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So Openstreetmap must be illegal in China! And indeed it is: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/China https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/China Of course tha

by lolc 2y ago

So Openstreetmap must be illegal in China! And indeed it is: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/China https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/China Of course that doesn't stop people from mapping every bench in China https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=China#map=3/33.99/104.14 https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=China#map=3/33.99...

Reason077 2y ago
Indeed, despite its apparent illegality, China seems to be fairly well-supported and well-mapped by OpenStreetMap, at least in major cities. And is entirely mapped in normal WGS-84 without the obfuscation problem. In any case, according to Wikipedia, open-source code is available to convert between WGS-84 and the obfuscated GJC-02 coordinates. Since technology seems to have caught up with it, is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? Much like the US gave up on GPS "selective availability" years ago, there would seem now days to be more economic advantage to ditching obfuscation than there is security advantage of keeping it. Is not as if the missiles of China's enemies are going to get confused by China's obfuscated coordinates. Is it just because of inertia that GJC-02 still exists?
- toss1 2y ago
  Great point. This seems like low-intelligence autocratic bullshirt more than anything. Does the CCP really think that the US military are going to use ordinary street msps to target their missiles and that this obfuscation will protect them from on-target hits? Sure, in WWII there were a few apocryphal instances of bad maps foiling an attack, but that was decades before mapping satellites. As mentioned, it's been a long time since the US stopped limiting GPS resolution. This just makes CCP seem backward.
  - SllX 2y ago
    Not going to defend it, but I’ve always read it as an attempted countermeasure to unsophisticated espionage or domestic terrorism rather than an addition to their missile defense system. It’s not good enough to obfuscate targets when you can literally see and guide missiles from above their airspace, but it might trip up people operating on the street on their own or in small cells. America isn’t the PRC’s only adversary, and authoritarian dictatorships thrive only so far as they can control information and the movements of their subjects.
    - wbl 2y ago
      On the street relative addresses and way markers are enough. Think about the pre smartphone direction days.
      - SllX 2y ago
        Yeah. Like I said, not defending it, but it seems more plausible than trying to trip up foreign missile targeting by making Google Maps worse.
  - vbezhenar 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_C... US allegedly used old map with wrong coordinates. Probably China knows well about US military tactics.
  - nikisweeting 2y ago
    It's really not about missle/drone defense at all. It's just an economic policy to help local mapping tech get good without international competition, and to control access to information by channeling it through domestic state-controlled enterprises.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - somat 2y ago
    There is the cautionary tale of the US invasion of Grenada. Where because no military maps of the country could be found in time. tourist maps with a military grid penned on were distributed to the troops. While we hope our much vaunted modern systems make this impossible, the reality is, that any large scale operation is a series of fuck ups while people figure out how to make it work. https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2018/10/25/how-the-invasion-of-grenada-was-planned-with-a-tourist-map-and-a-copy-of-the-economist/ https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2018...
  - asoneth 2y ago
    > Does the CCP really think that the US military are going to use ordinary street msps to target their missiles and that this obfuscation will protect them from on-target hits? In some cases using consumer-level street maps could make for more accurate targeting. Many years ago I worked on command & control systems for a US military contractor. The mapping imagery our software used from military mapping providers were high resolution but often more out-of-date than commercial offerings. One example a warfighter showed me stuck with me because it was particularly embarrassing and egregious -- military imagery showed an area with a handful of shacks in the middle of the desert but Google's satellite imagery showed that it had become a sprawling town. Because of issues like that, army warfighters were forced to regularly cross-check with Google and/or Yahoo! maps when planning operations. It is no longer an area I work in and I would expect that military imagery is now more up-to-date, but there are likely still datapoints uploaded to OpenStreetMap that are more timely and accurate than what government contractors provide. So I would not be surprised if there are still warfighters out there cross-checking with consumer mapping providers before ordering strikes.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      The general "what is over there" type questions are often more up-to-date in commercial outfits - but the military can order a satellite pass of an area that they're particularly interested in, if they need it. So in general the commercial stuff is better, but in the specifics the military stuff will come out on top, depending on what the mission is and how much anyone cares about it.
- relaxing 2y ago
  I want to know why Google hasn’t corrected their map overlays. The shift in the roads makes it frustrating to look at.
  - shikon7 2y ago
    Because Chinese law forbids to convert their coordinates to WGS84, and using the Chinese coordinates for satellite data would give a discontinuity at the border. This is explained in the article.
    - KTibow 2y ago
      If Google didn't mind breaking the law they could use the previously mentioned, public code to convert the coordinates to the standard format. Could be that it wouldn't be worth it to implement that though.
    - Reason077 2y ago
      Discontinuity at the border isn't a big issue compared to all locations in the country being wrong relative to the satellite view. If Google cared enough, I'm sure they could find a solution - since Google doesn't operate in China, they don't really have to respect Chinese laws. But Google doesn't operate in China so they don't care that much and are presumably happy to leave things the way they are. Also, keeping things the way they are keeps drawing attention to the issue, which is probably better than to try and cover it up.
      - petesergeant 2y ago
        > since Google doesn't operate in China, they don't really have to respect Chinese laws I suspect that in practice that’s not true; there are a lot of ways China could make life difficult for a big international tech company, from looking the other way regarding IP theft to arresting people associated with Google on spying charges when they’re there on personal trips
        rob74 2y ago
- rurounijones 2y ago
  > is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? I don't think so but it would be an embarrassment for the government to admit it no longer serves a use and such an action would be anathema to them.
  - Propelloni 2y ago
    Why would it be an embarrassment to say something has outlived its usefulness?
    - t-3 2y ago
      Changing it could mean they made the wrong decision in the first place, which could make Important People lose face by possibly being at fault. Of course, they could try to present things in a different way, but potentially inviting criticism by rectifying mistakes isn't going to be looked upon warmly unless the people involved are all dead or out of favor.
      - anonymoose33282 2y ago
        It's also not exclusive to China/authoritarian countries. Plenty of European countries have de-facto decriminalized cannabis by rarely enforcing laws on possession (I'm reminded of how often I saw people openly smoking weed on the street in Berlin years ago), yet politicians don't want to be the one to stick their neck out and say that the war on drugs failed or cosign the use of a particular substance -- even if their electorate largely would agree with them.
    - rurounijones 2y ago
      It would be an embarrassment if the reason it outlived its usefulness is because it got it got circumvented by hostile actors.
- bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
  Can anyone point me to an open source implementation converting GJC-02 to WGS-84? The next time I debate with my Chinese peers on why this obfuscation is stupid, I need a reference. And to answer your question, it's because anyone proposing to break away from the current model will be accused of being a Western agent.
  - jmprspret 2y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072
    - bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
      So it is https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform
    - jmprspret 2y ago
      Sorry, I meant to link here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072#40244714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072#40244714
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  > is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? Probably just China suffering from the same problem most of the world has, boomers that don't really understand technology running the government. > Is it just because of inertia that GJC-02 still exists? That could also be part of the problem, the 14 companies that currently provide all mapping services in China, and everyone who uses their services, would have to convert to WGS-84. No doubt those companies will do everything they can to keep the law as it is.
  - nicolas_t 2y ago
    > boomers that don't really understand technology running the government. Back when the decision was made, most of the people running the government had studied engineering. A very common pattern in all industries in China are laws that ultimately lead to protectionism by forcing foreign companies to only work with local partners. This is exactly the consequence of this law. I'd be very surprised if that was not intended by law makers from the get go.
- luma 2y ago
  > is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? Standard issue Chinese protectionism, they do this with basically every industry. Create a problem and then only allow CCP-approved organizations to solve it.
- andy_ppp 2y ago
  I think it’s always the problem with a closed system, there’s no way for some better decision making to happen. The very idea that obfuscation of maps will help China be more secure or competitive is absolutely absurd.
- barrkel 2y ago
  It creates a legal fig leaf for the usual Chinese protectionism.
willtemperley 2y ago
The workaround might be to attach the GPS device to your dog's collar, as was done in Cuba by OpenStreetMappers
- usrusr 2y ago
  Doesn't say much about legality on paper, not even about how much of an invitation to selective enforcement it is, but looking at the Strava global heatmap through the lense of political systems is quite interesting: quite a bit of tracking in continental China, Cuba has more than Haiti. North Korea is a near-perfect blank, you can easily tell which islands belong to the south. The one spot where some tracking was registered is the ski resort they built in 2014 (apparently with a pre-used gondola system that i rode on when it was still in Ischgl). According to german wikipedia, a central excuse for building a ski resort was trying to attract tourists from China?
bschne 2y ago
I love humans and the internet :)
N19PEDL2 2y ago
It seems that even taking geotagged photos is illegal in China, indeed some camera models automatically disable geotagging when inside China: https://ogleearth.com/2012/05/why-do-panasonic-leica-fujifilm-samsung-and-nikon-censor-their-gps-cameras/ https://ogleearth.com/2012/05/why-do-panasonic-leica-fujifil...
- hwbunny 2y ago
  Never had any issues. Noone cared about my camera while I was there. And I created like 5K photos there. Not that I ever use GPS, because it eats away your batter, but noone really cared about it.
  - nirui 2y ago
    If my memory is still correct, in China camera products must have their GPS module removed/disabled before they're licensed for sale. Since these products looked the same from the outside, and are commonly used by everyone who wants to, nobody will bother to check every single one. Unless of course, if the camera gets too close to (say) a military/civil defense installation (often includes their office buildings), their security will probably do a check or just ask people to leave. They usually setup a sign near by to indicate "No trespassing" and maybe "No photographing" etc, just don't bring the camera over the line (I mean, better stay out completely if it says "No trespassing").
    - ammo1662 2y ago
      Most of the cameras do not have GPS module. And for some cameras like Canon 5D Mark IV [1], or 6D Mark II [2], they do have GPS even for Chinese market. However, for the Camera which have GPS module, you will need additional filing to license your product. So some of the companies just hide the feature. Clearly it is not "must have GPS removed". [1] https://www.canon.com.cn/product/5dmk4/spec.html https://www.canon.com.cn/product/5dmk4/spec.html [2] https://www.canon.com.cn/product/6dmk2/spec.html https://www.canon.com.cn/product/6dmk2/spec.html
      - 2y ago

by lolc 2y ago

Reason077 2y ago

Indeed, despite its apparent illegality, China seems to be fairly well-supported and well-mapped by OpenStreetMap, at least in major cities. And is entirely mapped in normal WGS-84 without the obfuscation problem. In any case, according to Wikipedia, open-source code is available to convert between WGS-84 and the obfuscated GJC-02 coordinates. Since technology seems to have caught up with it, is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? Much like the US gave up on GPS "selective availability" years ago, there would seem now days to be more economic advantage to ditching obfuscation than there is security advantage of keeping it. Is not as if the missiles of China's enemies are going to get confused by China's obfuscated coordinates. Is it just because of inertia that GJC-02 still exists?

toss1 2y ago
Great point. This seems like low-intelligence autocratic bullshirt more than anything. Does the CCP really think that the US military are going to use ordinary street msps to target their missiles and that this obfuscation will protect them from on-target hits? Sure, in WWII there were a few apocryphal instances of bad maps foiling an attack, but that was decades before mapping satellites. As mentioned, it's been a long time since the US stopped limiting GPS resolution. This just makes CCP seem backward.
- SllX 2y ago
  Not going to defend it, but I’ve always read it as an attempted countermeasure to unsophisticated espionage or domestic terrorism rather than an addition to their missile defense system. It’s not good enough to obfuscate targets when you can literally see and guide missiles from above their airspace, but it might trip up people operating on the street on their own or in small cells. America isn’t the PRC’s only adversary, and authoritarian dictatorships thrive only so far as they can control information and the movements of their subjects.
  - wbl 2y ago
    On the street relative addresses and way markers are enough. Think about the pre smartphone direction days.
    - SllX 2y ago
      Yeah. Like I said, not defending it, but it seems more plausible than trying to trip up foreign missile targeting by making Google Maps worse.
- vbezhenar 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_C... US allegedly used old map with wrong coordinates. Probably China knows well about US military tactics.
- nikisweeting 2y ago
  It's really not about missle/drone defense at all. It's just an economic policy to help local mapping tech get good without international competition, and to control access to information by channeling it through domestic state-controlled enterprises.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- somat 2y ago
  There is the cautionary tale of the US invasion of Grenada. Where because no military maps of the country could be found in time. tourist maps with a military grid penned on were distributed to the troops. While we hope our much vaunted modern systems make this impossible, the reality is, that any large scale operation is a series of fuck ups while people figure out how to make it work. https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2018/10/25/how-the-invasion-of-grenada-was-planned-with-a-tourist-map-and-a-copy-of-the-economist/ https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2018...
- asoneth 2y ago
  > Does the CCP really think that the US military are going to use ordinary street msps to target their missiles and that this obfuscation will protect them from on-target hits? In some cases using consumer-level street maps could make for more accurate targeting. Many years ago I worked on command & control systems for a US military contractor. The mapping imagery our software used from military mapping providers were high resolution but often more out-of-date than commercial offerings. One example a warfighter showed me stuck with me because it was particularly embarrassing and egregious -- military imagery showed an area with a handful of shacks in the middle of the desert but Google's satellite imagery showed that it had become a sprawling town. Because of issues like that, army warfighters were forced to regularly cross-check with Google and/or Yahoo! maps when planning operations. It is no longer an area I work in and I would expect that military imagery is now more up-to-date, but there are likely still datapoints uploaded to OpenStreetMap that are more timely and accurate than what government contractors provide. So I would not be surprised if there are still warfighters out there cross-checking with consumer mapping providers before ordering strikes.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    The general "what is over there" type questions are often more up-to-date in commercial outfits - but the military can order a satellite pass of an area that they're particularly interested in, if they need it. So in general the commercial stuff is better, but in the specifics the military stuff will come out on top, depending on what the mission is and how much anyone cares about it.
relaxing 2y ago
I want to know why Google hasn’t corrected their map overlays. The shift in the roads makes it frustrating to look at.
- shikon7 2y ago
  Because Chinese law forbids to convert their coordinates to WGS84, and using the Chinese coordinates for satellite data would give a discontinuity at the border. This is explained in the article.
  - KTibow 2y ago
    If Google didn't mind breaking the law they could use the previously mentioned, public code to convert the coordinates to the standard format. Could be that it wouldn't be worth it to implement that though.
  - Reason077 2y ago
    Discontinuity at the border isn't a big issue compared to all locations in the country being wrong relative to the satellite view. If Google cared enough, I'm sure they could find a solution - since Google doesn't operate in China, they don't really have to respect Chinese laws. But Google doesn't operate in China so they don't care that much and are presumably happy to leave things the way they are. Also, keeping things the way they are keeps drawing attention to the issue, which is probably better than to try and cover it up.
    - petesergeant 2y ago
      > since Google doesn't operate in China, they don't really have to respect Chinese laws I suspect that in practice that’s not true; there are a lot of ways China could make life difficult for a big international tech company, from looking the other way regarding IP theft to arresting people associated with Google on spying charges when they’re there on personal trips
      - rob74 2y ago
rurounijones 2y ago
> is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? I don't think so but it would be an embarrassment for the government to admit it no longer serves a use and such an action would be anathema to them.
- Propelloni 2y ago
  Why would it be an embarrassment to say something has outlived its usefulness?
  - t-3 2y ago
    Changing it could mean they made the wrong decision in the first place, which could make Important People lose face by possibly being at fault. Of course, they could try to present things in a different way, but potentially inviting criticism by rectifying mistakes isn't going to be looked upon warmly unless the people involved are all dead or out of favor.
    - anonymoose33282 2y ago
      It's also not exclusive to China/authoritarian countries. Plenty of European countries have de-facto decriminalized cannabis by rarely enforcing laws on possession (I'm reminded of how often I saw people openly smoking weed on the street in Berlin years ago), yet politicians don't want to be the one to stick their neck out and say that the war on drugs failed or cosign the use of a particular substance -- even if their electorate largely would agree with them.
  - rurounijones 2y ago
    It would be an embarrassment if the reason it outlived its usefulness is because it got it got circumvented by hostile actors.
bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
Can anyone point me to an open source implementation converting GJC-02 to WGS-84? The next time I debate with my Chinese peers on why this obfuscation is stupid, I need a reference. And to answer your question, it's because anyone proposing to break away from the current model will be accused of being a Western agent.
- jmprspret 2y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072
  - bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
    So it is https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform https://github.com/googollee/eviltransform
  - jmprspret 2y ago
    Sorry, I meant to link here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072#40244714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40220072#40244714
RobotToaster 2y ago
> is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? Probably just China suffering from the same problem most of the world has, boomers that don't really understand technology running the government. > Is it just because of inertia that GJC-02 still exists? That could also be part of the problem, the 14 companies that currently provide all mapping services in China, and everyone who uses their services, would have to convert to WGS-84. No doubt those companies will do everything they can to keep the law as it is.
- nicolas_t 2y ago
  > boomers that don't really understand technology running the government. Back when the decision was made, most of the people running the government had studied engineering. A very common pattern in all industries in China are laws that ultimately lead to protectionism by forcing foreign companies to only work with local partners. This is exactly the consequence of this law. I'd be very surprised if that was not intended by law makers from the get go.
luma 2y ago
> is there any advantage (military or otherwise) for China to persist with obfuscation? Standard issue Chinese protectionism, they do this with basically every industry. Create a problem and then only allow CCP-approved organizations to solve it.
andy_ppp 2y ago
I think it’s always the problem with a closed system, there’s no way for some better decision making to happen. The very idea that obfuscation of maps will help China be more secure or competitive is absolutely absurd.
barrkel 2y ago
It creates a legal fig leaf for the usual Chinese protectionism.

willtemperley 2y ago

The workaround might be to attach the GPS device to your dog's collar, as was done in Cuba by OpenStreetMappers

usrusr 2y ago
Doesn't say much about legality on paper, not even about how much of an invitation to selective enforcement it is, but looking at the Strava global heatmap through the lense of political systems is quite interesting: quite a bit of tracking in continental China, Cuba has more than Haiti. North Korea is a near-perfect blank, you can easily tell which islands belong to the south. The one spot where some tracking was registered is the ski resort they built in 2014 (apparently with a pre-used gondola system that i rode on when it was still in Ischgl). According to german wikipedia, a central excuse for building a ski resort was trying to attract tourists from China?

bschne 2y ago

I love humans and the internet :)

N19PEDL2 2y ago

It seems that even taking geotagged photos is illegal in China, indeed some camera models automatically disable geotagging when inside China: https://ogleearth.com/2012/05/why-do-panasonic-leica-fujifilm-samsung-and-nikon-censor-their-gps-cameras/ https://ogleearth.com/2012/05/why-do-panasonic-leica-fujifil...

hwbunny 2y ago
Never had any issues. Noone cared about my camera while I was there. And I created like 5K photos there. Not that I ever use GPS, because it eats away your batter, but noone really cared about it.
- nirui 2y ago
  If my memory is still correct, in China camera products must have their GPS module removed/disabled before they're licensed for sale. Since these products looked the same from the outside, and are commonly used by everyone who wants to, nobody will bother to check every single one. Unless of course, if the camera gets too close to (say) a military/civil defense installation (often includes their office buildings), their security will probably do a check or just ask people to leave. They usually setup a sign near by to indicate "No trespassing" and maybe "No photographing" etc, just don't bring the camera over the line (I mean, better stay out completely if it says "No trespassing").
  - ammo1662 2y ago
    Most of the cameras do not have GPS module. And for some cameras like Canon 5D Mark IV [1], or 6D Mark II [2], they do have GPS even for Chinese market. However, for the Camera which have GPS module, you will need additional filing to license your product. So some of the companies just hide the feature. Clearly it is not "must have GPS removed". [1] https://www.canon.com.cn/product/5dmk4/spec.html https://www.canon.com.cn/product/5dmk4/spec.html [2] https://www.canon.com.cn/product/6dmk2/spec.html https://www.canon.com.cn/product/6dmk2/spec.html
    - 2y ago