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

Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

dronexl.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 334 posts

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

#131

Post by pj_mukh »

oceansky wrote: post #121
pj_mukh wrote: post #111

As someone who works in this space, the headline is a bit of a stretch. The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver (or zero?). The military contractor (Vantar/Maxar) in question basically admits so but just "reserves the right" to use the data which is the political battle line ala Claude and DoD. This is mostly an ideological battle.

As a Pokemon go player, I would say it isn't. There's even a Pokemon exclusive to the middle east region: sandstorm pattern Vivillion. Lots of players there.

"The Middle-east" isn't a war zone. Even the parts of the middle-east that are, don't have any drone deployments. Lebanon maybe? Reports are thin.

Maxar is/was primarily a satellite data company, and to say Pokemon data would add any major value in any of today's active drone deployments with the level of Satellite coverage Maxar already has is a wide stretch.

Moreover, ground forces in the area would need pretty heavy jamming tech in place too for this kind of data to be useful. It's a sliver of a sliver of a sliver situation.

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

#132

Post by speed_spread »

deafpolygon wrote: post #80
phrotoma wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game aimed at children supporting military intelligence is prime cyberpunk material. No doubt fiction beat us to that as well.

Sure did.. it’s called Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card).

And before that, The Last Starfighter

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

#133

Post by f4c39012 »

dotancohen wrote: post #130
SahAssar wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Just like editing wikipedia will help train models that are used for data classification in north korea or whatever. It's a feature of open data, it's open and usable by anyone .

... for any purpose .

With attribution

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

#134

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tokai wrote: post #126
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I’m thinking about this, I suppose Apple Maps and OpenStreetMap are about as problematic as Niantic’s data.

Yes, and star maps can do the same when its night and clear. This is way over blown.

> star maps can do the same when its night and clear

Works less well if you want to use structures for radar cover.

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

#135

Post by timcobb »

This is fitting/perfect. Pokemon go is THE archetypical surveillance capitalism app. Be a drone in surveillance capitalism, know that your behavior will be used like this. Drones generally don't know or care though. Drones just have fun with tech yay fun awesome. Pokemon, gotta catch them all!!

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

#136

Post by diydsp »

fragmede wrote: post #100
christoph wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 8 year old LOVES Pokemon Go, and we regularly go to a local meet up which is a fascinating microcosm of people of all ages from all walks of life. We’ve met some great people and had some incredible conversations, but I really struggle to see how we can continue in good faith now. I seriously loath, hate & despise everything about this digital panopticon world being constructed around us.

The data isn't guns though. Guns aren't a dual use technology that have a nonviolent purpose. Data is. The same data that trains military drones can also be used to train the robot that will bring food to grandma when she's so old that she can't walk up the stairs anymore.

They don't have equal weight.

Even 100s of yummy grandma-cheeseburgers is not worth feeding private data brokers detailed maps of our own communities.

Nowadays some of them are just as likely to sell the data to the other side.

Nowadays the other side may get access to them without us even knowing.

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

#137

Post by saidnooneever »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #113
pj_mukh wrote: post #111

As someone who works in this space, the headline is a bit of a stretch. The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver (or zero?). The military contractor (Vantar/Maxar) in question basically admits so but just "reserves the right" to use the data which is the political battle line ala Claude and DoD. This is mostly an ideological battle.

> overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone-driven Theaters of War would be a tiny sliver Is Pokémon Go not played in the Middle East, India, Taiwan, Korea or Japan?

or ukraine or russia, and ofc people in africa dont have phones or internet -_-.

ofc going by the entire surface of the earth its not a lot of places, but i would never call such a thing statistically insignificant..

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

#138

Post by Zonulet »

adrianhon wrote: post #39

This article is based on reporting from Trouw: https://www.trouw.nl/redactie/PokemonGo/ I was interviewed for the Trouw piece and briefly quoted. This isn't to detract from the DroneXL piece, which adds its own angle.

Based on the prose of the DroneXL piece, I think it would be more accurate to say that Claude adds its own angle.

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

#139

Post by orbital-decay »

tpolm wrote: post #90
somelamer567 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ki…

Come on, Russian "страна наиболее вероятного противника" (the country of the most likely enemy) was always the military name of the US since the Cold War. Now used in military texts and also as a sarcastic cliché

Moreover, it's adversary, not enemy.
Post reply on HN