STRAVA - Media Idiocy around Heatmap

OK. I’m just about to fall in the trap of calling lots of other people ‘idiots’ and then go and do precisely the same thing myself. The story goes that the likes of STRAVA (and others) who have HEATMAPs of user activity as part of their online sports data platforms, are responsible for showing the locations of (well-known) military bases all over the world. Or, more specifically, they show the places where many military personnel (and others) exercise whilst on these bases. Then I tried to find the Russian military base near Sokhumi. I expected a flash of golden, super-fit Russian soldier heat trails. I couldn’t even find the military base…on Google Maps or STRAVA. STRAVA’s CEO then issued a statement which included: We are committed to working with military and government officials to address potentially sensitive data. We are reviewing features that were originally designed for athlete motivation and inspiration to ensure they cannot be compromised by people with bad intent. We continue to increase awareness of our privacy and safety tools. That sounds like they aren’t going to do much about it. Call me a cynic. Summary Military and other personnel at military bases, out of naivety, kept their STRAVA profiles public. This is clearly NOT their fault. This anonymised data can be seen aggregated, visually as trails on a map. Especially by terrorists and enemy agents who had previously never even considered looking at the aforesaid military establishments…until now. This IS really sensitive data. Really sensitive. So just about every western media outlet has publicised it, hence jeopardising their own national and personal security all in the hope of a good story. Either that’s stupid. Or it isn’t a good story. Hint: It isn’t a good story. The Russians tentatively appear to have been much less guilty of the same irrelevant naivety. Summary: It’s clearly STRAVA’s fault because no-one took advantage of the pre-existing security features. Really? On the flip side, STRAVA have probably significantly increased their number of PREMIUM members over the last week. Essentially terrorists and journalists both signing up to view the heat maps. ← Back to the Strava Hub