Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

opengeodata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#41

Post by ZeroGravitas »

wisty wrote: post #18
Hrundi wrote: post #2

This is the user, but I'm having a rough time trying to identify the offending edits: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/kane123/edits Has Google released any statement beyond the one that said "We were mortified to learn that a team of people..."? I'm overly curious on the results from Google's investigation. I can see the connection with Mocality being mentioned, but vandalizing seems odd. I would venture that this…

It could also just be a broken bot. You'd think Google would be smart enough to know not to POST 100k times to an outside service, but it's possible there's someone in the ranks who just doesn't know what they are doing.

The 100,000 hits by 17 accounts took place over a year could be 99.9% valid contributions. They mentioned that number because they have recently noted 2 accounts vandalising and so it's probably wise to check the other interactions in case they are subtle vandalism by the same person/people that went unnoticed at the time but that it'll take time to confirm either way.

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#43

Post by CWuestefeld »

tylermenezes wrote: post #7
Natsu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these are the same as the Mocality people, I wonder how long before Google audits and fires them? I also wonder if we'll find out about any more wrongdoing. Hopefully Google shuts them down soon.

I'm really suspicious of any claim that the top brass at Google honestly knew nothing about it... (What would these employees even have to gain? It's not like they have much to gain if Google's stock goes up, and if they're hiding this from management, they're not getting paid for it.)

What would these employees even have to gain?

Should we apply this logic to all open source contributions, and view with suspicion everything that doesn't have a price tag attached?

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#44

Post by jrockway »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #32
robinhouston wrote: post #13

There’s an interesting comment from Tom Hughes: “As the person who (in my role as an OpenStreetMap system administrator) first discovered this `incident' let me start by saying that I consider this post to be grossly irresponsible and wholly inappropriate. [ … ] It seems to me that this is just an attempt to get some cheap publicity by trying to like the project to the Mocality incident, and I cannot support such beh…

If the systems admin. of a for profit company left this kind of comment on a board members post would they expect to stay employed at that company? It may be a non-profit but the board members are still the ultimate bosses above the CEO. Calling your bosses behavior "grossly irresponsible" in public forum seems like it would be career limiting.

He's not getting paid, so I doubt he worries too much about that:

http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Finances/Balance_Sheet_201...

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#45

Post by jrockway »

tylermenezes wrote: post #7
Natsu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these are the same as the Mocality people, I wonder how long before Google audits and fires them? I also wonder if we'll find out about any more wrongdoing. Hopefully Google shuts them down soon.

I'm really suspicious of any claim that the top brass at Google honestly knew nothing about it... (What would these employees even have to gain? It's not like they have much to gain if Google's stock goes up, and if they're hiding this from management, they're not getting paid for it.)

In a past life, I've vandalized Wikipedia. I did it because it was funny to me and the people around me at the time.

(To be fair, it was John C Dvorak's page. But the point is, I didn't do it for money.)

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#46

Post by jrockway »

kaze wrote: post #12
tylermenezes wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really suspicious of any claim that the top brass at Google honestly knew nothing about it... (What would these employees even have to gain? It's not like they have much to gain if Google's stock goes up, and if they're hiding this from management, they're not getting paid for it.)

>I'm really suspicious of any claim that the top brass at >Google honestly knew nothing about it... If Google Management knew of this, wonder why they would let this happen from Google IP addresses...

Because Google employees generally have latitude to do whatever they want with their Internet connection at work. Even bad OSM edits.

If we start blaming whoever an IP resolves to for vandalism, you're going to find that pretty much every major corporation has vandalized Wikipedia. (When I worked at BAC, our proxy was perma-banned for vandalism.) Not to mention the ISPs; Comcast is a notorious Wikipedia vandal (by this logic).

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#47

Post by jrockway »

nmridul wrote: post #20
chrisacky wrote: post #6

I can understand Mocality posting on a blog their findings, but this is an awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations. Look forward to an explaination?... then contact them directly instead of "sand bagging" them (borrowing a colloquialism from Family Guy).

Just curious. How do you know the relevant person to contact in Google (or for that matter any big company) ? EDIT - I'm genuinely curious. Other than the sales people etc. I could'nt find any relevant details.

I would email abuse@google.com. This is typically how all Internet abuse is handled.

If you want to be particularly thorough, look up the name in abuse.net:

http://abuse.net/lookup.phtml?domain=google.com

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#48

Post by recoiledsnake »

muro wrote: post #26
oki2011 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh I like how you conveniently left out what ACTUALLY happened. http://searchengineland.com/bing-why-googles-wrong-in-its-ac...

that says they didn't copy results by looking at google directly, but by watching users that use google. With the number of IE users, the difference is only in how they achieved it, not whether they did it.

Bing toolbar users, not IE users. Also, only the result that was clicked was tracked, not all results returned.

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#49

Post by chaz »

nmridul wrote: post #20
chrisacky wrote: post #6

I can understand Mocality posting on a blog their findings, but this is an awful and not very credible way of make public your accusations. Look forward to an explaination?... then contact them directly instead of "sand bagging" them (borrowing a colloquialism from Family Guy).

Just curious. How do you know the relevant person to contact in Google (or for that matter any big company) ? EDIT - I'm genuinely curious. Other than the sales people etc. I could'nt find any relevant details.

PR people are usually a very good contact. News can break 24 hours a day, so they're usually very available. If you're about to spill the beans on something that can be very embarrassing, they will connect you with the right person. If they don't, they're on the hook for cleaning up the mess.

http://www.google.com/press/

Re: Google IP Vandalizing OpenStreetMap [Not a comprehensive post]

#50

Post by packetslave »

From http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_osm_vandalism.ph...

Update: Google sent the following statement to ReadWriteWeb on Tuesday morning. "The two people who made these changes were contractors acting on their own behalf while on the Google network. They are no longer working on Google projects."

Post reply on HN