Following the latest days internet outrage/overreaction to the revelation that iPhone has a cache for its location service, I decided to have look what my Android devices caches for the same function.
This is a quick dumper I threw together to parse the files from the Android location provider.
The files are named cache.cell & cache.wifi and is located in
/data/data/com.google.android.location/files on the Android device.
You will need root access to the device to read this directory.
How to disable:
Find Settings -> Location & Security -> Use wireless networks and uncheck it.
This removes the files on 2.3 devices, my 2.2 device keeps the files but stops updating them. Other versions are unknown at this moment.
Usage:
$ parse.py <cache file>You can also pass the --gpx option to get ouptut in GPX
format, then use gpsbabel or something to get the data into the
format of your choice:
$ parse.py --gpx cache.wifi > wifi.gpxImportant note: looking at old android source (this code is no longer open from Google it seems) it seems to be limited heavily.
However, data is only pruned when new info is added. There is no time based pruning unless there is new data being added to the cache. This could lead to old data being if there is limited movement of the device.
// Maximum time (in millis) that a record is valid for, before it needs
// to be refreshed from the server.
private static final long MAX_CELL_REFRESH_RECORD_AGE = 12 * 60 * 60 * 1000; // 12 hours
private static final long MAX_WIFI_REFRESH_RECORD_AGE = 48 * 60 * 60 * 1000; // 48 hours
// Cache sizes
private static final int MAX_CELL_RECORDS = 50;
private static final int MAX_WIFI_RECORDS = 200;Example output:
$ ./parse.py cache.wifi
db version: 1
total: 47
key accuracy conf. latitude longitude time
50:63:13:57:42:7e 80 92 57.689354 11.994763 04/11/11 10:03:51 +0200
e0:cb:4e:7e:cc:53 75 92 57.689340 11.994495 04/11/11 10:03:51 +0200
4c:54:99:14:47:68 57 92 57.708979 11.916581 04/11/11 01:14:53 +0200
00:26:18:0a:ad:cb 60 92 57.709699 11.917637 04/13/11 08:40:36 +0200
00:22:15:28:3f:7a 60 92 57.699467 11.979340 04/13/11 11:52:16 +0200
00:22:3f:a7:d9:fd 65 92 57.699442 11.979343 04/13/11 11:52:16 +0200
$ ./parse.py cache.cell
db version: 1
total: 41
key accuracy conf. latitude longitude time
240:5:15:983885 1186 75 57.704031 11.910801 04/11/11 20:03:14 +0200
240:5:15:983882 883 75 57.706322 11.911692 04/13/11 01:41:29 +0200
240:5:75:4915956 678 75 57.700175 11.976824 04/13/11 11:52:16 +0200
240:5:75:4915953 678 75 57.700064 11.976629 04/13/11 11:53:09 +0200
240:7:61954:58929 1406 75 57.710205 11.921849 04/15/11 19:46:31 +0200
240:7:15:58929 -1 0 0.000000 0.000000 04/15/11 19:46:32 +0200
240:5:75:4915832 831 75 57.690024 11.998419 04/15/11 16:13:53 +0200If you have any questions/info that you'd like to share, I can be reached via @packetlss on Twitter or packetlss+android@gmail.com