Re: geolocation services disabled and Gnome maps
Hi.
On Sat, Apr 11, 2020 at 09:28:51AM -0500, Anil F Duggirala wrote:
> On Fri, 2020-04-10 at 17:51 +0300, Reco wrote:
> > Hi.
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 08:24:41AM -0500, Anil Felipe Duggirala
> > wrote:
> > > On Thu, Apr 9, 2020, at 11:16 AM, John Hasler wrote:
> > > > It's just looking up your IP. The method isn't reliable (it
> > > > usually
> > > > puts me on the other side of the state) but it works more often
> > > > than
> > > > not.
> > >
> > > I don't believe this is the case.
> >
> > The software behaviour does not depend on one's beliefs.
> >
> > $ apt show gnome-maps | grep Dep
> > Depends: ... libgeocode-glib0 (>= 3.16.2) ...
> >
> > $ apt-show libgeocode-glib0 | grep ^Desc
> > Description: geocoding and reverse geocoding GLib library using
> > Nominatim
> >
> > And the source of geocode-glib shows the actual server they're using:
> >
> > GeocodeNominatim *
> > geocode_nominatim_get_gnome (void)
> > {
> > GeocodeNominatim *backend;
> >
> > G_LOCK (backend_nominatim_gnome_lock);
> > backend = g_weak_ref_get (&backend_nominatim_gnome);
> > if (backend == NULL) {
> > backend = geocode_nominatim_new ("https://nominatim.gnome.org
> > ",
> > "zeeshanak@gnome.org");
> > g_weak_ref_set (&backend_nominatim_gnome, backend);
> > }
> > G_UNLOCK (backend_nominatim_gnome_lock);
> >
> > return backend;
> > }
>
> Could you tell me if this code, by connecting to this service is
> getting my location simply by using my IP address?
Answering "yes" here would be a gross oversimplification.
Answering "no" here would be a deviation from the truth.
I'd say it this way:
1) Your instance of GNOME Maps connects to nominatim.gnome.org by using
https. Your local IP address does not matter here, as long as the
connection gets established.
2) Due to the way your home network is made (it's called NAT), nobody
sees your computer IP but your router (or the router provided to you by
your ISP).
3) What's nominatim.gnome.org is seeing is the IP that's used by your
ISP for outbound connections on your behalf. It may be the same IP
that's your router is using for the WAN port, it may be different.
4) If you're interested what is your outbound ip - I suggest you to use
some Internet service like https://www.whatismyip.org/ .
IP from pt 3 is enough to pinpoint your location with the country
precision at worst, city precision at best, and by the very definition
of what's happening here this information is available to you (via GNOME
Maps) and to the nominatim.gnome.org.
I do not GNOME Maps so I cannot comment on if it's possible to disable
this feature without rebuilding GNOME Maps from the source.
> > > Is there any way I could check to see exactly where Gnome Maps is
> > > getting the location from?
> >
> > Being the GNOME software? The source is the only way to get sure.
> > I'd check tcp:443 connections to 8.43.85.23.
> >
> There is a connection to that IP address and it starts when I open
> Gnome Maps (I think it connects to a different port though, Im a newbie
> though)
It's so called "ephemeral" port that's used on your side for the TCP
connection, and it's the usual thing.
What's important here is that confirms that GNOME Maps is using
aforementioned library for the purposes of establishing your location
regardless of the GNOME privacy setting.
Personally I see it as a privacy violation, but someone may see such
(mis)feature as a crucial function of GNOME Maps. In any case, a bug
report with the severity of "minor" can not do any harm, so I suggest
you to install "reportbug-gtk" package and report your findings in a
"gnome-maps" package to Debian's bugtracker.
Reco
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?package=gnome-maps
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