Rather than having users go through the inconvenience of having to punch in their current location, an increasing number of applications and websites use location services that can pin-point the current location of a user to within a certain number of meters or kilometers.
Unfortunately, [Evert Pot] found that with the demise of the Mozilla Location Service (MLS) in 2024, accuracy of the Linux Geoclue service had dropped to a resolution of about 25 km. Since a LAN tends to not move around a lot, this seemed like the perfect time to help Geoclue out with a local GPS server.
All that Geoclue looks for on the LAN is an mDNS service identifying as _nmea-0183._tcp that responds with the GPS coordinates as network packets containing an ASCII payload encoded using the NMEA 0183 standard. With this knowledge [Evert] was then able to quickly put together a Python-based server that simply blasts the static GPS coordinates of the LAN in question.
With the service running, Gnome Maps and Firefox with Google Maps both displayed the right location down to the house, as can be seen in the screenshots. With the same LAN service and a Mac system there was no such luck with Apple Maps unless Location Services was turned off, though presumably Apple uses its own equivalent to MLS.
Support BeaconDB!
Why the heck would ANYONE allow a web page that they don’t have 100% control over have their realtime location data?
What’s next? Twitch plays… With my realtime blood chemistry?
The permissions given to web pages/apps these days is INSANE.
Just give me the text and images I asked for.
No you cannot have my accelerometer data, you are a storefront.
No you cannot have my heart rate data, you are a BLOG.
No you cannot access my camera and microphone, you are a cooking site.
No you cannot access my USB devices, you are a video streaming site.
As convenient as a FEW niche applications like web-serial are, the browser simply shouldn’t be allowed access to this stuff.
Which is precisely why we have prompts to ask for accurate location, before we give the maps site GPS data, and Team web version asks for camera and mic. Etc.
Pretty much my browsers asking if I could allow them knowing where I was.*
*Not worried, bill collectors already can find me.
The way things are going these days, I can see a lucrative market for tin foil hats and Faraday-cage wallpaper o_0
Look up “RF-IE50 Radio Frequency 5G and EMF Shielding Paint”
No need for out of style wall paper
*i make no claims of effectiveness for this specific product, just pointing out it exists. considering there are compeditors in this space, there must be demand and money is likely being made.
Will have to also paint the windows to make it effective.
I love that also EMF clothing exists. Tank tops, jeans and hats. Shame that the only thing that might give you full protection, EMF shielded gimp suits, don’t exist.
Because web pages blindly believe whatever coordinates you give them, so you don’t even need a VPN to bypass their geoblocking BS.
A simpler solution is to configure /etc/geolocation file and set:
in the geoclue configuration file. You need to repeat the configuration on each computer though.
Seems geolocation is still an issue for underground (subway) tunnels and stations. Accuracy doesn’t have to be better than 10m. In my city, this is not provided. Go underground and you disappear until you pop back up. I’d prefer to leave most apps with only GPS accuracy, but many apps no longer work unless “precise location” accuracy is enabled.