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
I guess this comment is kinda useless
Props for self-awareness and yet still smashing that “reply” button, but I still think your comment is slightly useful. I often just click the “cancel” button once the “useless comment” realization hits me.
Edit: I am wrestling with it now, just after I clicked reply.
Your comment was not useless. I learned about a new podcast that I checked out, plus you got to talk about something you liked in a way that made me go look for the episode - haven’t found it yet, but found some other, interesting things along the way.
Darknet Diaries is SOOOO good.
“grey hats”
What’s a grey hat?
Chaotic neutral. The best and most fun.
Black hats are typical hackers, white hats are ethical hackers. So grey hats are just morally ambiguous hackers
Typical hackers
Screw that, go check the original definition of hacker. Those who do bad business with computers are “black hats” not “typical hackers”
Of course you’re right, historically. But since the word hacker came to mean both good and bad in the general publics mind, this is where we are in 2024. We can’t fight it.
And not just in 2024 grey hats and white hats have existed for quite some time now.
thanks!
Purple phantoms in Dark Souls 3
Black hats are typical hackers, white hats are ethical hackers. So grey hats are just morally ambiguous hackers
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
Good man
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?
top tier hacking
