1y ago

I wonder how it affected traffic

Berlin artist Simon Weckert used 99 phones and a handcart to create a "virtual traffic jam" on Google Maps

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There's some security researchers that have done this before as well, and some "grey hats" that reportedly used this technique to get Google to route traffic away from them during their commute by spinning up a whole bunch of phones in their car like this.
- Do you recall any of the names? I'd love to read those papers and see how effective it was. Depending on the city and the route, people might have no choice but to go over a bridge like that regardless of traffic reports.
  
  While I don't remember his name, I remember there was a Darknet Diaries episode about the researcher who first investigated the problem. The episode was very thorough, I liked it a lot. I also don't remember the name of the episode, so I guess this comment is kinda useless
- “grey hats”
  What's a grey hat?
  
  Black hats are typical hackers, white hats are ethical hackers. So grey hats are just morally ambiguous hackers
  
  Chaotic neutral. The best and most fun.
  
  Purple phantoms in Dark Souls 3
- I remember an old post about someone seeing a neighbor doing that, I think in Brooklyn or someplace like that.
- That's clever. Just have a bunch of hidden buckets of phones on battery banks on your preferred route.
Heres the wired article from 2020 (First search result) https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traffic-jam/
- I thought it was way older than that
- Ah, nice context. Thanks!
Now try it with maps off, see if google still tracks them.
- Even with gps off, they can get rudimentary location data based on pings to cell towers. It's not pin point obviously, but it roughly tells how many people are in a given area with a phone on them, smart or dumb.
  
  I don't know if things have improved, but GSM-based positioning has accuracy of +/-2.5km.
- We already know that it does, if you have location tracking/history on (Which it is by default)
  
  But will it still think this is car traffic?
- Most likely does. Wifi location I think is typically on even if GPS isn't.
I guess android virtualization wasn't very developed back then
So when is Google going to try to have him arrested?
A metal cart? Is he mad?
- I doubt it. Replica Radio Flyer wagons are popular, and they look metal but are all plastic.
Why not round it off to 100 phones? Why stop at 99? Why are you this way?

29 comments