@hacks4pancakes I'm really not sure how the data from Pokemon go gets you much that you don't get from tower data. Sure, it's sensitive data, but it's a subset of various other kinds of sensitive data everyone is already leaking.
It's certainly less data than LE get through telecom portals, or companies buy off providers. Feels like Niantic is playing bad guy to get cash for selling mostly redundant data.
@quinn
I'm not an expert on Niantic's internal operations but I am an IT guy who has played Ingress since its initial release so I can share some observations.
One problem of geo-spatial mapping that Niantic tackled early was location drift in heavily built areas. GPS works great in open areas but less so where satellite signals are impeded or reflected by buildings. Modern smartphones combine WiFi hotspot detection with GPS to improve location accuracy but needs "precise location" to be active which consumes more power. The one other type of mobile app that does this is map/navigation apps, but those are mostly used while stationary or on transport, and rarely while walking. Niantic game mechanics push players to walk around places of interest with the game active so Niantic can collect higher quality location data in places where the data quality tends to be poor.
The next breakthrough was the addition of Augmented Reality (AR) APIs to Android and iOS. Prior to this Niantic had players take photos of landmarks, but with AR-capable phones Niantic added 3D scanning of landmarks. Not as many players do this but it provides richer data and can even map indoor areas.
When I started 3D scanning I thought Niantic was only mapping the landmark, but eventually realised they were also mapping the background to determine where the landmark was in relation to nearby landmarks.
@boomfish @dymaxion @hacks4pancakes afaict basically no one uses the AR. It's crappy and makes the game harder. I'm pretty sure data gathering is why they created AR tasks, but doing them was so buggy that afaict, barely anyone bothers with them. The AR just isn't any fun.
Back to the original point, I just haven't seen anything that suggests it's a competent tool for Evil™️. Again not that I think they don't want to be evil! Just that like most things, evil fails most of the time.
@quinn @hacks4pancakes The user location data isn't really useful, especially as the users go to locations they normally don't, because game events are happening there.
What *is* interesting are the pictures taken, that should be sufficient to create a fairly complete 3D world map to get very accurate location and orientation(!) information for camera pictures.
Specifically orientation is what delivery robots are struggling with, because GPS doesn't tell them, and magnetometers are imprecise.
@quinn @hacks4pancakes ...with all of the fields in place and untouched.
But that was under NDA.
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