
How Canada's military reacted to seeing Pokemon Go players trespassing - planetjones
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/pokemon-canada-military-bases-1.5393774
======
andybak
Ex-Ingress player here (Pokemon Go precursor).

I could you tell some stories... There's several recorded deaths (the one I
can recall without looking it up involved drowning trying to reach a
lighthouse). Players play whilst driving regularly. Several local
disagreements almost progressed to physical fights.

There's a global network of data-scrapers on both teams that log all player
activity for strategic reasons. Or maybe "just because they can". That's
timestamped location data for every interaction with the game. (as far as I
know this isn't possible with Pokemon Go. Being aimed at kids it's much more
locked down and safe-guarding aware)

On the plus side - many healthy friendships were formed and even a couple of
long-term relationships. I still occasionally meet up with my old chums.

~~~
core-questions
Gotta tell you, this whole thing reads as seriously creepy. Who's to say that
intelligence orgs or other interested parties wouldn't create or piggyback on
things like this for a source of high granularity location data? Even just to
resell?

In the case of games where you use the camera, wouldn't someone maybe also
want to use (at least snapshots of) the video feed? Like, on the benign side
you could use it to update Google Street View, but on the more malicious side
it's easy to imagine putting some rare Pokemon down somewhere and baiting
someone off in order to get them to take pictures of specific things for you
without needing an agent on the ground to go and do it.

I can't imagine running a game like this on my hardware or allowing my kids to
do so. You've gotta be a bit naive to just assume it's completely innocent.

~~~
parliament32
>Who's to say that intelligence orgs or other interested parties wouldn't
create or piggyback on things like this for a source of high granularity
location data?

How is this sort of location data useful? Sure, my day to day walking around
is useful, but like parent said above, data is only recorded when you're
actively playing the game. So you'd get a bunch of location data of... people
going to the places the game wants them to go. You can't really do anything
with that.

~~~
jackpirate
It's pretty easy to do something with that info. Let's say there's a pokestop
on a military installation, then most visitors are likely to be military
personnel, and now we have a list of phones of military personnel. What's
more, we can learn which troops are deployed to which bases, and patterns
about how troops get redeployed to different bases.

How is this useful? Well, it's well known that Ft. Meade in the US is an NSA
outpost. If troops from Ft. Meade regularly get transferred to Camp Pendleton
(chosen arbitrarily), then we can infer that there's likely to be a lot of
SIGINT (electronic spying) activity at Camp Pendelton. For a smaller
installation (say a covert safe house abroad), these sorts of clues may be the
first signs that foreign intelligence agencies can use to detect that these
bases even exist.

~~~
bllguo
ok.. and if one weren't military personnel? The original comment seemed to be
raising some kind of unspecified fear about this in general, not just for a
small segment of the population who frankly should know better.

~~~
core-questions
Well, one could get unsuspecting users to take pictures around all kinds of
facilities and such. Consider too that if you have multiple databases of this
sort, you can draw a lot of inferences based on who is usually around whom.

~~~
mzz80
You still haven’t provided a reason why this is a bad thing. Ok, so there are
unsuspecting users taking photos of the local YMCA facilities. What you’re
talking about is similar to the social graph but on a much smaller scale. The
only reasonable use is for advertising. The world’s not going to end.

------
bonestamp2
The way the base in Halifax handled it is a perfect example for how these
types of things should be approached:

1\. Remove the threat (PokeStop) where it is a security risk.

2\. Harness the attention for organizational benefit where possible (Add
PokeStop to increase museum attendance)

Best of all, this approach stems from some good life/business advice from Rear
Admiral Newton, "Life and work are best accomplished if there is good fun,
health and friendship."

~~~
cpeterso
Are the PokeStop locations random? I would have expected to Niantic block
certain locations, like government property.

~~~
dx87
Some categories are blocked, like daycare and schools. They'll also prevent
anything from showing up, pokemon included, from areas that don't have
recognized roads or paths. There is a park near my house that has a paved path
through the woods that doesn't show up in the pokemon go app, so nothing
appears there because the game doesn't want to encourage you to wander through
the woods.

~~~
he0001
Not sure about schools and daycares. My children’s school and daycare is a gym
and a poke stop respectively. And there are several other daycares here in the
area which are gyms.

------
itcrowd
It's cool to see how the game took the world by storm in such a short time.
The "out-group" \- including military personnel - was left completely in the
dark as to what all kids seemed to know about: Pokemon, Gyms and Stops.

> "Plse advise the Commissionaires that apparently Fort Frontenac is both a
> PokeGym and a PokeStop. I will be completely honest in that I have not idea
> what that is," wrote Maj. Jeff Monaghan at CFB Kingston.

~~~
billfruit
But I wonder if it really did get that much popular as implied in the popular
press. Clash Royale released about the same time was much more popular.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Clash Royale is popular? Sampling my entire social sphere: around where I
live, everyone and their dog plays or at least briefly played Pokemon Go.
Clash Royale is a title I know only from the constant advertising spam on
Facebook; I haven't seen a single person playing it ever.

I know it's just a local sample, but for something supposedly more popular
than Pokemon Go, I'd expect to encounter at least one player.

~~~
kkarakk
All the royale games are popular enough that high level accounts can be sold
for sizeable chunks of money quite easily.

I know some people in the middle east who even do it as a side "job" since the
pay is significant enough

~~~
leetcrew
interesting. any idea how much a level twelve deck at 5300 is worth?

------
trhway
>At least three military police officers (at CFB Comox in British Columbia,
CFB Petawawa and CFB Kingston) were assigned an unusual task: wander around
their bases, smartphones and notepads in hand, searching for virtual Pokemon
infrastructure.

there is a comedy gold here. Cleaning the base from Pokemon infestation before
an inspecting visit by General. The Major pondering whether he should salute
to the Pokemon in General insignia. Soldiers getting to/from AWOL presenting
themselves as undercover secret Pokemons to the drunk clueless Major on duty
(my imagination naturally drifts to the specifics of the military i'd known
from my childhood, ie. USSR/Russia) - they disappear AR-style when the Major
looks at them through the phone.

------
ixtli
I hope these games increase people's awareness of property ownership (both
public and private) and make them pause to give thought to the question of how
and why things are and what normal people are allowed and disallowed from
doing and why.

~~~
uhhhhhhh
It hopefully raises conversation on the value of property ownership generally
in society and the benefits of communal/public property.

~~~
ixtli
Fingers definitely crossed.

------
walrus01
Imagine if Pokemon go used the elevation data from gps. It's just lat long.
People would be climbing trees, using prybars to open the locked roof access
doors of tall office buildings, etc.

~~~
m4rtink
GPS provided elevation data is bad, like really really bad. Often tens of
meters out of sync. Unlikely this would work well in practice without
additional location data sources (barometer, camera based tracking, etc.).

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I was intrigued by this, so here's a quick explanation by Garmin:

[https://support.garmin.com/en-
CA/?faq=QPc5x3ZFUv1QyoxITW2vZ6](https://support.garmin.com/en-
CA/?faq=QPc5x3ZFUv1QyoxITW2vZ6)

Important quote:

"It is not uncommon for satellite heights to be off from map elevations by
+/\- 400 ft."

Wow.

~~~
eigenvector
Yes, this is why most backcountry navigation apps don't display GPS elevation
to the user, instead they use the lat/long to look up the position on a
topographical map and report that elevation instead. In very steep terrain,
it's always a good idea to employ a conventional (barometric) altimeter.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Genuinely curious - what would you need moment by moment readings for? My
experience with back country camping is the Rockies, so I've never been at any
sort of altitude danger zone, and it's usually pretty binary - you're either
on top of the mountain or still not. For something like a GPS watch I'd just
want to look back on it later to be able to review my route, but I can't see
myself taking barometric measurements for accuracy.

~~~
eigenvector
In steep terrain, elevation is a great way to find your location. Suppose I
know that I'm on a certain lateral feature - a ridge, canyon, or watercourse.
By knowing my precise elevation, I can determine my exact location. This helps
me navigate as well as quickly guesstimate my current pace / progress. If I
know I will spend all day ascending gradually on a valley glacier from 4000 m
to 5000 m, in 1 second I can check my altimeter and know how far I've come
when a handheld GPS will spend 30 seconds trying to get a fix.

If someone is trying to state the location of, for instance, a good bivy site
on a rock climbing route, "1890 m on the SE ridge" is equally as precise as
the GPS coordinates, but much more descriptive.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Ah, I didn't think of rock climbing.

------
darkhorn
[https://sociable.co/technology/cia-backed-pokemon-go-
privacy...](https://sociable.co/technology/cia-backed-pokemon-go-privacy/)

> Prior to founding Niantic Labs, Hanke was the CEO of mapping company
> Keyhole, Inc. through funding from the CIA’s venture capital branch, In-Q-
> Tel in 2001. Keyhole was later bought by Google in 2004.

> The In-Q-Tel website clearly states its mission on the front page, so there
> is no doubt as to what interests the company serves:

> IQT identifies, adapts, and delivers innovative technology solutions to
> support the missions of the Central Intelligence Agency and broader U.S.
> Intelligence Community.

------
sandworm101
Lol. This sort of thing is nothing new. Canada, and many other countries,
don't operate their bases like the US. There isn't razorwire and men
patrolling the perimeter with guns. Often, if you don't notice the signs, you
can drive directly onto a base unchallenged. Only the areas with sensitive
stuff are behind 24/7 guards. Usually the first thing a wayward driver notices
are the signs saying 'marching troops have right of way'. What is funny is
seeing people who have made that wrong turn freak out thinking they have done
something wrong. Admittedly, sharing the road with an armed platoon can be a
bit intimidating but at most you will get an escort back to the public road.
So it is no surprise that pokemon classified such bases as public areas.

The upside of this security posture is that to get eyes on the guarded
perimeter you have to first enter the open area of the base, somewhere where
unusual activity will be noticed.

------
hydgv
Where's the entire text of this?
[https://i.cbc.ca/1.5397449.1576501622!/fileImage/httpImage/i...](https://i.cbc.ca/1.5397449.1576501622!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_1180/pokemon-
criminal-intelligence-advisory.jpg)

~~~
Scoundreller
Only the requester got it.

You could go the government’s list of Completed Access to Information Requests
page, find Canadian Forces and ask for an informal copy.

They may send you a copy.

There may be a lot of rédactions though.

It may not be up yet, might be a few months.

------
ChuckMcM
I reminds me a bit of Ingress players who created portals at secure facilities
so that the other faction could not capture them.

I do wonder though if someone might weaponize this. Being able to "generate a
crowd" at a particular location all with a plausible excuse for being there
would make accessing some places surreptitiously much easier.

------
imvetri
Security breaches using civilians

~~~
pvaldes
Mapping of roads and paths in areas of interest at least as a collateral
effect. Maybe including some features that a satellite can't see well
(tunnels, paths on forested areas, ect).

------
wheybags
I dont really get how people were able to just walk into military bases.
Shouldn't they have fences? And if there's no fence, isn't it just public land
that it's OK to walk on?

~~~
0xffff2
Shouldn't they have fences?

In the western US, you will find several remote military bases that include
ground and air live-fire ranges that are un-fenced. There are usually signs
though. (Some) military bases are _very_ large, making it impractical to
maintain complete fencing around them.

>And if there's no fence, isn't it just public land that it's OK to walk on?

Why would it be?

~~~
kerkeslager
> > And if there's no fence, isn't it just public land that it's OK to walk
> on?

> Why would it be?

This isn't the culture in the US, but in some parts of the world, the default
assumption is that land is accessible unless it's fenced or otherwise marked.
There are some politeness norms like not walking right up to someone's house
in the woods, but generally in i.e. Norway, if it's outside, you're probably
allowed to be there.

The culture in the US seems to come from capitalism being such a part of our
culture. Every resource, including land, is viewed as a commodity. Even many
of our publicly-owned land which is ostensibly intended for public use, such
as state and national parks, has entry fees.

~~~
justin66
> This isn't the culture in the US, but in some parts of the world, the
> default assumption is that land is accessible unless it's fenced or
> otherwise marked.

I don't think there is any doubt that these military bases were marked.

~~~
kerkeslager
I was responding to the question in the following exchange:

> > And if there's no fence, isn't it just public land that it's OK to walk
> on?

> Why would it be?

------
haecceity
Don't they have fences gates?

------
OJFord
Seems like a fairly straightforward, good, solution would be for countries to
update legislation such that restricted airspaces apply to augmented reality
too.

Then it would be required of Niantic (rather than its cooperation hoped for)
to ensure none were in such areas.

~~~
jessaustin
You've just made it really easy to get a complete map of all sensitive
locations... one hopes the nation's enemies aren't clever enough to publish an
app.

~~~
OJFord
How? Restricted air space already exists, I'm just saying 'extend that to
digital world'.

~~~
jessaustin
First, I'm assuming there is actually a reason to limit the public's wandering
through military bases. If that's the case, ISTM that safety only requires the
public stay out of probably-already-fenced actually-dangerous areas. Keeping
the public out of all lands must be for some less tangible reason like
"national security".

People can walk on unfenced land whether or not they have an AR app. If it's
important that they not walk there, put up some signs or increase patrols or
whatever. Those are local solutions that aren't easily aggregated by a single
app developer seeking all locations with "national security" connections.

Airspace may be restricted for any number of reasons, especially safety. Also,
we can't build fences in the air. So, airspace restriction for reasons of
"national security" can hide among all the other airspace restrictions. On the
ground, that isn't the case.

~~~
OJFord
My suggestion was to make all airspace restriction apply to AR, so I don't
understand why you think airspace restrictions are fine, but my suggestion
leaks information compromising national security?

------
Camillo
> It took more than three years for the Department of National Defence (DND)
> to provide the documents requested by CBC News.

> [...] "Recognizing that backlog files require more attention, DND recently
> created a new team in the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP)
> Directorate as part of a Backlog Reduction Initiative. This team has been
> assigned the task of working solely on backlog files so that the other
> processing teams can concentrate on ensuring newer files do not go late,"
> she said.

LOL, what a waste of resources.

Edit: I don't get why I'm being downvoted. These things do have a cost. FOIA
requests are not free. FOIA requests can be frivolous. Here we have one branch
of the Canadian government (the CBC) getting another branch of the Canadian
government (the military) to spend time collecting information, scanning
documents, reviewing everything for security... all so that Brett can write a
lame "quirky" story about a video game that's three years old at this point.
For what? Clicks? Ad revenue? It's obviously pure waste. No wonder they had to
create a special team to deal with the backlog, when the government itself
files bullshit requests against itself.

I don't know, maybe the Canadian military has nothing better to do. Maybe
Canada's government journalists have nothing more pressing to look into with
respect to the military. I guess it's possible. It still leaves you wondering
what the Canadian public is paying them for.

BTW, just a few days ago there was an article about how America used to be
able to complete large engineering projects quickly and cheaply, and now they
can't. Some were pointing out that perhaps the cumulative cost of all the new
systems we built on top since then has something to do with it (whether they
are public systems due to regulation or private systems due to litigation).
Well, maybe it's because our governments keep making laws that say "do this
within 60 days or else", and the cost remains forever unexamined.

Then let me at least point out that this is a clear instance of pure waste.
And yes, a certain level of frivolous requests probably needs to be tolerated
for the system to work at all. But when it's the _government_ creating waste
_for itself_ to write a Buzzfeed-tier piece of shit article because it's all
magic free government money, all I can say is: dear Brett, you're not a
stalwart guard-dog of democracy just because your job title has "journalist"
in it. You need to actually think about what you're doing and try to do
something useful with your government paycheck.

~~~
mfoy_
I'll point out a couple highlights of why I down-voted you:

* The CBC is not a "branch of government", it's a crown corporation. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_corporations_of_Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_corporations_of_Canada))

* FOIA is American, ATIP is Canadian. Anyhow, of course they aren't "free", no one said they were. It's (at best) incoherent to make straw-man arguments against the wrong thing...

* Just because there are worse things in the world doesn't mean we can't consider lesser ones. It's not like journalists are all only ever allowed to write about whatever you consider to be the single most pressing topic at the time.

* Just because this article doesn't interest _you_ , personally (it obviously interests other HNers, considering it's on the front page) doesn't mean that it's a "Buzzfeed-tier piece of shit article".

* Not all government spending is bad, as you seem to imply, and some oversight is absolutely necessary to prevent corruption.

* This ATIP request resulted in an interesting article that covered Canadian culture, geo-location games and trespassing issues, the health of the ATIP program, as well as humourous anecdotes on how military policy discovered and handled the issue of PokemonGo.

