I stopped scanning pokestops because the effort has outweighed the rewards. A lot of the time, the requests show up as "research tasks" for a point of interest that I quickly passed by and have no interest in returning to, besides the tasks related to taking pictures of your buddy pokemon in augmented reality. Looks like I made the right choice by stopping. They do indicate to you up front that they will use the data, but it's still kind of terrible that you could be indirectly contributing to war efforts. I always assumed the data would be used for large world model training or simulations.
> I always assumed the data would be used for large world model training or simulations.
That was the initial objective, improving navigation by having people walk slowly on pedestrian accessible locations instead of only the main roads. But once that data is collated, it could go anywhere and you've signed any rights to what happens with it away when you agreed to the Ts & Cs.
My 8 year old LOVES Pokemon Go, and we regularly go to a local meet up which is a fascinating microcosm of people of all ages from all walks of life. We’ve met some great people and had some incredible conversations, but I really struggle to see how we can continue in good faith now.
I seriously loath, hate & despise everything about this digital panopticon world being constructed around us.
This shouldn't be a surprise. But at this point it feels like if you don't completely avoid participating in digital society, your data will be used against you or groups/countries you support.
Sadly non technical people do not see future risk and any warning prediction is a slippery slope fallacy. Yet we now hear the echo of privacy advocates of the 2000s and 2010s saying "I told you so!"
I don’t think the standing committee is objectively that perceptive
But I do appreciate alot about what they are doing and choose to do
Reminds me more of a theme park. Yes, a heavy handed corporation runs it and if you have any dissent it won’t go well, but if you don’t choose to focus on that then it will be a joyous place and you have the opportunity to contribute to that energy and be rewarded by something that simulates a free market
This is revolting. Given how many kids played and are still playing the game this literally means weaponizing kids playing games. Humanity has been lost somewhere along the way.
I still feel like this is a perfect example of why we should be asking for our data to be disclosed to the public. If I take a picture of some public point of interest, they end up tagging it with their metadata and selling it, well, that's what I agreed to by not reading 20 pages of T&C's right?
But the value in that data is in the liveliness right, so at some point, would it not make sense for that data to be considered a public asset?
Why do we not demand this data be released regularly (given that the inverse tech could be developed using this as well)? If it can be used to train things used for war, could it not equally be used to train better lifesaving tech (in which case, the data should be made available to the public)?
It's quite obvious that data is what pays the game. A lot of data about the players )daily routine, commute to work/school, social circles to other players, etc. which allows to derive Job, wealth, etc.), data about surroundings (where do people actually walk, drive, ... etc.)
The story here however I'm not too sure about: Isn't the game mostly played in dense urban areas? - by the time you need military drones there the area will have changed a lot (destruction, fortification, ... and overall be outdated) where I think the civilian drones (delivery, cars, ....) benefit more. While the technology certainly is dual use.
It's dual, but its positive aspects are only unlocked after a sufficient human blood sacrifice is made by its overlords, as is the case with all dual use tech.
You can ask for whatever you like - nobody's listening.
There is no 'we'. 99%+ of people view the world as a zero sum game where for me to win, somebody has to lose and if I don't do whatever it takes, somebody else will and then I lose, therefore I have no morals or principles or virtues and anyone who does is a liar or a fool.
Everything is a bad faith act, everyone is a selfish bad faith actor and I shouldn't feel bad about being one because everyone else who isn't a fool is too.
This tragically wrong but intuitively correct worldview and much more was explained by Plato long, long ago and just about no one understood any of it. At least the text survived and people with 140+ IQ and an iota of decency can read it and be at peace knowing they're not crazy or foolish.
An interesting thing is that in Russia, this military data grab by ostensibly 'our western would-be enemies" was supported by viral advertisement by nobody else but the head of Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
A story was manufactured about arresting a 22 y.o. guy in the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints for playing Pokemon Go.
The story went hyper-hyped for weeks, with general public sentiment that once such an obscurant retrograde declares such an innocent game so evil, it must be something to absolutely install and play in spite!
And such was the way of the Pokemon Go's viral success in Russia.
Interesting: the Russians are calling "our partners", "our would-be enemies" now. They're not even pretending anymore. Given that this steady parade of seemingly-planted and promoted derogatory anti-Western stories that has been happening for years originates from You Know Where, it's a revelation that the Russian establishment and secret services are not even pretending anymore.
It should also be pointed out that Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church have been understood to have been cat's paws for Russia's notorious KGB successor agencies for a very long time now.
Sure, I don't expect Kirill himself to come up with that, but he was positively used as a notorious talking head, which whatever it says must be understood to the contrary.
Like in that case when he blamed the rise of toll roads in Russia - "oh brothers and sisters, shalt we allow taking the toll on what should forever be free in Russia?" - the public reacted in the exact same way - a religious zealot told this, so it must actually be a progressive, sane thing to do the opposite.
Where are all the edgelords sending me cuckoo signs and tagging me as conspiracy theorist when I said that it compiles photogrammetry by placing pokemons at areas and angles with low image coverage?
Ah, oh yes, "we all knew it from the start", "they indicated that up front" etc.
Fuck no, everyone was foaming at the mouth how it's just a game and no way in hell an intelligence operation.
P.S. Those who "knew it from the start" yet continued helping Niantic, did you really think that the data will be used for the greater good of the humankind?
> it compiles photogrammetry by placing pokemons at areas and angles with low image coverage
But that's not what happened. The data came from very explicit scanning tasks centered about pokestops, not the AR pokemon capture. I used it once or twice to test it out, and it was a drawn out process where it asks you to slowly orbit the pokestop while filming, then permission to upload the (huge) files. You even had to activate a special "volunteer" account flag to even see these tasks.
From TFA:
> Since 2021, Pokémon Go has asked players to record short videos of real-world locations, called Pokéstops, to earn extra in-game items. Scanning all the buildings, streets, and trees in a 360-degree sweep was optional, and Niantic asked separately for permission to keep the footage. Granting it meant agreeing to extra terms.
I'm sure they used GPS data from the players too, but I still hold that it's unlikely the AR pokemon capture yielded any data to them.
Well if such a conspiracy crackhead like me somehow happened to reach ranks of Niantic team, I'd totally make sure that there is a decoy "huge data upload point with explicit consent" to shift focus from covert data channels that slowly transmit all else using some custom image compression, maybe just some very small fraction of original data that by the mass nature of acquisition would mathematically still reconstruct the original data, or the fraction of that data that is enough to build a world model.
Videos are inherently large. There are better compression algorithms than what phone cameras generate by default, but video reencoding is slow, and the results still too large for "covert data channels".
Normal players would have noticed the bandwidth and CPU usage, and volunteers have already agreed to data sharing, so there's no point in keeping secrets. Same as claims that the Facebook app listens to people talk: someone would have caught it by now.
Also, AR capture was never very popular, mostly a gimmick for new players. The game was already a battery and power hog even without it.
Why videos though? Photogrammetry is about still images. You don't need ALL angles of a target from a single user. Other users pile the needed data up, guided by their own pokemon locations.
And here I am, trying to make our product as privacy friendly as possible. Trying to follow GDPR and the AI act. Trying to respect my users..
And then there are those guys... and they make billions, by giving a flying f*ck about ethics or what so ever. And NO ONE will hold them accountable. NO ONE! Because either they lack the power, or they are bought and in it on the scheme.
I accept that the world is like that. Just like International Law has always been nothing more than an academic exercise, business doesnt care about anyone besides profit. Its fine. Its just sad also...
It's easier to take a look via change of dates in google street view, they have almost 20 years coverage. You can see how the data ages and decays or doesn't because it's tied to the place it represents.
Shops come and go, churches do not move, schools tend not to move much, industry areas is somewhat dynamic, military installations might be static or dynamic, trees grow or are removed.
It's the combination of geographical data (maps) linked to its visual representation in the world (footage of structures, roads, landscape features) that is useful.
The geographical data already exists in digital maps. And I would expect competent militaries already have maps of enemy territory. It's the second part that was so far missing.
This combined set allows the training of AI models that can say, "When my surroundings look like x, that looks like y on a map".
So when your drone's GPS gets jammed, it can look at its surroundings, reference its (internal and offline) maps, figure out where it is, and navigate.
There are so many companies these days doing recording for self driving cars and/or street view like applications. Also sites like Flickr collect huge sets of geo tagged photos, as do companies like Meta where tons of geo tagged images are shared each day via their different outlets.
Niantic has the benefit that they can steer "volunteers" to specific points, though.
Truly dystopian. The Pokémon Company should share the blame for licensing their brand in this way without proper safeguards to prevent the data being used for this, particularly given the background of the Niantic founders
Can you imagine scanning your house, your school, your playground, thinking you're catching Pikachu, then have a drone hit it based on your own footage? Pretty terrifying.
To an extent, but realistically it wasn't really reasonable to expect a cutesy Pokemon game to be used for this ten years later. If you had told the average Pokemon Go player this ten years ago you would have been called crazy. The Pokemon Company should have done more to protect their brand (I would hope for regulation too on player-generated real world data like this)
Niantic is what happens when a boardroom is somehow more evil than the ridiculous caricatures we sometimes see in Hollywood. “Alright gentlemen: we need to make a lot of money quickly harvesting every drop of data from kids and adults alike en masse using something they all love that is family-friendly. We are selling it to the military of course, because they’ll pay us tons of money for it. Who’s in?”
You should assume any camera recording will turn into a model one way or another, if not for gnss denied navigation, it will be on facial recognition or such.
AFAIR, there is a chain of companies which connects Niantic to govt agencies, they were selling this data to Uncle Sam from the beginning(even before Pokemon GO)
This article is based on reporting from Trouw: https://www.trouw.nl/redactie/PokemonGo/
I was interviewed for the Trouw piece and briefly quoted. This isn't to detract from the DroneXL piece, which adds its own angle.
I stopped scanning pokestops because the effort has outweighed the rewards. A lot of the time, the requests show up as "research tasks" for a point of interest that I quickly passed by and have no interest in returning to, besides the tasks related to taking pictures of your buddy pokemon in augmented reality. Looks like I made the right choice by stopping. They do indicate to you up front that they will use the data, but it's still kind of terrible that you could be indirectly contributing to war efforts. I always assumed the data would be used for large world model training or simulations.
> I always assumed the data would be used for large world model training or simulations.
That was the initial objective, improving navigation by having people walk slowly on pedestrian accessible locations instead of only the main roads. But once that data is collated, it could go anywhere and you've signed any rights to what happens with it away when you agreed to the Ts & Cs.
I believe some of the data was added to their scaniverse app.
I guess this also explains how they were paying for the free 3d model photogrammetry processing that app does.
That's what makes this feel so off
My 8 year old LOVES Pokemon Go, and we regularly go to a local meet up which is a fascinating microcosm of people of all ages from all walks of life. We’ve met some great people and had some incredible conversations, but I really struggle to see how we can continue in good faith now.
I seriously loath, hate & despise everything about this digital panopticon world being constructed around us.
This shouldn't be a surprise. But at this point it feels like if you don't completely avoid participating in digital society, your data will be used against you or groups/countries you support.
Mainly if you allow a government and / or corporations to do so, but unfortunately democracy and the like only gives you so much influence on that.
Sadly non technical people do not see future risk and any warning prediction is a slippery slope fallacy. Yet we now hear the echo of privacy advocates of the 2000s and 2010s saying "I told you so!"
https://archive.is/0WxtP
i remerber china bans it many years ago... and many people dont understand why.... never trust a USA product!
and we even have youtube videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiJOHV9rIxU
I don’t think the standing committee is objectively that perceptive
But I do appreciate alot about what they are doing and choose to do
Reminds me more of a theme park. Yes, a heavy handed corporation runs it and if you have any dissent it won’t go well, but if you don’t choose to focus on that then it will be a joyous place and you have the opportunity to contribute to that energy and be rewarded by something that simulates a free market
The world is so messed up right now that this is not even the least bit surprising. In fact it's on point.
This is revolting. Given how many kids played and are still playing the game this literally means weaponizing kids playing games. Humanity has been lost somewhere along the way.
Pokémon being used for war efforts is prime South Park material, too bad they already did that.
A game aimed at children supporting military intelligence is prime cyberpunk material. No doubt fiction beat us to that as well.
I still feel like this is a perfect example of why we should be asking for our data to be disclosed to the public. If I take a picture of some public point of interest, they end up tagging it with their metadata and selling it, well, that's what I agreed to by not reading 20 pages of T&C's right?
But the value in that data is in the liveliness right, so at some point, would it not make sense for that data to be considered a public asset?
Why do we not demand this data be released regularly (given that the inverse tech could be developed using this as well)? If it can be used to train things used for war, could it not equally be used to train better lifesaving tech (in which case, the data should be made available to the public)?
It's quite obvious that data is what pays the game. A lot of data about the players )daily routine, commute to work/school, social circles to other players, etc. which allows to derive Job, wealth, etc.), data about surroundings (where do people actually walk, drive, ... etc.)
The story here however I'm not too sure about: Isn't the game mostly played in dense urban areas? - by the time you need military drones there the area will have changed a lot (destruction, fortification, ... and overall be outdated) where I think the civilian drones (delivery, cars, ....) benefit more. While the technology certainly is dual use.
> While the technology certainly is dual use.
It's dual, but its positive aspects are only unlocked after a sufficient human blood sacrifice is made by its overlords, as is the case with all dual use tech.
You can ask for whatever you like - nobody's listening.
There is no 'we'. 99%+ of people view the world as a zero sum game where for me to win, somebody has to lose and if I don't do whatever it takes, somebody else will and then I lose, therefore I have no morals or principles or virtues and anyone who does is a liar or a fool.
Everything is a bad faith act, everyone is a selfish bad faith actor and I shouldn't feel bad about being one because everyone else who isn't a fool is too.
This tragically wrong but intuitively correct worldview and much more was explained by Plato long, long ago and just about no one understood any of it. At least the text survived and people with 140+ IQ and an iota of decency can read it and be at peace knowing they're not crazy or foolish.
An interesting thing is that in Russia, this military data grab by ostensibly 'our western would-be enemies" was supported by viral advertisement by nobody else but the head of Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
A story was manufactured about arresting a 22 y.o. guy in the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints for playing Pokemon Go.
The story went hyper-hyped for weeks, with general public sentiment that once such an obscurant retrograde declares such an innocent game so evil, it must be something to absolutely install and play in spite!
And such was the way of the Pokemon Go's viral success in Russia.
(edits for factual precision)
Interesting: the Russians are calling "our partners", "our would-be enemies" now. They're not even pretending anymore. Given that this steady parade of seemingly-planted and promoted derogatory anti-Western stories that has been happening for years originates from You Know Where, it's a revelation that the Russian establishment and secret services are not even pretending anymore.
It should also be pointed out that Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church have been understood to have been cat's paws for Russia's notorious KGB successor agencies for a very long time now.
Apparently that story was manufactured and promoted by someone else, don't you think?
Sure, I don't expect Kirill himself to come up with that, but he was positively used as a notorious talking head, which whatever it says must be understood to the contrary.
Like in that case when he blamed the rise of toll roads in Russia - "oh brothers and sisters, shalt we allow taking the toll on what should forever be free in Russia?" - the public reacted in the exact same way - a religious zealot told this, so it must actually be a progressive, sane thing to do the opposite.
Streisand effect marketing 4d chess move by Niantic?
I'd say a common sense "cui prodest" inquiry leads to a much simpler answer, but to each his own.
I'd like to know that much simpler answer.
Where are all the edgelords sending me cuckoo signs and tagging me as conspiracy theorist when I said that it compiles photogrammetry by placing pokemons at areas and angles with low image coverage?
Ah, oh yes, "we all knew it from the start", "they indicated that up front" etc.
Fuck no, everyone was foaming at the mouth how it's just a game and no way in hell an intelligence operation.
P.S. Those who "knew it from the start" yet continued helping Niantic, did you really think that the data will be used for the greater good of the humankind?
> it compiles photogrammetry by placing pokemons at areas and angles with low image coverage
But that's not what happened. The data came from very explicit scanning tasks centered about pokestops, not the AR pokemon capture. I used it once or twice to test it out, and it was a drawn out process where it asks you to slowly orbit the pokestop while filming, then permission to upload the (huge) files. You even had to activate a special "volunteer" account flag to even see these tasks.
From TFA:
> Since 2021, Pokémon Go has asked players to record short videos of real-world locations, called Pokéstops, to earn extra in-game items. Scanning all the buildings, streets, and trees in a 360-degree sweep was optional, and Niantic asked separately for permission to keep the footage. Granting it meant agreeing to extra terms.
I'm sure they used GPS data from the players too, but I still hold that it's unlikely the AR pokemon capture yielded any data to them.
Well if such a conspiracy crackhead like me somehow happened to reach ranks of Niantic team, I'd totally make sure that there is a decoy "huge data upload point with explicit consent" to shift focus from covert data channels that slowly transmit all else using some custom image compression, maybe just some very small fraction of original data that by the mass nature of acquisition would mathematically still reconstruct the original data, or the fraction of that data that is enough to build a world model.
Videos are inherently large. There are better compression algorithms than what phone cameras generate by default, but video reencoding is slow, and the results still too large for "covert data channels".
Normal players would have noticed the bandwidth and CPU usage, and volunteers have already agreed to data sharing, so there's no point in keeping secrets. Same as claims that the Facebook app listens to people talk: someone would have caught it by now.
Also, AR capture was never very popular, mostly a gimmick for new players. The game was already a battery and power hog even without it.
Why videos though? Photogrammetry is about still images. You don't need ALL angles of a target from a single user. Other users pile the needed data up, guided by their own pokemon locations.
and photogrammetry from crowd-sourced disparate still images was the biggest, flashiest "public" display of the technology: https://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_how_photosyn...
Good point, maybe that could be done. But that's not what TFA is about, so you're not vindicated yet.
I'm glad I always quickly scanned the dirt. At some point I gave up completely when I heard they started banning people for dirt scans.
In the latest season they've gotten rid of the scan rewards, so I guess they got all the data they needed.
And here I am, trying to make our product as privacy friendly as possible. Trying to follow GDPR and the AI act. Trying to respect my users..
And then there are those guys... and they make billions, by giving a flying f*ck about ethics or what so ever. And NO ONE will hold them accountable. NO ONE! Because either they lack the power, or they are bought and in it on the scheme.
I accept that the world is like that. Just like International Law has always been nothing more than an academic exercise, business doesnt care about anyone besides profit. Its fine. Its just sad also...
How useful is spatial data over time, does it decay or age much?
Is the geographical data more useful, or are buildings and other structures more important?
Genuinely don't know much in this space.
It's easier to take a look via change of dates in google street view, they have almost 20 years coverage. You can see how the data ages and decays or doesn't because it's tied to the place it represents.
Shops come and go, churches do not move, schools tend not to move much, industry areas is somewhat dynamic, military installations might be static or dynamic, trees grow or are removed.
It's the combination of geographical data (maps) linked to its visual representation in the world (footage of structures, roads, landscape features) that is useful.
The geographical data already exists in digital maps. And I would expect competent militaries already have maps of enemy territory. It's the second part that was so far missing.
This combined set allows the training of AI models that can say, "When my surroundings look like x, that looks like y on a map".
So when your drone's GPS gets jammed, it can look at its surroundings, reference its (internal and offline) maps, figure out where it is, and navigate.
Compred to what? Datasets at this scale are rare. You're not comparing against another ideal dataset, you're comparing against having nothing.
There are so many companies these days doing recording for self driving cars and/or street view like applications. Also sites like Flickr collect huge sets of geo tagged photos, as do companies like Meta where tons of geo tagged images are shared each day via their different outlets.
Niantic has the benefit that they can steer "volunteers" to specific points, though.
Once the data has trained a model, it also becomes almost impossible to meaningfully audit or undo
August 2016: Iran Becomes First Country to Ban Pokémon GO
https://www.avclub.com/iran-becomes-first-country-to-ban-pok...
Really smart decision, in hindsight.
This is all for your security! Right? Right…?
It is even worse, tax money is used for the military.
I know it's sarcasm, it's a valid point. We all already contribute to the war efforts of our governments.
Truly dystopian. The Pokémon Company should share the blame for licensing their brand in this way without proper safeguards to prevent the data being used for this, particularly given the background of the Niantic founders
Can you imagine scanning your house, your school, your playground, thinking you're catching Pikachu, then have a drone hit it based on your own footage? Pretty terrifying.
Maybe Nintendo lawyers could show their skin for a good cause at once.
Do you really think Niantic didn't make sure their actual partners didn't agree to their business model?
If there is enough retaliation that Ninendo is connected for using kids to build war machines, I am sure things can change.
Indeed, but should we always assume data of any type we generate for services can be used for malicious means?
To an extent, but realistically it wasn't really reasonable to expect a cutesy Pokemon game to be used for this ten years later. If you had told the average Pokemon Go player this ten years ago you would have been called crazy. The Pokemon Company should have done more to protect their brand (I would hope for regulation too on player-generated real world data like this)
I think this is where brand licensing gets more complicated than it usually appears
Niantic is what happens when a boardroom is somehow more evil than the ridiculous caricatures we sometimes see in Hollywood. “Alright gentlemen: we need to make a lot of money quickly harvesting every drop of data from kids and adults alike en masse using something they all love that is family-friendly. We are selling it to the military of course, because they’ll pay us tons of money for it. Who’s in?”
You should assume any camera recording will turn into a model one way or another, if not for gnss denied navigation, it will be on facial recognition or such.
Niantics founder has CIA roots... None of this is surprising.
https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/302386307352562
AFAIR, there is a chain of companies which connects Niantic to govt agencies, they were selling this data to Uncle Sam from the beginning(even before Pokemon GO)
> Niantics founder has CIA roots
This is not at all an honest way of saying "Niantics founder raised money from In-Q-Tel"
Being founded with funding from the CIA's venture capital arm seems tantamount to "CIA roots"
Watch Dogs: Legion
everything sucks :(
surprised pikachu face
Just wonderful.
upon seeing the title i was only wondering - whose drones.
Hate to say I called this years ago....
It is a shameful use of tech.
Insane.
People literally traded military intelligence for Pokémon.
In 2016 this wasn’t obviously happening/common knowledge. Remember to blame the perpetrators, not the victims.