#Pinpoint locations code

Hence I made no attempts to facilitate the data generation process, and I ensured that all gathered data disappears on page reload.вЂќДЇacebook, where Khanna will begin an internship in June, said location with Messenger mobile app is included when you send a message, but вЂњyour location wonвЂ™t appear anywhere outside of the message.вЂќ ThatвЂ™s no longer true thanks to Marauders Map, but Facebook said you can turn off the location-sharing вЂњfeature:вЂќ Yet on GitHub where Khanna shared his open source code, he wrote, вЂњThis is not meant to be used as a tool to creep on your friends, rather a demonstration of the scary amount of information you can gather on someone just by aggregating the data they provide through Messenger. The same is true if you wanted to stalk someone. Hypothetically, if you and your ex are in the same group and you both still post to it, then if your ex has location enabled you could map all of his or her locations. IвЂ™m not a fan of Facebook and that is why I am using his images, but I had someone who does use Messenger check it out as if it were a new toy, he then immediately start creeping on his friends. He added, вЂњEveryone I have shown this extension to has been anywhere from surprised to appalled that this much of their very personal data is online for their friends (and even complete strangers) to access.вЂќ Aran Khanna In fact, since he participates in several group chats, he used Marauders Map to вЂњinfer a schedule for almost everyoneвЂќ from those various chats. ThatвЂ™s what Khanna did he was able to obtain a вЂњdetailed location historyвЂќ of someone he was not friends with on Facebook. If you are OK with a fairly accurate accounting of your location being scraped, then consider that plotting your chat location data on a map over time means that someone can figure out your schedule and predict where you will be at a given time.

Aran KhannaД®ven if the app werenвЂ™t that precise, how close is too close when it comes to people knowing your location? Are your Facebook friends also in-real-life friends? Would you be cool with a non-friend knowing your location if it were within 15 to 30 feet? It still seems too creepy even at 30 feet, 10 times the distanceВ Marauders Map can allegedly pinpoint location.

#Pinpoint locations code

And if this isn't already starting to get a bit weird, the first thing I noticed when I started to write my code was that the latitude and longitude coordinates of the message locations have more than 5 decimal places of precision, making it possible to pinpoint the senderвЂ™s location to less than a meter. Go ahead and see how many messages in your chats have locations attached. If you arenвЂ™t sure, then location is probably on as Facebook tends to snub privacy-by-design options location sharing is on by default. Hopefully you turned off location sharing back when Facebook had to defend its reasons for Messenger permissions to access a phoneвЂ™s camera and microphone. Sure Facebook shares your location with your friends, but did you know that if you use Messenger to group chat with someone who is not a friend, then that person can now find out not just what town you were chatting from, but longitude and latitude coordinates of where you did your chatting? Those coordinates are reportedly accurate to less than three feet from where you sent the message, according to Aran Khanna, a computer science and mathematics student at Harvard, who created a creepy new Chrome extension called Marauders Map to help you stalk your friends with Facebook Messenger.Д«efore we dig into Marauders Map, you need to know there is no reason to freak out and panic as the pinpointing app only works if you left location services for Messenger enabled. If you use the Facebook Messenger app, would you be comfortable knowing your location can be pinpointed to less than a meter?