4 ms·

I'm trying to imagine someone ensuring differentiation between minimums.unsettled.depends (Idaho), minimums.unsettled.depend (Alaska), minimums.unsettles.depend

I'm trying to imagine someone ensuring differentiation between minimums.unsettled.depends (Idaho), minimums.unsettled.depend (Alaska), minimums.unsettles.depend (Spain), and minimum.unsettles.depend (Russia) while typing them in on a t-9 style keypad with a 7 figure display in turbulence.

lxgr 3y ago
That's easily fixed – just spell them out using the ICAO spelling alphabet!
jonny_eh 3y ago
That seems like a huge flaw in their system, has it never been addressed?
- wlonkly 3y ago
  No, and by my understanding it can't be, as the algorithm is now permanent. But it's worse than that, there are confusables within small distances of each other: https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su... https://w3w.me.ss/ https://w3w.me.ss/
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    Since the app gives you the words to say, and translates those back to coordinates on the receiving end, in theory they could alter the word list, at the cost of making any written-down version obsolete. Maybe they should release a new service called What4ActuallyVettedWordsAndWordCombinations ;)
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      Aren't they trying to turn their word list into a subscription service? Obsoleting paper copies might be a feature.
pmarreck 3y ago
I can't believe the What3Words person or people didn't normalize all words to be singular before canonizing the list. That's ridiculous.
- thombat 3y ago
  The word list is 40,000 long, so without plurals probably there aren't enough words that people could spell or even pronounce. A better fix would be making it "what four words" - I wonder if they'd already committed too much to the "three" concept before discovering the flaw? Either way, using phony statistics to make unwarrantable claims of accuracy is a poor workaround.

lxgr 3y ago

That's easily fixed – just spell them out using the ICAO spelling alphabet!

jonny_eh 3y ago

That seems like a huge flaw in their system, has it never been addressed?

wlonkly 3y ago
No, and by my understanding it can't be, as the algorithm is now permanent. But it's worse than that, there are confusables within small distances of each other: https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su... https://w3w.me.ss/ https://w3w.me.ss/
- pmarreck 3y ago
  Since the app gives you the words to say, and translates those back to coordinates on the receiving end, in theory they could alter the word list, at the cost of making any written-down version obsolete. Maybe they should release a new service called What4ActuallyVettedWordsAndWordCombinations ;)
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    Aren't they trying to turn their word list into a subscription service? Obsoleting paper copies might be a feature.

pmarreck 3y ago

I can't believe the What3Words person or people didn't normalize all words to be singular before canonizing the list. That's ridiculous.

thombat 3y ago
The word list is 40,000 long, so without plurals probably there aren't enough words that people could spell or even pronounce. A better fix would be making it "what four words" - I wonder if they'd already committed too much to the "three" concept before discovering the flaw? Either way, using phony statistics to make unwarrantable claims of accuracy is a poor workaround.