Trap street
en.wikipedia.org
Trap street
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Trap street
#2Neat article!
I was googling for examples in Google Maps, and came across the corresponding article on open street maps[1], which is a nice supplement.
[1]: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs
Re: Trap street
#3We did the same sort of thing in the pkzip source code 20 years ago. There were a number of pointless routines in the program that would be clear evidence of code theft.
These days I suppose an optimizing compiler would be smart enough to strip away any truly dead ends.
Re: Trap street
#4Google Maps directed me down a trap street once on the way to a new tutoring gig. I got lost, was late, and had to sheepishly call the family to ask for directions. Just glad I had a printout of the directions to show them.
Never used it for anything essential after that. Thanks a lot, Google Maps. You'd think they'd have the decency to add a "don't route down this street" flag to their trap streets.
Re: Trap street
#5Google Maps directed me down a trap street once on the way to a new tutoring gig. I got lost, was late, and had to sheepishly call the family to ask for directions. Just glad I had a printout of the directions to show them. Never used it for anything essential after that. Thanks a lot, Google Maps. You'd think they'd have the decency to add a "don't route down this street" flag to their trap streets.
I wonder if it was truly an intentional 'trap street' or a genuine mistake? It would be hard to tell the difference. In Google's case they may be worried about their back end data being copied wholesale, in which case flagged streets would be too easy to remove, or perhaps it was a trap street in a third party data source, and they couldn't tell the difference to remove it. Or maybe it was just an honest error. Interesting that trap streets and errors make good cover for each other...
Re: Trap street
#6I make mountain bike trail maps[1] using OSM data, but when generating my first drafts of the final PDF files and distributing them for review I'll include similar trap landmark.
[1] Examples: http://mmba.org/library/maps/riverbends/latest.pdf http://mmba.org/library/maps/clintonriverparktrail/latest.pd... http://mmba.org/library/maps/stonycreek/latest.pdf http://mmba.org/library/maps/addisonoaks/latest.pdf
Re: Trap street
#7Along similar lines, the shareware assembler A86 watermarked the binaries it produced, so that unauthorised use of unregistered copies could be proven. It did this by - or so it was claimed - choosing one specific instruction over another, when it had a choice:
http://www.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/general/DOCUMENTA... (see section 6)
Re: Trap street
#8Dictionaries do the same thing with made-up words.
Re: Trap street
#9Google Maps directed me down a trap street once on the way to a new tutoring gig. I got lost, was late, and had to sheepishly call the family to ask for directions. Just glad I had a printout of the directions to show them. Never used it for anything essential after that. Thanks a lot, Google Maps. You'd think they'd have the decency to add a "don't route down this street" flag to their trap streets.
I'm guessing google doesn't do its own cartography work, especially with roads. Most of that is probably coming from free government sources like this
Re: Trap street
#10I wonder if it would be possible to automatically compare goog vs. bing, identify discrepancies and come out with a 'clean' map?