
Strava heatmap can be used to locate military bases - domoritz
https://twitter.com/tobiaschneider/status/957317886112124928
======
iser
[https://twitter.com/kevinkiklee/status/957629856518459392](https://twitter.com/kevinkiklee/status/957629856518459392)

I just created an overlay of Google Maps and Strava Heatmap of the forward
operating base I was at in Afghanistan. The heatmap clearly shows the layout
of the base.

That base has been in operation for at least 6-8 years, and it is well-
developed. The up-to-date satellite imagery of the area is not available on
Google Maps for a good reason, and Strava just released it.

I imagine that this heatmap has been thoroughly scraped already.

* I was deployed to Afghanistan from 2011-2012.

edit: initially mis-typed '2011-2102' =D

edit2: A well-established military base, even in a combat zone, has access to
wifi and cellphone network. We are constantly training physically, and we like
to keep track of ourselves. We were early adopters of fitness trackers, and I
used a couple of them myself also.

~~~
notatoad
>Strava just released it.

Strava didn't release it. It's not strava's job to stop you from uploading
sensitive information. Strava does not have a security clearance. Military
personell released it to strava. Surely the military already has rules about
not uploading GPS tracks of their bases to random websites?

~~~
smallnamespace
Surely the issue is not that Strava decided to release sensitive information,
or the military decided to release sensitive information, but that _neither
actor realized that they were in aggregate revealing sensitive information
ahead of time_.

If one guy runs around a base using Strava, that's not an issue. If a few
hundred do, then it lights up on the map. But realizing that is a potential
issue ahead of time and then proactively addressing it is the challenge.

~~~
carbocation
I'm surprised that using a GPS tracking tool is permitted in forward operating
bases. I guess I would think that if one guy runs around the base with Strava,
it actually is an issue.

~~~
Humdeee
I imagine many of these soldier's higher ups are unaware that such networked
'workout by GPS' services exist to provide insight beyond a personal means. If
so, I wonder why soldiers were permitted to run with GPS watches or phones.

Many professional endurance based athletes also do not track using GPS for
similar reasons. Openly sharing training programs is an advantage to
opposition and their coaches. Especially with Strava, where people are
searchable by name like facebook.

~~~
zimpenfish
> Many professional endurance based athletes also do not track using GPS for
> similar reasons.

That might need a citation. They might not be using Strava and posting them
publically (although a lot of pro cyclists do) but instead use something like
Training Peaks for communication with coaches etc.

~~~
Humdeee
I would wager that many, many more professional athletes and teams all over
the world do not use GPS over those that do. Do you really see the thousands
of coaches all over the world backing up their athletes data to the cloud or
using some company platform and making sure every workout is on private mode?
Or do you see pen and notebook, excel docs, and local hard drive folders full
of manually written logs? The world extends far beyond the borders of
'mericuh.

------
mixologic
Burning Man looks pretty cool: able to see year over year changes to the
perimeter map:
[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.33/-119.21108/40.78291/h...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.33/-119.21108/40.78291/hot/all)

~~~
myth_buster
Lovely! That's going up as a poster on my wall.

~~~
jonalmeida
If you come up with a nice high res screen grab for your print, could you
please share it here? Might want to use it for a wallpaper background.

~~~
ce4
Here's one, alas there's no higher res tiles than z15.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M3x_IO0jpKd6qMfHO7cfjv0H2nv...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M3x_IO0jpKd6qMfHO7cfjv0H2nvErV2w/view?usp=sharing)

------
natch
In some cases where the data is sparse, you can find where individual people
live, because the trails sometimes lead back to a starting point. Like this
person who runs around the park regularly. Of course you could also just
follow them IRL if you were there, so I'm not sure this is a big deal.

[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.20/100.20693/40.99133/ho...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.20/100.20693/40.99133/hot/all)

~~~
miahi
Strava allows you to set places where it should not track (like close to
home); not everybody uses that.

~~~
drdrey
I have it turned on, but honestly it's not very hard to figure out where I
live... it's in the middle of that circle where my runs oddly seem to stop

~~~
chrisfosterelli
If you start and stop your run going different directions it's not too hard to
figure out the central point between them, but if you start/stop from the same
direction then it's not clear what the "middle" of the circle would be because
the radius of the circle is configurable and unknown to viewers.

~~~
CapacitorSet
To expand on this, it takes three points to identify a circle, so you'd need
to leave home and return from three different roads (at least at the
intersection with the circle).

~~~
drdrey
You can still potentially make useful inferences without 3 points. For
instance, imagine the configuration where there is a single straight road that
leads to your home (center of the privacy circle) - you can just extend the
line where the GPS tracks for 5/8 mile (the biggest privacy setting) and infer
the location of the home. Similarly, if you have 2 straight GPS tracks leading
to your home, you can infer both the center and the radius of the privacy
zone.

You may not get the exact street address, but you could definitely figure the
block or the street. Maybe not super useful in a dense city, but that could
leak quite a bit about you if you live in a suburb or rural area.

------
azernik
I've heard about similar issues in a somewhat older context; it took some
training work to get 18-21-year-old Israeli draft soldiers to stop creating
Facebook groups that reflected their unit structure, or at least to obfuscate
the names. And there's been a lot of interesting work done by e.g.
bellingcat.com to identify the exact Russian Army units and soldiers operating
in Ukraine based on social media pictures _taken out of theater_.

OSINT is a very big field in military intelligence; with the amount of
information everyone pumps out about themselves, some leakage of militarily
sensitive information is bound to happen. As an organization defending against
this type of espionage, you just have to try to minimize the leakage.

~~~
travmatt
I’ve been fascinated by OSINT recently, not least for the amazing journalism
bellingcat produces. Their investigations into Russian attack on MH17 and the
coup attempt in turkey have both been some of the best journalism I’ve read.

------
RandomCSGeek
Just started, and already found a patrol route of Pakistan army, although it
was quite obvious one, going parallel to a border river. Hope they don't take
this down, it's going to entertain me for many days to come.

On a more serious note though, this is an good example of how important it is
to control our own data. It only makes me take even more efforts to secure my
data and to try to make less of it available to others.

We really need to convert Internet to what it was meant to be, a
"decentralised system"

~~~
asadlionpk
Hey there, fellow neighbor!

~~~
RandomCSGeek
Hello brother!

------
chatmasta
It’s unbelievable that any military allows its soldiers to deploy carrying
consumer technology equipped with GPS tracking.

~~~
sailfast
I respectfully disagree. For most troops, deploying with your personal device
is a huge morale boost. Blocking GPS on these devices is not practical, and
might actually help when it comes to innovation in the field (helicopter
pilots using iPads to innovate routing, for example) - not to mention just
basic morale (movies / music / what have you).

These tools also go a long way toward operational readiness / fitness. They
incentivize these things and are used for a reason. There are trade-offs with
all these things, not to mention the practical issues of blocking them.

I would expect, however, that identifying this as a huge security problem is
relatively easy. "HEY DO NOT UPLOAD YOUR RUN WHILE DEPLOYED OR YOU MAY GET
MORTARED" is likely a better option here, just below "MAKE SURE YOU WEAR YOUR
NEON BELT" on every sign.

~~~
jonahx
> "HEY DO NOT UPLOAD YOUR RUN WHILE DEPLOYED OR YOU MAY GET MORTARED" is
> likely a better option here, just below "MAKE SURE YOU WEAR YOUR NEON BELT"
> on every sign.

I take the whole lesson here to be: information can leak in unexpected ways.
So solving this _particular_ issue does nothing to help the larger problem.
I'd imagine there are countless similar side channel leaks that already
exist... and then even more that don't exist yet but will retroactively exist
with a future phone or app update. The fox is in henhouse.

~~~
sailfast
Agreed, but many times you need to be super explicit about the main channels,
otherwise people just...forget and/or can't keep it all in their brain because
some folks are bad with checklists.

It's stupid easy to leave an Apple Watch or FitBit on your wrist walking
around a secure location (as evidence suggests). Big signs required to avoid
these kinds of risks.

The signage required just to get people to leave their bloody phones outside a
room is incredible - and they still err. Social Network training is already
provided as well to avoid these kinds of social engineering risks, and yet...
well, just search LinkedIn I'd imagine.

------
ithinkso
Everest Base Camp is clearly visible - together with full south col route and
a lot of teleports to the summit

[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.32/86.87956/27.98295/hot...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.32/86.87956/27.98295/hot/all)

[https://www.google.pl/maps/@27.9786991,86.8796431,8552m/data...](https://www.google.pl/maps/@27.9786991,86.8796431,8552m/data=!3m1!1e3)

~~~
gruez
>and a lot of teleports to the summit

can anyone explain what happened here?

~~~
Bedon292
I imagine it has something to do with sparse tracking. The final ascent /
decent is I think the better part of an entire day. You can't have full high
accuracy GPS on for that long and have the battery last. So you may put the
device away for a while, and get it back out when you finally summit to track
that you were there. And lower on the mountain you might have extra ridges in
the way, like in a city with lots of tall buildings, where you just can't get
the best signal. And on Everest there is no WiFi or cell signal to cheat with.
I would also think that personal device GPS may get a bit confused at that
altitude. That is not really the expected working conditions.

------
kebman
I found several border crossings between Russia, Finland and Norway that
doesn't seem entirely legal. ;)

~~~
jpindar
Same with North Korea.

~~~
iaw
I found both activity at Pyongyang and what appears to be a smuggling route
from China into NK.

~~~
dionidium
You think people are turning on Strava to track their smuggling activity?

~~~
Whitestrake
I would have assumed that people wouldn't turn on their Strava to track their
military activity, either, but here we are.

~~~
dionidium
They don't. There seems to be some confusion about how Strava works in this
thread. People turn it on to track physical activity (i.e. _exercise_ ).
Nobody is tracking their "military activity." They're turning Strava on when
they go for a jog around the base. And then they stop it when their run is
finished. If enough people on the base do this, then common routes will stand
out on the aggregate map.

Nobody on a smuggling operation would have Strava turned on. That makes no
sense.

~~~
mathiasben
that was my assumption as well, but examining the heat map data leads me to
believe that certain always on devices are contributing data, are fit-bits
constantly supplying coordinates? for instance, zoom in on the white house
lawn. also look at the tracks between ascension island and Saint Helena in the
Atlantic, it sure looks like cruising sailors are leaving tracks as they
transit ports. I found others that clearly looked like people in tropical
harbors near resorts zooming back and forth on what maybe are jet skis. that
type of activity doesn't mesh with how I understand and use Strava, when I
switch it on just for a run or cycle and then off after being done. I think
there's some source of always on data being placed onto the heat map.

------
brohoolio
The most interesting thing I stumbled across so far is Detroit, where people
don't run in huge swaths of the neighborhoods. I'm familiar with the city so I
expected dead zones, but nothing like this.

[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#9.47/-83.46871/42.45553/hot...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#9.47/-83.46871/42.45553/hot/run)

~~~
Strom
> _where people don 't run_

More accurately it's where people don't send their tracking data. Plausible to
also say that it's where people don't own this tracking software/device at
all. However it seems like a gigantic stretch to derive that there's no
running going on.

~~~
frakkingcylons
That's true. Nevertheless, it's interesting (though unsurprising), to see the
areas where Strava users don't run.

~~~
Balgair
[https://statisticalatlas.com/place/Michigan/Detroit/Race-
and...](https://statisticalatlas.com/place/Michigan/Detroit/Race-and-
Ethnicity)

Maps ok-ish to the African American population distribution

------
throaj19s9a
You can find out certain routes Pine Gap(NSA spy base) employees take. You can
even pinpoint which buildings in their spy base have higher security
clearances. You can even see them patroling and exploring their land, and
someone randomly running in a circle.

------
natch
At Apple Park (AC 2), the spaceship footprint is still invisible as of the
date of this data. Next year it should be clearly visible. (Sorry, off topic
with respect to the "military base" in title, just having fun browsing the
data).

[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16.00/-122.01101/37.33445/h...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16.00/-122.01101/37.33445/hot/all)

~~~
minimaxir
Granted, Apple employees may be more prone to use an Apple Watch instead of a
Strava.

~~~
nlh
Strava has an Apple Watch app (source: I use it regularly).

------
natch
Taos Ski Area:

[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.28/-105.45449/36.58046/h...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.28/-105.45449/36.58046/hot/all)

Heavy straight lines are lifts.

------
hex12648430
Some other fun (but not so secret) things to look at: research stations in
Antarctica, tourism in North Korea (as well as some officials traveling it
seems; some tracks cross the DMZ), your own garden if you have one. There's
even a track at the Area 51.

~~~
jzwinck
Moving between North and South Korea is restricted but not completely
eliminated. There are people who legiimately work in one and live in the other
(not just officials).

~~~
samstave
What kinds of jobs do those people hold?

~~~
azernik
If they're including old data, up to two years ago there were quite a few
South Korean managers and engineers working at the Kaesong Industrial Zone
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaesong_Industrial_Region))

------
ziggyd
Secret underwater base off the coast of Japan?
[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#11.26/142.44901/38.34858/ho...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#11.26/142.44901/38.34858/hot/all)

------
orliesaurus
How did no one working at Strava think about the implications of releasing
this data? Zero scrutiny? I am sure there are some very interesting locations
on there... reading through the twitter thread it would seem so

~~~
LeifCarrotson
You know what else is public , insecure information? Maps. Pictures. Roads.
Physically going to a location and seeing a driveway.

Yes, there is a bright line on Strava that leads from a spiderweb of trails in
the park right to the door of my private, personal house! My neighbors don't
run often, but I post on Strava 5 days a week, so my driveway stands out like
a yellow arrow. You could learn, from the Strava dataset, that someone (me)
lives in my house. Gasp! /s.

Of course someone lives in my house. It is not news to anyone local. My
address is on the map, and it's pretty obvious that someone lives here if you
drive by and see it.

What damage has Strava done by releasing this data? Humans that post on Strava
are not hermits, trying to remain secret in their underground hideouts in the
middle of nowhere. We live in houses, or on giant military bases...we're not
exactly hidden.

~~~
logicallee
"I live in a [Blue/Red] state and it's no secret that I'm a
[Democrat/Republican] - as is the majority of my state. It wouldn't bother me
in the slightest if the voting records of everyone were published. You could
get the same information just by asking - which is exactly what exit polls do.
Don't see the issue."

There is something (seriously) wrong with the above thinking. I don't think I
need to spell it out.

~~~
maxerickson
Which information here is equivalent to a vote. Spell it out.

~~~
logicallee
Thanks for your polite response and query. I see you are a longstanding user
here and you were quite specific in your question.

\- The answer is: it's the _attitude_ itself which I consider equivalent.

Here again is the poster (direct unmodified and representative quote):

>Of course someone lives in my house. It is not news to anyone local. My
address is on the map, and it's pretty obvious that someone lives here if you
drive by and see it.

Here is my pretend quote for comparison:

>It's no secret that I'm a [Democrat/Republican] - You could get the same
information just by asking.

If you don't see how this is literally the exact same _attitude_ then you kind
of need me to come up with scenarios.

Since you politely asked me to spell it out, what is your guess - what do I
mean, why is it the same attitude exactly?

I appreciate your tone with me and if you will do me the courtesy of guessing
what I mean then I can correct you if that is not what I meant. What's your
most charitable guess, why did I mean that it is the same attitude?

~~~
maxerickson
Voter rolls and (registered) party membership literally are published (some
states charge for it) so in your example the actual vote is really the only
thing on the line.

~~~
logicallee
ok you didn't guess what I mean. OP is _also_ voting with their feet: now that
this is published they can't lie and say they also run laps around their
house, if they're known to wear a fitbit and claim they wear it while running
- but there's:

>"Yes, there is a bright line on Strava that leads from a spiderweb of trails
in the park right to the door of my private, personal house! "

... and not to laps around it, ever. So their voting with their feet is
recorded plainly for everyone to see. Doubt they checked "Share my personal
steps (location) history with entire world" in any agreement - nobody would
check that box any more than anyone would check a Gmail box "Allow Google to
publish all contents of my Google account, including all chats and emails,
with entire world."

But their attitude is "so what - people could see that information anyway".
It's exactly the same attitude as "so what - if anyone asked me I'd be happy
to tell them I'm a [Democrat/Republican]". Please judge their _sentiment_ here
(attitude) as that is what I am comparing.

Would you agree it's the same attitude?

------
cdevs
It would be scary if someone found a flaw in their API or data that exposed
who went where from where everyday. It may not be stored that way but people
who work at secure locations aren't allowed to bring in cell phones or workout
watches but they still bring them to the parking lot showing who works where.
If a flaw like this is discovered it would obviously be bad.

~~~
tgtweak
Would be good to read what steps Strava uses to anonymize this data prior or
shortly following upload.

I'm also hoping they put some logic to prevent a single device trace from
showing up on the heatmap regardless of frequency, and that 2 devices would
need to converge within a radius for there to be a trace, but that might be
wishful thinking.

------
shiado
This reminds me of the selfie soldier story from a few years ago.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso)

Just how much useful military information can soldiers haemorrhage from their
cellphones? Imagine somebody being convicted of war crimes in an international
tribunal because some recruit forgot to turn off their automatic geo-locating
Candy Crush notifications. This is quite the brave new world we are entering.

------
adamtj
Websites are like salespeople and the police: they can and will use your data
against you.

The first time I was told about Strava, I immediately dismissed it as useless.
(After all, what service could they possibly provide when I'm unwilling to
tell them precisely where I go to work out?) I almost gave a quizzical look to
my conversation partner, but that would have given him more insight into my
thoughts than I cared to share, so I surpressed the expression.

------
starpilot
Are any of these locations actually secret?

~~~
Rebelgecko
It's pretty easy to find Al-Udeid Air Base, which was secret until the mid
2000s. Some of the other details like patrols, convoy routes, and missile
battery locations may not be classified, but are probably things the US
military would rather not see online

~~~
samstave
Given the visibility of HN threads I expect this data to get scrubbed post-
haste - so download it / archive it ASAP

------
pella
for finding other places:

see OpenStreetMap key:military:

[https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:military](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:military)

[https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/military#values](https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/military#values)

------
arca_vorago
Yet people think I'm paranoid for not wanting whatever the latest health
tracking gadget is. I would love to have an FOSS fitbit equivalent that
doesn't share my information with anyone but me, preferably a manual download
or a manual bluetooth switch (so it can be off when out and about).

It's like these companies valuations aren't off the product, but more off how
much data they are getting off consumers. I bet they are selling this to
advertisers.

~~~
rorykoehler
I'd imagine they are mainly selling to governments and town planners.

~~~
zimpenfish
No need to imagine; they're quite up front about it.

[https://metro.strava.com/](https://metro.strava.com/)

> Metro anonymizes and aggregates this data and then partners with departments
> of transportation and city planning groups to improve infrastructure for
> bicyclists and pedestrians.

------
mf2hd
"What's the big deal? It's just metadata."

------
YeGoblynQueenne
I guess that answers that age-old question in Juvenal: "Quis custodiet ipsos
custodes?", typically translated as "who will watch the watchers?".

------
sathackr
Just about any satellite photo provider can be used to locate military bases
also.

The heatmap is neat but I don't see why it's specifically bad for military
bases.

~~~
xrisk
Patrol and supply route information I guess?

~~~
samstave
I can honestly see this as a DND scenario:

“I roll to see what I can find out about their supply routes”

20

“Ok, you can see from their strava heat maps their supply routes go north to
south along this particular road”

“When do they happen”

“Roll for perception”

20

(Fuck this guy)

“Ok, you see that they result every Thursday at noon”

“That’s when we’ll attack!”

------
lfcipriani
Strava allow you to configure privacy zones and range around them. I
believe/hope this map doesn't include them.

~~~
hex12648430
These zones are excluded according to their blog post.

[https://medium.com/strava-engineering/the-global-heatmap-
now...](https://medium.com/strava-engineering/the-global-heatmap-
now-6x-hotter-23fc01d301de)

~~~
aluhut
They are. A few years ago I had the app installed for one trip. The track on
my property is not visible on the heat map.

------
sAbakumoff
[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13.25/-119.22139/40.78444/b...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13.25/-119.22139/40.78444/blue/ride)
does anyone know what's THIS?

~~~
olemartinorg
Looks like burning man.

------
tree_of_item
I guess I'm slow, why are these pictures obviously of military bases? What's
going on here?

~~~
iser
A well-established military base, even in a combat zone, has access to wifi
and cellphone network.

We are constantly training physically, and we like to keep track of ourselves.
We were one of the first adopters of fitness trackers, and I used a couple of
them myself also.

------
StringyBob
I wonder if the raw data can show any paths/areas missing from openstreetmap -
would be interesting to align the datasets

~~~
bagbagbag
I think that's what their Slide project is aiming for.

[https://labs.strava.com/slide/](https://labs.strava.com/slide/)

~~~
StringyBob
And it would seem it is integrated into an online viewer/editor at
[https://strava.github.io/iD/#background=MAPNIK&map=2.00/0.0/...](https://strava.github.io/iD/#background=MAPNIK&map=2.00/0.0/0.0)

------
christophilus
I'm surprised Svalbard is so lit up[0]. I wouldn't expect too many folks to be
running around out there.

[0]
[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#5.00/15.91558/77.77306/hot/...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#5.00/15.91558/77.77306/hot/all)

------
fapjacks
I have knowledge of a handful of tiny uhh "State Department" facilities that
rely on their obscurity for security (a fairly common practice that works in
the military for the most part, since fog of war on the ground is a very real
thing). Those facilities are visible even from the global view with max zoom.

------
rwhitman
The most fascinating spots are located near the equator, in the middle of the
ocean, or the desert of North Africa.

There are many seemingly "uninhabited" places in these remote equatorial areas
that light up with clear tracks or circles, in areas that are obscured by
clouds, blurred or look like brown dirt.

------
sflicht
surprisingly nonzero adoption of fitness trackers in Pyongyang

------
SeoxyS
Wow, I found quite a few very obvious ones in Syria. Are these locations
supposed to be entirely secret?

------
maelito
People don't run in the Père Lachaise cimetery in Paris, interesting !

------
billfruit
Perhaps it can work both ways, revealingly insurgent activity as well.

------
emilfihlman
Anyone know how to download (a portion) of the dataset?

~~~
exikyut
HERE IS HOW TO DOWNLOAD IT

I just spent a few minutes figuring it out.

First grab some coordinates, I picked a totally random spot in NY:
[https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16.11/-73.96162/40.73006/ho...](https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16.11/-73.96162/40.73006/hot/all)

Now feed the GPS coords into the algorithm at
[https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Slippy_map_tilenames](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Slippy_map_tilenames)

I can use PHP faster than anything else, so I used the PHP example on that
page.

    
    
      $zoom = 15;
      $lon = -73.96162;
      $lat = 40.73006;
    
      $xtile = floor((($lon + 180) / 360) * pow(2, $zoom));
      $ytile = floor((1 - log(tan(deg2rad($lat)) + 1 / cos(deg2rad($lat))) / pi()) /2 * pow(2, $zoom));
    
      print "x: $xtile\n";
      print "y: $ytile\n";
    

This printed:

    
    
      x: 9651
      y: 12318
    

If I go to [https://heatmap-
external-c.strava.com/tiles/all/hot/15/9651/...](https://heatmap-
external-c.strava.com/tiles/all/hot/15/9651/12318), I can see a portion of the
map that's on the screen.

My email is in my profile, downloading this would be very fun. It would just
need a tonne of bandwidth and even more diskspace, and I don't have much of
either myself.

~~~
maxerickson
I think they mean the underlying data rather than the tiles.

MOBAC is made for caching map tiles:

[http://mobac.sourceforge.net/](http://mobac.sourceforge.net/)

~~~
emilfihlman
I mean the tiles because the actual dataset is not publicly available and I
doubt it will ever be.

One reverse a portion of the dataset from the tiles, though.

~~~
maxerickson
You could check the OSM gps layer to see if it has interesting data in the
area; you can directly fetch the data there.

[https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/38.03114/-78.52475&lay...](https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/38.03114/-78.52475&layers=G)

There's less traces than Strava has though.

------
JohnStudio
.. and you.

------
aluhut
I wish there would be some easy to do service where you can set up a "strava
like" service on your webspace.

I know people who use Strava or similar and are somehow aware of their privacy
but "it's so easy and it works"....

~~~
oceanic
Well, there is OwnTracks, it’s self hosted and has mobile apps…
[http://owntracks.org](http://owntracks.org)

~~~
aluhut
Doesn't look "easy" in the common sense but thanks, I might even have a free
Pi somewhere. I'll give it a try.

------
tviling
No activities in Area 51

------
drtillberg
Is there an explanation somewhere of how Strava got this fitness data and why
they published it?

~~~
nebulous1
Did you think to look up what Strava do?

------
MrBuddyCasino
I don‘t get why people loose their shit about something that every LEO spy
satellite can see since 30 years. Its just a plain old Twitter outrage.

~~~
froindt
As others have noted, this goes beyond just "there's something here". For
military bases, you can sometimes get a good idea of the patrol routes. For
sparsely populated areas, you can get a good idea of what routes a particular
home owner exercises on.

