Hidden message in Google Maps? • Hacker News Board

Flags made up from geo shapes. The blue areas are lakes, yellow is beach. If you go into Google Map Maker you can do stuff like this, but that it got past some type of approval from a mod seems like a real cock up.

This deep-link shows the "East" object, which is a lake: http://goo.gl/zRoZqS

edit: Upon further digging, there is either a group of people or some automation involved, as they've not only submitted these new features, but managed to gather enough upvotes that they seem to have snuck through the system as I can't imagine this getting by any standard human review.

I've reported the shapes as spam, but when it's this easy to get something silly through in the middle of San Francisco, you have to wonder what else has been changed over the years.

edit2: Do yourself a favor and check out how many of this user's edits have been approved & published: http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=66&ptab=1&uid=209018779364...

Re: Hidden message in Google Maps?

#14

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 5:18 AM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #11

sonnyhe2002 wrote: post #5

flags, barbados, jamaica, trinidad

That would be supported by the use of "Bend" to label the diagonal bar in the third flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bend_(heraldry)

[deleted]

Re: Hidden message in Google Maps?

#15

Post by trentmb » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 6:25 AM UTC

ahmett wrote: post #8

LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

It's probably their equivalent of a Trap Street or a Fictitious Entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

It's weird they have fictitious entries right on crowded areas of a metropolitan city which tons of people look up on their mobile phones every single day. I'd say this is bad UX.

I guess people could request directions to a street that doesn't exist.

Re: Hidden message in Google Maps?

#16

Post by _kst_ » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 6:33 AM UTC

It doesn't show up (other than the labels) if you have satellite view enabled.

Here's a screen capture in case they clean it up:

http://imgur.com/PaFPj1r

Re: Hidden message in Google Maps?

#17

Post by Grue3 » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:18 AM UTC

I remember accidentally stumbling upon some weird stuff north of Khasab in Oman, with some ridiculous developments like monorails, theme parks and so on with English names, while satellite view would only show barren mountains. This submission prompted me to look for them again, but it seems there's nothing unusual there now. Stuff like this really puts the credibility of Google Maps into question, particularly for rarely visited areas.

Re: Hidden message in Google Maps?

#18

Post by tedd4u » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 3:57 PM UTC

lukeman wrote: post #13

Flags made up from geo shapes. The blue areas are lakes, yellow is beach. If you go into Google Map Maker you can do stuff like this, but that it got past some type of approval from a mod seems like a real cock up. This deep-link shows the "East" object, which is a lake: http://goo.gl/zRoZqS edit: Upon further digging, there is either a group of people or some automation involved, as they've not only submitted these…

Yeah at least several of the other published edits are bogus - these water features in Brooklyn are bogus:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hunters+Point,+Queens,+NY/...

Re: Hidden message in Google Maps?

#19

Post by lstamour » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 5:16 AM UTC

tedd4u wrote: post #18

lukeman wrote: post #13

Flags made up from geo shapes. The blue areas are lakes, yellow is beach. If you go into Google Map Maker you can do stuff like this, but that it got past some type of approval from a mod seems like a real cock up. This deep-link shows the "East" object, which is a lake: http://goo.gl/zRoZqS edit: Upon further digging, there is either a group of people or some automation involved, as they've not only submitted these…

Yeah at least several of the other published edits are bogus - these water features in Brooklyn are bogus: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hunters+Point,+Queens,+NY/...

Thanks for the heads up, this is pretty cool. Never thought about how a map of the entire earth would have changes approved or denied beyond open street map's wikipedia-style editing and re-editing.

I opened an issue on the map maker tracker based on this HN thread at https://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=5... ... I'm extremely impressed by the processes I see in Map Maker. It's obvious they've thought through a lot of how people might abuse or get features incorrect.

So the bug might be outside their control, but I'd argue that end users of Google Maps should be aware of newly added features and their source, if Map Maker. Could have avoided this whole posting on HN if that were the case.