Positon location service
+ +The Positon location service is a proprietary and highly privacy invasive service + created by developers tied to /e/OS with their funding. There's a deliberate effort to + hide that it's tied to them in order to convince other projects to adopt it, as opposed + to using the similar service they host for /e/OS itself. Using the service requires + uploading sensitive location data to obtain location estimates, similar to the Apple and + Google location services. As with the Apple and Google services, it's a centralized + proprietary service with fully proprietary data. Unlike those services, the people + behind it have a history of publishing notoriously insecure software such as the /e/OS + operating system itself which massively rolls back standard security, lags years behind + on security updates and covers all of that up. They blatantly scam their users with + false privacy/security claims for /e/OS, and nothing different should be expected from a + location service from the same group of people. Multiple people involved in it are also + actively participating in harassment targeting privacy/security researchers and + engineers including but not limited to GrapheneOS team members.
+ +The people behind the Positon location service have repeatedly talked about the + importance they see in centralizing the whole open source community around using their + service while locking out alternatives to it through proprietary data. They have spread + fear, uncertainty and doubt about making services using open mapping data through + claiming that it's a privacy hazard for people to have access to maps of Wi-Fi networks + publicly broadcasting their SSID despite that data already being available through many + commercial providers including publicly queryable databases such as Wigle. Anyone can + drive around building these maps and many companies have already built them, with the + data available for sale, as Positon shows with them obtaining access to it. The real + privacy hazard is sending your location in real time to a service, particularly a poorly + secured one from people known to cover up and downplay vulnerabilities. Positon has been + built to grab as much market share as possible early on before actual open options can + emerge and gather the necessary data such as beacondb.
+ +The people involved in Positon have only ever cared about their careers, power and + influence. They've consistently been on a side against real privacy and security, but + rather focused on monetizing people's demand for it and grabbing as much market share as + they can as quickly as they can with endless false marketing and attacks on projects + like GrapheneOS. They see GrapheneOS as a huge threat to them due to us striving to + bring people real privacy and security at no cost, which is far easier to obtain and + use. This invalidates the business model of their companies like Murena. They + consistently use their non-profits mainly as a way to earn money and promote their + for-profit initiatives.
+ +The service claims to be free of charge, but a core goal is turning it into a way to + get data from users to build their own database that's largely not going to be available + for use by others. Using it is helping them build a future business at the expense of + user privacy, little different from the Apple and Google services. This is not what the + open source community needs from a location service. The claims of no strings attached + and the implication that it's open are nonsense. Storing as little data as possible + would mean using local database for the region, not a network-based service. They're + opposed to doing a local service well rather than it being their long term goal. They + explicitly aim to lock out other alternatives and deter local location detection via + Wi-Fi.
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