Researchers have discovered that Apple’s newest operating system, iOS4, is literally spying on iPhone and iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G users’ movements, using geolocation to create a file that records every place that the user carrying the device passes through. At least as bad, the file, called “consolidated.db”, not only is on your iPhone or iPad, but is unencrypted, meaning that anybody who can access the file can read your every move.

The announcement is imminent: Facebook is about to launch its new Facebook Places service. Positioned as a competitor to the increasingly popular FourSquare, and the slightly less popular Loopt and others, Facebook Places is another of the location based social media services, also known as geosocial networking. Put briefly, it is a service that allows you to “check in” when you arrive somewhere, letting everyone who follows you know where you are (and, often, what you think of where you are). Other services that offer some variation of geosocial networking include BrightKite, Google Latitude, Gowalla, Socialight, Hotlist, Scvngr, Fire Eagle, and Gbanga.

Ever wonder how someone on the Internet is able to tell where you are located when you visit their site? (You did know that people can tell where you are located, right?) It’s done by geolocation – geographic location – of your IP address.