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Positon location service
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Diff for: ‎generate-sitemap

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@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ pages = [
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["/articles/", 0.5],
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["/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide", 0.5],
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["/articles/grapheneos-servers", 0.1],
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["/articles/positon-location-service", 0.5],
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["/articles/server-traffic-shaping", 0.5],
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["/articles/sitewide-advertising-industry-opt-out", 0.5],
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["/build", 0.5],

Diff for: ‎static/articles/positon-location-service.html

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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html lang="en" prefix="og: https://ogp.me/ns#">
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<head>
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<meta charset="utf-8"/>
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<title>Positon location service | Articles | GrapheneOS</title>
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<meta name="description" content="Information about the Positon location service."/>
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<meta name="theme-color" content="#212121"/>
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<meta name="color-scheme" content="dark light"/>
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<meta name="twitter:site" content="@GrapheneOS"/>
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<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@GrapheneOS"/>
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<meta property="og:title" content="Positon location service"/>
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<meta property="og:description" content="Information about the Positon location service."/>
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<meta property="og:type" content="website"/>
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<meta property="og:image" content="https://grapheneos.org/opengraph.png"/>
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<meta property="og:image:width" content="512"/>
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<meta property="og:image:height" content="512"/>
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<meta property="og:image:alt" content="GrapheneOS logo"/>
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<meta property="og:site_name" content="GrapheneOS"/>
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<meta property="og:url" content="https://grapheneos.org/articles/positon-location-service"/>
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<link rel="canonical" href="https://grapheneos.org/articles/positon-location-service"/>
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<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico"/>
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<link rel="icon" sizes="any" type="image/svg+xml" href="/favicon.svg"/>
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<link rel="mask-icon" href="[[path|/mask-icon.svg]]" color="#1a1a1a"/>
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<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon.png"/>
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[[css|/main.css]]
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<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.webmanifest"/>
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<link rel="license" href="/LICENSE.txt"/>
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<link rel="me" href="https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS"/>
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</head>
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<body>
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{% include "header.html" %}
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<main id="positon-location-service">
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<h1><a href="#positon-location-service">Positon location service</a></h1>
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<p>The Positon location service is a proprietary and highly privacy invasive service
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created by developers from /e/OS with their funding. Using the service requires
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uploading sensitive location data to their service, similar to the Apple and Google
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location services. As with the Apple and Google services, it's a centralized proprietary
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service with fully proprietary data. Unlike those services, the people behind it have a
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history of publishing notoriously insecure software such as the /e/OS operating system
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itself which massively rolls back standard security, lags years behind on security
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updates and covers all of that up. They blatantly scam their users with false
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privacy/security claims for /e/OS, and nothing different should be expected from a
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location service from the same group of people. Multiple people involved in it are also
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actively involved in harassment targeting privacy/security researchers and engineers
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including but not limited to GrapheneOS team members.</p>
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<p>The people behind the Positon location service have repeatedly talked about the
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importance they see in centralizing the whole open source community around using their
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service while locking out alternatives to it through proprietary data. They have spread
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fear, uncertainty and doubt about making services using open mapping data through
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claiming that it's a privacy hazard for people to have access to maps of Wi-Fi networks
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publicly broadcasting their SSID despite that data already being available through many
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commercial providers including publicly queryable databases such as Wigle. Anyone can
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drive around building these maps and many companies have already built them, with the
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data available for sale, as Positon shows with them obtaining access to it. The real
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privacy hazard is sending your location in real time to a service, particularly a poorly
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secured one from people known to cover up and downplay vulnerabilities. Positon has been
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built to grab as much market share as possible early on before actual open options can
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emerge and gather the necessary data such as <a href="https://beacondb.net">beacondb</a>.</p>
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<p>The people involved in Positon have only ever cared about their careers, power and
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influence. Any claims that they're trying to do good by making yet another proprietary
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location service with a privacy invasive. They've consistently been on a side against
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real privacy and security, but rather focused on monetizing people's demand for it and
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grabbing as much market share as they can as quickly as they can with endless false
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marketing and attacks on projects like GrapheneOS. They see GrapheneOS as a huge threat
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to them due to us striving to bring people real privacy and security at no cost, which
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is far easier to obtain and use. This invalidates the business model of their companies
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like Murena. They consistently use their non-profits mainly as a way to earn money and
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promote their for-profit initiatives.</p>
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<p>The service claims to be free of charge, but a core goal is turning it into a way to
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get data from users to build their own database that's largely not going to be available
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for use by others. Using it is helping them build a future business at the expense of
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your privacy, little different from the Apple and Google services. This is not what the
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open source community needs from a location service. The claims of no strings attached
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and the implication that it's open are nonsense. Storing as little data as possible
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would mean using local database for the region, not a network-based service, and they're
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opposed to doing well rather than it being their long term goal. They explicitly aim to
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lock out other alternatives and deter local location detection via Wi-Fi.</p>
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</main>
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{% include "footer.html" %}
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</body>
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</html>

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