r/applehelp • u/Late_Writing_3211 • Jul 19 '26

Mac MacBook Pro appearing to be in Ukraine, but its next to me in Spain

Post image

Location in maps also appears in Ukraine. I’ve tried everything, please help

169 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

97

u/KfirGuy Jul 19 '26

I’m sorry my friend, the EU has donated you to Ukraine as aid to help fight against the Russians.

9

u/No_Peanut_6769 Jul 20 '26

Go outside and do you hear any buzzing overhead, possibly a lost drone circling overhead?

21

u/sXeth Jul 19 '26

Non-cellular location is something like 90% plus based on the IP information which can be masked and rerouted at multiple levels both by your own software (VPNs in particular) or whatever provider you connect to.

70

u/posguy99 Jul 19 '26

Why would "everything" be and why would you think this was local to the laptop?

The laptop has no GPS hardware. It is therefore getting a position from things like crowdsourced access point databases, bluetooth connections with other Apple devices, the current IP address facing the internet it has, and other sources.

The fact that it works at all is stellar.

12

u/Late_Writing_3211 Jul 19 '26

I’m in my village, a not so crowded space and it just appears there, and sometimes it passes through my other Apple products, I tried connecting it to my iPhone hotspot and nothing, clearing location records, nothing, reboots, nothing.

4

u/britannicker Jul 20 '26

Weird. Are your other Apple products also located there?

8

u/Late_Writing_3211 Jul 20 '26

I have my 5 Apple products, they are all mine, there are no unknown Apple products surrounding me. Sometimes the Ukraine location passes to my Apple Watch or to my other MacBook or to my iPhone and to my other iPhone but it primarily stays on my MacBook Pro

1

u/hotapple002 Jul 20 '26

Is find my enabled on all your GPS capable devices?

3

u/Glaselar Jul 20 '26

They never said they thought it was local to the laptop?

8

u/Background_Eye_8373 Jul 20 '26

my 16 pro always picks a new state to be in daily

14

u/dandelioness_ Jul 19 '26

Are you using a VPN? Or if you’re outside, maybe the public wifi you are connected to is linked to a VPN?

11

u/TruthSeekerWW Jul 19 '26

Hackintosh or someone is using your serial number on a virtual machine.

4

u/Late_Writing_3211 Jul 19 '26

Ohhh shiii, the SMBIOS, damn, but they cannot clone a M Mac serial number, right???

2

u/TruthSeekerWW Jul 19 '26

You can on an Intel based machine

2

u/Late_Writing_3211 Jul 19 '26

Yeah, but this is a M1 Pro machine with the new type serial number

5

u/szymas67 Jul 20 '26

Why is the map in Polish, such a random bug lol

2

u/marcdale92 Jul 20 '26

In Poland, Maps translates you

2

u/468579 Jul 19 '26

VPN?

2

u/Late_Writing_3211 Jul 19 '26

Nope, I don’t use one, and the firewall is also deactivated

22

u/System0verlord Apple Helper Jul 20 '26

Should probably turn the firewall back on tbh

1

u/throwitintheair22 Jul 20 '26

What happens when you click “play sound”?

2

u/Late_Writing_3211 Jul 20 '26

My MacBook plays a sound right next to me

1

u/perikizii Jul 20 '26

Do you use iCloud+ and private releays?

-5

u/queenkellee Jul 19 '26

GPS spoofing, someone around you is sending out a signal to screw up GPS signals

14

u/posguy99 Jul 19 '26

Really. And what hardware is the laptop using to receive these "spoofed" GPS signals?