Why What3Words is not suitable for safety critical applications

63 点作者 oftenwrong大约 4 年前

9 条评论

greenyoda大约 4 年前

Related discussion from a few days ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27015046" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27015046</a>See also: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27020810" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27020810</a>

weinzierl大约 4 年前

For those not familiar with the backstory, here is a quick summary (quoted from @AaronToponce <a href="https://twitter.com/aarontoponce/status/1389163266417430533?s=21" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/aarontoponce/status/1389163266417430533?...</a>):1. In 2018, What Free Words (WFW) reverse engineers what3words (w3w) in a clean room with JavaScript.2. WFW is ported to other languages.3. In 2019, w3w legally goes after WFW for trademark and copyright infringement.4. WFW is effectively pulled offline.5. In 2021, @cybergibbons begins his research into w3w testing their claims.6. I offer to help, still having a copy of the WFW JavaScript source code.7. I offer to privately distribute that source code to other researchers.8. Two people reach out to me asking for a copy.9. April 29, 2021, I receive a cease and desist email from the w3w legal firm threatening I have 7 days to comply.10. Being ignorant to legal cyber bullying, I comply with their demands.11. I share my experience on Twitter.12. The tweet goes viral.13. The original WFW JavaScript source code is found elsewhere online, and shared and copied in multiple Twitter threads.14. Other languages are uncovered also.15. Prior art is uncovered to potentially invalidate w3w patents.16. @zackwhittaker interviews me for TechCrunch17. The TechCrunch article goes online.18. It's shared on other social media platforms.19. May 2, 2021, I receive an email from the w3w legal firm that w3w considers the matter resolved.20. @cybergibbons publishes his findings uncovering severe problems with w3w algorithmP.S.My intent of being willing to share the WFW source code was not to compete with w3w, nor cause them any harm. The intent was to help @cybergibbons look into their claims of safety and security, to ultimately improve the service. However, I know intent is not a defense.

neolog大约 4 年前

Plus Codes are a better choice.<a href="https://github.com/google/open-location-code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/google/open-location-code/wiki/Evaluation...</a>

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TazeTSchnitzel大约 4 年前

Over the phone, even “F” and “S” are confusable. The what3words list is too long and has too many uncommon words to be reliably used on phone-calls. And in that case, what's even the point?

nicbou大约 4 年前

I might have missed existing discussion, but what is wrong with GPS coordinates? If digits are good enough for NATO fire missions, they're probably good enough for lost hikers.- They're ubiquitous and do not require a shared codebook. I can find my GPS coordinates on a paper map.- They are easy to transmit clearly regardless of medium, language or accent. Digits are the first words you'll learn in any language. Pronunciation can't be taken for granted [1].- They offer unlimited precision, but 10-12 digits are enough to pinpoint your exact location [2]- They let you see where you stand relative to another person on the same grid. It's a bit like trying to find your friend in Manhattan.- They let you picture where someone roughly is without even looking at the map. You can perform error correction as the digits are being read to you. If someone is off-grid, you can tell immediately. This scene [3] comes to mind - the officer is calling a fire mission in the wrong country, and everyone can immediately tell.Take Berlin - 52.5200 N, 13.4050 E: "Five Two Point Five Two North - One Three Point Four Zero Five Zero East".[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR0lWICH3rY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR0lWICH3rY</a> [2] <a href="https://xkcd.com/2170/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/2170/</a> [3] <a href="https://youtu.be/K9uXLzZyucI?t=87" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/K9uXLzZyucI?t=87</a>

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Traster大约 4 年前

Knowing the history of W3W I'm not particularly keen on them, but I don't think this is actually an incredibly strong criticism of the system. Yes, it's possible to make mistakes with this system, and there are probabilities of the mistaken words putting you in the wrong place - but the odds are fairly low, and it misses one key point: W3W helps you communicate a direction, it doesn't need to be the only method of communicating the location. Taking the River Clyde example - what's the likelihood of you being in either of those locations, and telling people the W3W phrase alone? There's no way you're going to do that. The first thing you're going to say is "I'm on the north bank of the Clyde" or "I'm standing right next to the M8 motorway".The basic way of safely communicating information is very simple - communicate more information so that the receiver can use the consistency of the extra information to check what they're receiving is right. If you're phoning the police and give them W3W, they might mishear - but what's the likelihood they mishear in a way that is consistent with their knowledge about which cell tower your mobile phone is pinging off.

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salawat大约 4 年前

This entire endeavor sounds like a terrible attempt at retrofitting the thinking behind DNS as a physical address scheme. (IP addresses somehow being hard to remember, {but phone numbers never seemed to have that problem} lets use dictionary words [creating a speculation market] instead!) This is such a terrible idea, I can give you it's What3Words address.Total.Charlie.Foxtrot.Like, who is the anticipated audience or userbase? Hopefully not children. Harried adults I'd rather see just use GPS coordinates. If you've got a phone capable of doing these lookups, then you've got both GPS and inertial navigation capability. Things like N/S are going to be implied based on where you're actually calling. If you're crank calling other jurisdictions, please don't. Furthermore, once you've got the operator homing in on grid, then they can provide further detail about your location (sometimes) for further verification.God look after the dyslexics though.

FerretFred大约 4 年前

That was a very interesting read! I've had W3W on my phone for a while now but never really needed to use it. On occasions I'd try finding my W3W in different parts of the house but didn't get reproducible results. Today was an eye-opener though as I used the W3W site to locate my position: all good.Then I mis-typed my words and got a message "Invalid what3words address URL", but instead of not displaying anything it decided to re-locate me some 200+ miles away in The Strand, London, with 3 completely different words! WTF?! I have no idea how this happened, but if I was in an unsafe state and quoted these incorrect words, I'd be in big trouble!

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shoto_io大约 4 年前

What's so interesting: Outside of HN a lot of people I speak to are super-pumped about W3W.On HN the general sentiment is quite negative.I can't reconcile it yet.

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