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It probably doesn't help that reliable sources tell me that the Three Gorges Dam is, in fact, absolutely goddamn crooked and janky. One reason they don't allow close photography of it is simply that it looks so very bad. Grand Coulee Dam, on the other hand, despite being decades older? It's dead-on level .
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Another thing I don't understand is: OK, you are required to use GJC-02 for map data in China, and you are not allowed to convert to WGS-84. But then don't. You can directly project the map from GJC-02 to screen pixels, and from WGS-84 to screen pixels, and stuff would line up. And when you tap a point on the screen, you can report the legally mandated GJC-02 coordinates.
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It seems that even taking geotagged photos is illegal in China, indeed some camera models automatically disable geotagging when inside China: https://ogleearth.com/2012/05/why-do-panasonic-leica-fujifil...
Never had any issues. Noone cared about my camera while I was there. And I created like 5K photos there. Not that I ever use GPS, because it eats away your batter, but noone really cared about it.
Of course, some of those devices get through, or are carried in by tourists, or are enabled by enthusiasts who load the non-China firmware. This seems to be understood. The Chinese are smart enough, one presumes, to know that actual state-level competitors can get accurate (in the chosen geodetic system) location data without relying on tourists' geotagged Google Photos uploads.
But that does lead to the question, "why, then?" -- if your adversaries know your secret, it's probably not worth the effort of protecting, anymore. (And why, in the US, we know about stuff like VENONA now.) The Chinese seem focused on a different threat: they don't care if a few people have good location data, even if some of them work for the US NGA, they just don't want everyone to have that data.
Which is interesting, because it suggests that that they're less concerned about a foreign government with strategic intelligence, than they are their own domestic population.
This isn't about state secrets vs other states; it's about denying their own population a capability that they find valuable, and thus threatening.
The US having a dedicated intelligence agency for maps seems to defeat most of the military value of this system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligen...
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Never had any issues. Noone cared about my camera while I was there. And I created like 5K photos there. Not that I ever use GPS, because it eats away your batter, but noone really cared about it.
If my memory is still correct, in China camera products must have their GPS module removed/disabled before they're licensed for sale. Since these products looked the same from the outside, and are commonly used by everyone who wants to, nobody will bother to check every single one. Unless of course, if the camera gets too close to (say) a military/civil defense installation (often includes their office buildings), th…
However, for the Camera which have GPS module, you will need additional filing to license your product. So some of the companies just hide the feature.
Clearly it is not "must have GPS removed".
https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform/blob/master/java/...
https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform/blob/master/java/...
And converting the other way by a kind of binary search, I guess using a flaw in the obfuscation:
https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform/blob/master/java/...
All seems very silly by today standards and I would think it hardly made sense back in 2002 when this was apparently devised.
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Thanks for the details. It is always interesting how the most innocent things are seen as danger by an autocracy.
Everything which is not allowed is forbidden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_which_is_not_forbid...
The US having a dedicated intelligence agency for maps seems to defeat most of the military value of this system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligen...
Pretty insane for the writer or even China/Russia to believe the US, with all of its resources, wouldn't be able to make their own accurate maps.
Man the author did not have to resort to such a click baity title to get people to read. “Why Google Maps can’t map China” would have been accurate and not droll. I just opened Apple Maps and it looks perfectly fine. Tested about 10 areas and even rural areas and there was no issue. Stopped reading immediately after. I have no interest in supporting this crap.
> there was no issue You should compare with https://m.amap.com/
You just don't have to play Chinas game.
