Re:Every map of China is wrong
by cat_plus_plus on Thursday May 02, 2024 @11:29PM
(#40243749)
I am not a fan of China, but not wanting coordinates of strategic targets in your country to be precisely known doesn't seem crazy. Other restrictions they have like not being able to access the Internet, or being put in reeducation camps, or not having a say in how your government is run would affect me badly. But if navigation in my car worked fine, would I care if topography is a bit distorted? During the pandemic, I saw US federal, state and local government restrict my freedom in much more drastic ways, even after I was already vaccinated. I know it was even worse in China, but I would still focus on these other things and rather than not having precise coordinates of a military base.
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Topography in the navigation app will not be distorted for Amap or Baidu map. They looks correct.
Maybe people just don't know how important a navigation app is. With enough usage data, you can know the traffic status of any area. Amap and Baidu already use these data to provide the countdown of traffic light. It has 90% accuracy. You can also have a deep understanding of the economic status, or find out some hidden buildings.
So for an algorithm which is already reverse engineered many years ago, it cannot protect anything. It is just a policy to stop foreign companies to join this game.
As for the reason, "national security", "unacceptable risk".
Re:Every map of China is wrong
by gravescale on Friday May 03, 2024 @04:58AM
(#40245587)
> Amap and Baidu already use these data to provide the countdown of traffic light
It's often off by whole second or two. Disaster, I know!
It'll also tell if it can you the ideal speed to drive to hit the next green light and join a "green wave".
I wish TomTom would get in on that.
Re:Every map of China is wrong
by gravescale on Friday May 03, 2024 @11:29AM
(#40248815)
It's funny isn't it, China has a bizarre monopolistic mapping thing enforced legally and technically, and yet it's the Western companies that have basically not produced a new feature for about 10 years, despite slurping down all those petabytes of data in that time (not that Baidu and friends don't slurp data of course, and lots of it).
China isn't North Korea. By and large, people live normal modern lives there. Most are uninterested in what's beyond the firewall because it's mostly not in their language, even if they've seen it and can read English. But yeah, "don't talk about religion or politics" is basically a law instead of just a recommendation to maintain polite relationships with acquaintances.