Re: A Useful Android Advantage: GPS Spoofing.

sms <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:

On 11/29/2024 7:32 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
 
<snip>
 

After disabling location in Android settings, the Yelp app might not be
able to know your location.

 
Nope, doesn't work if you disable location.
 

Or, instead of using an app (a web-centric interface), use your web
browser to connect to the restaurant's web site to make a reservation.
In the web browser, first disable geolocation.  Can be done in Firefox:
about:config -> geo.enabled = false.

 
Nope, no reservations at this place for breakfast or lunch, just an
online wait list. "During BRUNCH (THUR-SUN), we offer a live online
waitlist through Yelp. Check live wait times and join the waitlist
before you arrive below."
 
Here's a dialogue about a different restaurant:
 
"Others have stated you can do it via the Yelp app, *however* they
require that you be physically located within 5 miles of the restaurant,
so you can't get on the waitlist if you're too far away!
 
(Pro tip: there are apps that let your phone believe you're physically
located somewhere other than where you actually are. ;-) )"
 
There is actually location spoofing detection software in use in some
games like Pokemon Go. I think that they compare your IP address to your
GPS location so the workaround is to also use a VPN.

I tried to do a Yelp search for restaurants in a city several hundred
miles away.  I used the filter "Takes reservations".  However, of the
restaurants I looked at, there was no Reservation button or link for me
to test if a reservation would get rejected for me being so far away.
Then I clicked on the links to the restaurants' web sites, and looked at
their reservations.  None refused me looking at reservations, but I
wasn't going to make one since I won't be going there.

My web browser (Firefox) on my desktop has geolocation disabled.  On my
Firefox Android, I have the location permission blocked.  I couldn't
come up with a test case to check if I would get geofenced at Yelp or
the restaurant's web site.

Was it Yelp or the restaurant that geofenced you?  If the restaurant's
web site, maybe if you told me what it was then I could test.  However,
perhaps their geofencing is not applied until you try to actually make a
reservation rather than just visit their reservation page.

I don't have Yelp's app, and won't bother with it.  Most times I find
the web-centric apps offer little more than a web browser to their site.
You just get a different (customized) web browser inside of an app
window.  Maybe the geofencing was enforced by their app.  Since you're
using their app instead of a web browser to visit their site, the app
could still try to get where you are using the Google Geolocation API.

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geolocation/overview