6 ms·

Strava allows you to set places where it should not track (like close to home); not everybody uses that.

by miahi 9y ago

acdha 9y ago
This isn’t in the iOS app at all. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many users never visit the website.
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  The iOS and Android apps are hamstrung versions of the web app. The web app is way more useful.
  - acdha 9y ago
    They’re also what 99% of their users use so they really meed to have feature parity on important things like privacy, especially given how trivial this would be (“fuzz n meters from my current location”).
    - steve_adams_86 9y ago
      Interestingly, this feature is one of the first I recall using on Android maybe 8 years ago. It was very visible and easy to turn on... Not sure why they made it harder to discover. Or have they removed it? They do offer manual route trimming from both ends, too. I've found this useful mostly when I forget to turn off my watch after running.
      - acdha 9y ago
        I’d believe it needed work after a major rewrite and is still in someone’s backlog. They seem to have a fairly small dev team - probably busy with device support & other time-sinks. I wish they had a way to do an auto-trim so my bike rides didn’t include GPS bounce leaving the building. CommuteMarker.com had auto-tagging for Strava rides but not auto-trimming last time I looked.
- zootm 9y ago
  If you go to the Privacy section of the iOS app it's mentioned at the bottom with a link to the webpage ("Further customise your privacy..."). Not ideal you can't do it from within the app though.
  - acdha 9y ago
    Also it’s like 6pt text at the bottom of a long form. I really wish it was prominent.
    - rhizome 9y ago
      No UGD (data) companies want to make it easy to reduce the amount of data they offer.
      - acdha 9y ago
        They do have the counter pressure of not losing users or inspiring government action. I’m not sure how this plays, for example, with the EU data protection laws but I’d bet there are some smart lawyers looking at this.
- miahi 9y ago
  Strava apps are not perfect; they have a lot of settings in weird places. To sync with an ANT+ or Bluetooth sensor on Android you have to actually start recording an activity, and then press the small "settings" button in that page. Those settings are different than the ones in the main "settings". And then you add your HR sensor, record heartrate data for your workout and at the end you find that if you want it displayed in the app you have to pay :).
drdrey 9y ago
I have it turned on, but honestly it's not very hard to figure out where I live... it's in the middle of that circle where my runs oddly seem to stop
- chrisfosterelli 9y ago
  If you start and stop your run going different directions it's not too hard to figure out the central point between them, but if you start/stop from the same direction then it's not clear what the "middle" of the circle would be because the radius of the circle is configurable and unknown to viewers.
  - CapacitorSet 9y ago
    To expand on this, it takes three points to identify a circle, so you'd need to leave home and return from three different roads (at least at the intersection with the circle).
    - drdrey 9y ago
      You can still potentially make useful inferences without 3 points. For instance, imagine the configuration where there is a single straight road that leads to your home (center of the privacy circle) - you can just extend the line where the GPS tracks for 5/8 mile (the biggest privacy setting) and infer the location of the home. Similarly, if you have 2 straight GPS tracks leading to your home, you can infer both the center and the radius of the privacy zone. You may not get the exact street address, but you could definitely figure the block or the street. Maybe not super useful in a dense city, but that could leak quite a bit about you if you live in a suburb or rural area.
- mxfh 9y ago
  Pro tip: You don't have to put the center of the privacy zone to your actual living location.
- jac_no_k 9y ago
  Don't center the circle on where you start your tracking. Create multiple overlapping circles to further obfuscate. And ride / run through the circles on occasion. These will show up in tracing confusing the analysis.
rhizome 9y ago
IIRC, it's just "place," singular; it only lets you set "close to home," not arbitrary locations.
- chrisfosterelli 9y ago
  You can set any number of places, and how large the blocking radius for each one should be.
austinwm 9y ago
I'd be curious if you're able to set up large privacy zones for the sensitive area case. For instance, if I set a privacy zone centered on my house (or my military base) with a radius of 100 miles and all of my running activities are contained within that privacy zone are those runs automatically marked private? If I never run across the boundary then there's no issue of inadvertently exposing the privacy zone center point. Would Strava hide the GPS information but allow my run stats to accumulate? I don't think the feature is quite there yet but it could be close.
vobios 9y ago
Or you could just not start tracking right at your house. Wait until you get to an intersection, for example.

Strava allows you to set places where it should not track (like close to home); not everybody uses that.

by miahi 9y ago

Strava allows you to set places where it should not track (like close to home); not everybody uses that.

acdha 9y ago

This isn’t in the iOS app at all. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many users never visit the website.

rorykoehler 9y ago
The iOS and Android apps are hamstrung versions of the web app. The web app is way more useful.
- acdha 9y ago
  They’re also what 99% of their users use so they really meed to have feature parity on important things like privacy, especially given how trivial this would be (“fuzz n meters from my current location”).
  - steve_adams_86 9y ago
    Interestingly, this feature is one of the first I recall using on Android maybe 8 years ago. It was very visible and easy to turn on... Not sure why they made it harder to discover. Or have they removed it? They do offer manual route trimming from both ends, too. I've found this useful mostly when I forget to turn off my watch after running.
    - acdha 9y ago
      I’d believe it needed work after a major rewrite and is still in someone’s backlog. They seem to have a fairly small dev team - probably busy with device support & other time-sinks. I wish they had a way to do an auto-trim so my bike rides didn’t include GPS bounce leaving the building. CommuteMarker.com had auto-tagging for Strava rides but not auto-trimming last time I looked.
zootm 9y ago
If you go to the Privacy section of the iOS app it's mentioned at the bottom with a link to the webpage ("Further customise your privacy..."). Not ideal you can't do it from within the app though.
- acdha 9y ago
  Also it’s like 6pt text at the bottom of a long form. I really wish it was prominent.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    No UGD (data) companies want to make it easy to reduce the amount of data they offer.
    - acdha 9y ago
      They do have the counter pressure of not losing users or inspiring government action. I’m not sure how this plays, for example, with the EU data protection laws but I’d bet there are some smart lawyers looking at this.
miahi 9y ago
Strava apps are not perfect; they have a lot of settings in weird places. To sync with an ANT+ or Bluetooth sensor on Android you have to actually start recording an activity, and then press the small "settings" button in that page. Those settings are different than the ones in the main "settings". And then you add your HR sensor, record heartrate data for your workout and at the end you find that if you want it displayed in the app you have to pay :).

drdrey 9y ago

I have it turned on, but honestly it's not very hard to figure out where I live... it's in the middle of that circle where my runs oddly seem to stop

chrisfosterelli 9y ago
If you start and stop your run going different directions it's not too hard to figure out the central point between them, but if you start/stop from the same direction then it's not clear what the "middle" of the circle would be because the radius of the circle is configurable and unknown to viewers.
- CapacitorSet 9y ago
  To expand on this, it takes three points to identify a circle, so you'd need to leave home and return from three different roads (at least at the intersection with the circle).
  - drdrey 9y ago
    You can still potentially make useful inferences without 3 points. For instance, imagine the configuration where there is a single straight road that leads to your home (center of the privacy circle) - you can just extend the line where the GPS tracks for 5/8 mile (the biggest privacy setting) and infer the location of the home. Similarly, if you have 2 straight GPS tracks leading to your home, you can infer both the center and the radius of the privacy zone. You may not get the exact street address, but you could definitely figure the block or the street. Maybe not super useful in a dense city, but that could leak quite a bit about you if you live in a suburb or rural area.
mxfh 9y ago
Pro tip: You don't have to put the center of the privacy zone to your actual living location.
jac_no_k 9y ago
Don't center the circle on where you start your tracking. Create multiple overlapping circles to further obfuscate. And ride / run through the circles on occasion. These will show up in tracing confusing the analysis.

rhizome 9y ago

IIRC, it's just "place," singular; it only lets you set "close to home," not arbitrary locations.

chrisfosterelli 9y ago
You can set any number of places, and how large the blocking radius for each one should be.

austinwm 9y ago

I'd be curious if you're able to set up large privacy zones for the sensitive area case. For instance, if I set a privacy zone centered on my house (or my military base) with a radius of 100 miles and all of my running activities are contained within that privacy zone are those runs automatically marked private? If I never run across the boundary then there's no issue of inadvertently exposing the privacy zone center point. Would Strava hide the GPS information but allow my run stats to accumulate? I don't think the feature is quite there yet but it could be close.

vobios 9y ago

Or you could just not start tracking right at your house. Wait until you get to an intersection, for example.