For anyone expecting the clickbait headline to lead to an article containing some useful undocumented Google Maps tricks, let me save you the time.
This is just that boring old story about a bloke wheeling a handcart full of mobile phones around to fool Google Maps into thinking there was a traffic jam. It's not even a single "hack" never mind plural "hacks"
Title moderation on HN is very misleading, implemented as is. I don't have an issue with changing title, but the problem is that the name of the original submitter still stays next to the modified title, without any sign that title has been changed by someone else. Feels a bit like impersonation :)
If the title is changed, there should be a visible remark saying "title redacted by dang" or something similar. Or include the original title below the new one.
Title moderation is the one thing that really irks me on HN. I really wish it would go away. The main problem is that there's no reference to the original title, which is usually much more informative.
I've been complaining about it for about ten years now (!), to no avail. So yes the shruggie's in order... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I didn't even know there was title moderators ... why does it even exist! Are they suggesting a new title or forcing their title over yours? (which I found unacceptable if it's the case)
They just write a new title and it erases the previous one. The idea is to prevent "clickbait" titles. In practice it mostly destroys information.
It would be kind of acceptable if it was done immediately after posting, or if there was some kind of time limit. But it can happen at anytime, and sometimes links that have been upvoted for half a day suddenly change titles, which is infuriating.
If moderation will just change the title to whatever is in the original article, why not just automate it? I'd hope that moderators would be able to decide whether or not the original title was better. In this case it clearly wasn't.
>OP here. I submitted this with what I felt was a good headline...
>I didn't even know there was title moderators...
I didn't know there was title moderation either. My instinct is to be against it and just go with the original article title. BUT... this case is a weird one. If OP is to be believed, he actually changed the original title to make it LESS click-baity, but the mods changed it back to the original, which WAS click-baity.
It's not borning per se. But it's boring because it's old and well-known. The linked to version is from 2020 and I'm not even sure that was the original. I first read it quite a while ago and have seen it crop up several times since. This site is called Hacker NEWS. With the word NEWS implying er... "new" things.
It's also boring because the clickbait title [used on the linked to version] is misleading and suggests the article is about something else. ie. "hacks" [plural!] for Google Maps. When it is about nothing of the sort. It's an oft-repeated story about a bloke who once tricked Google Maps into thinking there was heavy traffic somewhere by wheeling a handcart full of phones, with Google Maps installed, down that street. It's about as much of a hack as me throwing my phone off a cliff to try and fool Strava into thinking I can fly.
I wonder if there could be a feasible business opportunity here. Basically, launch a service to access "express routes", which are really just normal roads clogged up by people spoofing GPS on Google Maps, enabling faster travel for those subscribed to the service since they get the actual clean data. Obviously this won't work in the long term, but in the mean time you might be able to divert some users off Google Maps to an alternative you're trying to market.
I know someone did a detailed analysis on this, but you can trivially see that something is wrong by looking closely at the 2nd to last photo [0]. The photo clearly shows multiple phones with the exact same image on the screen, i.e., they are pixel perfect copies. While I don't think the article is implausible, the 2nd to last image is certainly photoshopped.
Damn, all this website does is show an image file's metadata. I thought it was going to be some cool AI thing that detects whether an image is photoshopped via some kind of fancy ML model. Does such a thing exist? Is it possible?
It was also edited in GIMP on Mac before PS on Windows.
While also not conclusive, but apparently the editings seem to be re-save only. But again, you can choose not to save (or only save some) edit histories in XMP.
In my experience, my Iphone 11 is quite often wrong up to 20-30 meters, depending on nearby buildings or other environmental factors. Other phones at the same location at the same time can also differ the same distance, but not necessarily in the same direction.
Depending on the use case, within 50 meters of each other may or may not be considered ”the same location”.
Magnetometers don't use GPS and IME can even be thrown off based on their proximity to metal objects. Things like multipath also won't impact all devices equally if they're adjacent
Good catch, despite that, there is also almost no glare from sun, which is increases the chance to be photoshoped. Given that most phones adapt to env lightning. The ones with maps on it look like paper glass almost.
Yeah, it's been a few years but I recall people settling on it most likely being fake. Unfortunately the original publication used the word "fake" so now all Google results just leads to different rewrites of the same original article. I guess there's a lesson there if you're planning on making up a story.
And conversely, sometimes there's a road closure, and Google decides "w00t there's no traffic there at all, I'll send everyone down there!". Seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that, if there's zero cars traveling down a major arterial at peak hour, then that road would obviously be closed.
I've seen the reverse of this happen on my motorcycle, which can legally lane filter and use HOV lanes in my area. I could paint red lines green on the map in real time.
I thought this was going to be the story about changing the phone number of the US secret service on Google Maps to an attacker-controlled one, and thereby intercepting loads of phone calls
Geolocation data on practically everyone, with unique identifiers.
If Google had a crime analysis unit, they could easily "data science" the identity of these organized criminals breaking into cars daily in the Bay Area. The cumulative damage to society that these few individuals cause is great.
Agreed, they already have too much power and poor oversight.
There are already cases of parents who upload pictures of their naked children to doctors getting permanently banned from their products by the invasive AI enforcement team.
What has Google done to fix this? Keeping parents permanently banned to avoid litigation.
It would improve the overall crime picture in the bay area.
Also those who post negative photos of broken cars with comments about law enforcement quality could be found and contacted for additional details. An arguably more cost effective approach towards improving law enforcement image.
I imagine it’s just the capacity of the street - for a 0.1 mile stretch of a 1-lane road, assuming 15 feet per car (including follow distance), 35 Google maps clients is effectively a full street. If they all have destinations programmed, and are not moving, chances are something is blocking the road.
I don’t think you actually need many, it depends on the actual traffic. If it’s empty, I assume 4 phones would be enough. If there are other cars moving much faster than you, then the average would be moved higher.
This is just that boring old story about a bloke wheeling a handcart full of mobile phones around to fool Google Maps into thinking there was a traffic jam. It's not even a single "hack" never mind plural "hacks"