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Comment by unfundiert | Hacker News Reader

I'm stunned how fast Google Maps detects traffic jams. I assume all those smartphones are running car navigation and as traffic detection works by trusting the clients I fear there's no chance to avoid this kind of exploit. Nevertheless it would be interesting to know what's the ratio of correct / malicious clients to fool the system. That migt highly depend on whether Google implemented any detection of faulty clients.

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Google maps runs also a lot of the time on background so no active navigation is required. I wonder if the introduction of background location activity notifications in iOS 13 decreased the amount of traffic data gathered from iPhone users.

I want one app to track my position at all times. I use google because I’m unaware of another—and I figure they have optimized the energy consumption of doing so. Then again, would be thrilled if someone could recommend an alternate way of doing this on iOS (preferably native).

PS this function allowed me to time stamp my location which proved incredibly helpful in a FOFA request with state patrol—got me out of a ticket that should never have been issued!

FOFA? FOIA?

How did you make your case? The court trusted your Google takeout? Or you got a subpoena?

FOIA thank you for catching this!

I requested footage from the patrol person’s vehicle. They circled back and needed the exact time of footage (I was ticketed long after the alleged violation). So this was me personally using the time stamp to surface the window of footage necessary. Turns out the camera caught a car veering into my lane that the officer “did not remember”, thereby exonerating me of swerving into the shoulder.

I use an app called Arc for this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/arc-app-location-activity/id10...

I am pretty happy with it, so i can recommend giving it a try.

EXACTLY what I was looking for, thank you!

I always assumed Android phones report location data for the traffic detection whether you use Google Maps or not.

You can probably avoid it by more accuracy somehow. If the road is just for 1 car width, and there are 50 cars in the same radius (because all are inside the cart), it’s an impossible scenario.

I think gps accuracy is something like 3 meters, which is about one car length.

The situation could also easily be discovered by probing accelerometers of the phones that travel in groups. Separate vehicles don't exhibit perfectly synchronized acceleration and deceleration, especially not in a traffic jam.

...unless they're on a bus.

Exactly. A bus is one vehicle, and you don't want to count every phone on it as a separate entity.

...which can be exclusded from car driving predictions.

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