
Trap street - gasull
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street
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bpatrianakos
This seems like it gets posted every week. I have to say so what? Is it not
totally understandable? I mean, cartography is an invaluable tool and because
there information is public knowledge there has to be some way to stop those
would cut corners and copy a map. Does it lead people astray sometimes? Sure.
But is it causing so much harm that the practice needs to be called into
question? No.

I'm not really sure why this gets posted here without any context though. Is
this supposed to be a statement about copyright? If so, I have to say I'm
really sick of these clever attempts to show how copyright is bad. Copyright
is not good or bad in and of itself. It can be both and any discussion of it
in absolute terms is ridiculous.

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oskarpearson
I don't think the original posting was taking aim at copyright infringement. I
think it's just a neat idea that appeals to the hacker instinct - which is why
it keeps popping up again and again.

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cincinnatus
We did the same sort of thing in the pkzip source code 20 years ago. There
were a number of pointless routines in the program that would be clear
evidence of code theft.

These days I suppose an optimizing compiler would be smart enough to strip
away any truly dead ends.

~~~
coin
Ironic given that pkzip copied arc's source code

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oskarpearson
First discussed here, almost 3 years ago.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1504126>

Revisited here, 40 days ago, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4818584>

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to3m
Along similar lines, the shareware assembler A86 watermarked the binaries it
produced, so that unauthorised use of unregistered copies could be proven. It
did this by - or so it was claimed - choosing one specific instruction over
another, when it had a choice:

[http://www.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/general/DOCUMENTA...](http://www.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/general/DOCUMENTATION/a01.txt)
(see section 6)

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pflats
Google Maps directed me down a trap street once on the way to a new tutoring
gig. I got lost, was late, and had to sheepishly call the family to ask for
directions. Just glad I had a printout of the directions to show them.

Never used it for anything essential after that. Thanks a lot, Google Maps.
You'd think they'd have the decency to add a "don't route down this street"
flag to their trap streets.

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saras
That doesn't really make any sense: "trap streets" make sense and are used in,
say, the base map that you see when viewing a Google map (that is, in the
raster data). But why would Google bother putting a trap street into their own
(proprietary) street data used for routing? Unless you are saying that Google
Maps "directed" you in the sense that you were looking at a printout of a map
that included a trap street, not actually a turn-by-turn.

~~~
pflats
I agree, it doesn't make any sense. But it happened. This was back in '07 or
so, so before Google did live turn-by-turn. I had a printout of Google's
directions from online.

It led me on a street that's never existed, and that would have had to go
either over or through a very substantial hill to actually exist.

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c0nsumer
I make mountain bike trail maps[1] using OSM data, but when generating my
first drafts of the final PDF files and distributing them for review I'll
include similar trap landmark.

[1] Examples: <http://mmba.org/library/maps/riverbends/latest.pdf>
[http://mmba.org/library/maps/clintonriverparktrail/latest.pd...](http://mmba.org/library/maps/clintonriverparktrail/latest.pdf)
<http://mmba.org/library/maps/stonycreek/latest.pdf>
<http://mmba.org/library/maps/addisonoaks/latest.pdf>

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oldgregg
I wonder if it would be possible to automatically compare goog vs. bing,
identify discrepancies and come out with a 'clean' map?

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lccarrasco
Wouldn't you need a third one to identify which map has the trap street?

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ars
Or a satellite photo.

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seanlinehan
Although trap streets specifically refer to maps, I can't help but think of
the trap that Google set up to bust Microsoft on copying their search results:

[http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-
copying-...](http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-our-
search-results-62914)

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dbaupp
Neat article!

I was googling for examples in Google Maps, and came across the corresponding
article on open street maps[1], which is a nice supplement.

[1]: <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs>

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samgrover
Dictionaries do the same thing with made-up words.

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alexkus
That's discombatulary!

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anatoly
Not in the slightest. It's a perfectly cromulent practice.

