Strava denies Global Heatmap uses full ride data and poses security risk

PpPete wrote:

Lots of dither going through houses, gardens, fences.... but quite an obvious bright track going up & down my drive.  I can also quite easily identify the addresses of several other prolific cyclists in surrounding area.  They are definitely NOT respecting privacy settings.

Just wondering - is the heatmap dynamic based on whether you follow them? Can't remember, do followers override the enhanced privacy setting?

kil0ran wrote:

PpPete wrote:

Lots of dither going through houses, gardens, fences.... but quite an obvious bright track going up & down my drive.  I can also quite easily identify the addresses of several other prolific cyclists in surrounding area.  They are definitely NOT respecting privacy settings.

Just wondering - is the heatmap dynamic based on whether you follow them? Can't remember, do followers override the enhanced privacy setting?

 

The sheer amount of data in the heatmap is staggering, so it's static and pre-computed. What you see is what everybody sees.

harragan wrote:

What is interesting from the Heat Map is seeing that there appear to be people riding through a series of back gardens and fenced and gated plots of land.  These don't seem to be where the GPS has gone a bit stray but well away from roads or tracks.  Interesting.

Looking through some of the really high density areas (road circuits like Hillingdon and Salt Ayre are good examples) there's loads of "ghost" tracks that stray out into the neighbouring roads or even rivers. It's mostly satellite errors - GPS updates once a second and at speed on a tight circuit, it'll easily off-read occasionally. Multiply that by thousands of riders a year and ghost tracks will always be there.

kil0ran wrote:

Definitely not respecting mine. Shows tracks in my back garden where I'm taking the bikes to the shed. Particularly noticeable because I'm the only Strava cyclist on my road it would seem.

Why the hell have you got Strava running when you take the bike from the back door to the shed?! Seriously, do you people not crop your rides? Do you just start and end every ride at your front door?

I'd never dream of doing that in spite of privacy settings.

Same with my car sat nav - if someone ever stole my car and programmed "home" into the sat nav to go and break in, they'd find themselves a mile away at a local police station!

crazy-legs wrote:

kil0ran wrote:

Definitely not respecting mine. Shows tracks in my back garden where I'm taking the bikes to the shed. Particularly noticeable because I'm the only Strava cyclist on my road it would seem.

Why the hell have you got Strava running when you take the bike from the back door to the shed?! Seriously, do you people not crop your rides? Do you just start and end every ride at your front door?

I'd never dream of doing that in spite of privacy settings.

Same with my car sat nav - if someone ever stole my car and programmed "home" into the sat nav to go and break in, they'd find themselves a mile away at a local police station!

I've got enhanced privacy switched on and was relying on that. Phone is tucked away in jersey pocket so I kick the ride off at some point between back door and shed, and it probably doesn't get ended until I've had my post-ride cuppa. Once I'm riding I don't want the distraction of fiddling with Strava and juggling 400 quids-worth of smartphone in traffic.

Most of my rides aren't actually from home these days because I do a mixed commute, so it's interesting how hot my back garden is on the heatmap. No-one else in the house using Strava.

usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

fenix wrote:

usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

I reckon I'd make a fantastic bike thief. The amount of bikes I see around my village left unlocked (but on display) in gardens and garages... Not to mention the bikes that are secured with a lock I could get through with safety scissors.

There certainly seems to be a number of tracks that start near my house on my road, but I don't know if they are mine or not (though usually I start recording some distance from my house, once on the main road). Also found out that a few people who live near me are keen cyclists and must have no privacy zone at all - their house is glowing!

fenix wrote:

usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

Agree but it does make one question the functionality of the Strava privacy zone whether it's deleting the start and end points from the data on their servers or just filtering out, and this article on the heat map findings suggest it's just being filtered and filters can be bypassed if you know what you're doing.    Surely it's more secure to delete the true start and end points from the raw data uploaded by the user and replace with points at the 500m or 1km radius on the route.

usedtobefaster wrote:

fenix wrote:

usedtobefaster wrote:

This is interesting, I was told previously by a friend that a large insurance firm were of the opionion that bike thieves were using unfiltered Strava data, raw data before the privacy zone setting is applied,  to locate their targets.  Since then I've started and stopped my Garmin away from the home so the raw data doesn't have the same start and end of ride location.  Could just be a conspiracy theory of course.

That's a bit sophisticated isn't it ? If they could do that they'd have much richer pickings online with no need for crowbars.

Agree but it does make one question the functionality of the Strava privacy zone whether it's deleting the start and end points from the data on their servers or just filtering out, and this article on the heat map findings suggest it's just being filtered and filters can be bypassed if you know what you're doing.    Surely it's more secure to delete the true start and end points from the raw data uploaded by the user and replace with points at the 500m or 1km radius on the route.

It is just being filtered, because if you look at your own rides you can see where you start and finish even if it's within your privacy zones