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Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

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Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#61

Post by Forgeties79 »

alpineman wrote: post #3

Truly dystopian. The Pokémon Company should share the blame for licensing their brand in this way without proper safeguards to prevent the data being used for this, particularly given the background of the Niantic founders

Niantic is what happens when a boardroom is somehow more evil than the ridiculous caricatures we sometimes see in Hollywood. “Alright gentlemen: we need to make a lot of money quickly harvesting every drop of data from kids and adults alike en masse using something they all love that is family-friendly. We are selling it to the military of course, because they’ll pay us tons of money for it. Who’s in?”

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#62

Post by crnkofe »

superkickstart wrote: post #7

The world is so messed up right now that this is not even the least bit surprising. In fact it's on point.

This is revolting. Given how many kids played and are still playing the game this literally means weaponizing kids playing games. Humanity has been lost somewhere along the way.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#66

Post by 5- »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #50
BoppreH wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Videos are inherently large. There are better compression algorithms than what phone cameras generate by default, but video reencoding is slow, and the results still too large for "covert data channels". Normal players would have noticed the bandwidth and CPU usage, and volunteers have already agreed to data sharing, so there's no point in keeping secrets. Same as claims that the Facebook app listens to people talk:…

Why videos though? Photogrammetry is about still images. You don't need ALL angles of a target from a single user. Other users pile the needed data up, guided by their own pokemon locations.

and photogrammetry from crowd-sourced disparate still images was the biggest, flashiest "public" display of the technology: https://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_how_photosyn...

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#67

Post by petterroea »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #34
petterroea wrote: post #27

This shouldn't be a surprise. But at this point it feels like if you don't completely avoid participating in digital society, your data will be used against you or groups/countries you support.

Mainly if you allow a government and / or corporations to do so, but unfortunately democracy and the like only gives you so much influence on that.

Sadly non technical people do not see future risk and any warning prediction is a slippery slope fallacy. Yet we now hear the echo of privacy advocates of the 2000s and 2010s saying "I told you so!"

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#68

Post by thinkingemote »

tomaytotomato wrote: post #33

How useful is spatial data over time, does it decay or age much? Is the geographical data more useful, or are buildings and other structures more important? Genuinely don't know much in this space.

It's easier to take a look via change of dates in google street view, they have almost 20 years coverage. You can see how the data ages and decays or doesn't because it's tied to the place it represents.

Shops come and go, churches do not move, schools tend not to move much, industry areas is somewhat dynamic, military installations might be static or dynamic, trees grow or are removed.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#69

Post by somelamer567 »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #30

An interesting thing is that in Russia, this military data grab by ostensibly 'our western would-be enemies" was supported by viral advertisement by nobody else but the head of Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. A story was manufactured about arresting a 22 y.o. guy in the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints for playing Pokemon Go. The story went hyper-hyped for weeks, with general public sentiment that o…

Interesting: the Russians are calling "our partners", "our would-be enemies" now. They're not even pretending anymore. Given that this steady parade of seemingly-planted and promoted derogatory anti-Western stories that has been happening for years originates from You Know Where, it's a revelation that the Russian establishment and secret services are not even pretending anymore.

It should also be pointed out that Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church have been understood to have been cat's paws for Russia's notorious KGB successor agencies for a very long time now.

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