3.org/2008/geolocation/track/issues/76

The consensus seemed to be that implementers could accept the location from
anywhere, since the spec was intended to be agnostic in any case. I had long
assumed that IE would pull location from Windows 7 Location Platform, which
I believe allows for manual input of a default location (your home address,
say). I agree that allowing fake locations can help users protect privacy;
and it allows other functionality too, like searching based on a prospective
location (where I'll be on vacation next week) as opposed to just where the
user is at the moment.

All that is distinct from the question of algorithmically fuzzing location
to get fake locations near your actual location, which I agree is a tricky
problem.

Received on Friday, 15 April 2011 18:36:53 UTC