Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #492

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Man Hacks Google Maps, Creates Fake Traffic Jam; Watch Video To Find Out How
Google Maps can be considered as an invaluable tool for anyone who drives a car in a big city, offering details on traffic on major roads. A lot of us have this habit to reli- giously check Google Maps before heading anywhere, to properly plan our routes.
Google runs ad campaigns encourages users to do the same. But the system isn’t fool- proof and can be deceived, as hilariously demonstrated by a man in Berlin who used 99 smartphones and a hand cart to create ‘fake’ traf-
fic jams in Berlin.
Simon Weckert, a Berlin-based artist, did this stunt and pub- lished it on his blog as well as his youtube channel.
The video showed Weckert pulling 99 smart- phones with the location turned on in a hand cart on city streets, including the street that had the Google’s office in Berlin.
The hand cart moved at a slow pace and the fact that almost 99 phones were used, it led Google Maps to believe that there were a lot of vehicles using a
street that was actually empty.
Google uses this trick to crowd- source traffic data world over; smartphones in cars provide any traffic-related information to Google, including the speed at which they are moving, and how many smart- phones are there on the street.
As per the video of the Berlin artist, it showed the streets on Google Maps gradually turning from green to maroon, suggest- ing that there was a traffic pile- up on those streets.
Google generally shows a segment of the street as red or maroon, if the pace is low and the number is high, It would show traffic jam on the phone.
Weckert refrained from sharing any further details, there might be possible that this could have been faked entirely. If it is authentic, Google should ideally be looking at ways to pre- vent such an exploit from being used, since this could have very real and physical implica- tions on traffic movement.
Click Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5eL_al_m7Q
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine