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If I were to write a mobile app that recorded the GPS location of the device, how certain can I be that the GPS location hasn't been tampered?

To avoid confusion, I'm not concerned with the resolution/accuracy of the GPS, I'm more concerned with security. Can the GPS coordinates be hacked so that my app records an incorrect location?

Can I demonstrate that the GPS coordinates recorded by the app can be relied upon?

rusty1042
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  • Smartphones often use more than just GPS to determine position; cell phone towers, nearby wifi hotspots, etc. GPS takes awhile to spin up. Are you asking specifically about GPS? Or any location-finding method? – John Ellmore Nov 10 '17 at 21:09
  • This question should be asked in [Super User](https://superuser.com). – Thracian Nov 10 '17 at 21:12
  • An iOS device can be given a simulated location by using Xcode. This simulated location overrides the location services in the device, so all apps will see this simulated location, not just development apps. Now this isn't very hard to do, but it isn't something the average user would be aware of. So "can it be hacked?" Yes. – Paulw11 Nov 10 '17 at 21:13
  • I have this strange déjà-vu that this exact same question was recently asked at [softwareengineering.se], where it is of course off-topic for the same reasons it is off-topic here. – Jörg W Mittag Nov 10 '17 at 21:17
  • Why do you want to do this? – Kevin Workman Nov 10 '17 at 21:19
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about programming. It *might* be on-topic on [security.se], but please do make sure to thoroughly review their on-topic and off-topic pages, help center, FAQ, and meta-site, read through questions on the site to get a feel for what is on-topic, search for duplicates and when in doubt, ask on meta and/or in chat. Also, you need to be a *lot* more specific in your threat model. – Jörg W Mittag Nov 10 '17 at 21:20
  • Thanks @JörgWMittag for pointing me to Information Security. That does seem like the more appropriate forum. – rusty1042 Nov 11 '17 at 03:10

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Yes, it can be hacked. On Android there's a debugging system that allows fake locations. Or they could always use a custom build of Android that just lies. Never trust ANY data from a client you don't control to be accurate. Even if they couldn't fake the GPS data, they could alter your app and make it upload bad data.

Gabe Sechan
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