from Hacker News

Kansas couple who live in a ‘digital hell’ sue mapping company MaxMind

by microsage on 9/23/16, 11:45 AM with 20 comments

  • by mxfh on 9/23/16, 1:41 PM

    This is a follow-up to an earlier article by the author; maybe you want to start reading up on this here:

    http://fusion.net/story/287592/internet-mapping-glitch-kansa...

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11466849

  • by cstross on 9/23/16, 12:50 PM

    This isn't an isolated problem; it comes up in other contexts as well. Consider the default zero-zero GPS coordinates (and use an app for plane or shipping tracking to look at it). It's about 200 miles off the coast of Africa and there are thousands of dodgy transponders identifying various vessels as being located there.

    And then there was this deplorable incident ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/653846/posts ) in which changing the batteries in a special forces' air controller's GPS receiver caused it to reset and display its current location rather than the previously dialled in coordinates of a target, resulting in a fatal friendly fire incident.

    Moral of story; if you're building a geolocation database or application of any kind it's a really good idea to ensure that the default values it returns in event of a reset or a query with inadequate input parameters points somewhere harmless or pointedly asks, "are you sure about that?"

  • by kiehlster on 9/23/16, 1:09 PM

    I still ask the question, why use default GPS coordinates? Even after moving the default to a nearby lake, there's still a large chance that police and investigators are going to prowl around the lake trying to find whoever's house lays claim to the center of the lake. Why not have defaults return invalid or perhaps a square box instead of a point? Moving the point around isn't going to fix the root of the problem.

  • by nullthanks on 9/23/16, 4:55 PM

    MaxMind does not say their IP info is good to even a city BLOCK level, much less an address. Law enforcement is using the data all wrong.

    I've used max mind 5 days a week for years and have never seen this effect.

    People watch too much CSI. That's not Maxminds fault.

    LEO should be contacting the ISP to get warrants for the customer/ip records. The ISP should know who had what IP when. And the ISP knows where that customer lives because of reasons.

    tl;dr - maxmind did nothing wrong, LEO watches too much CSI

  • by whamlastxmas on 9/23/16, 2:19 PM

    TLDR: MaxMind uses the coordinates of their home as the default view. Meaning when law enforcement enters an address but fails to actually submit it, it shows their home.

  • by FrancoDiaz on 9/23/16, 2:07 PM

    This went on for 5 years? I would have hired a lawyer after the first incident and been interrogating the cops on why this is going on.

  • by marmot777 on 9/23/16, 2:31 PM

    Yes, and I hope to god they win!