Trap Street(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Trap Street
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street
29 comments
Related: (are there others?)
Trap Street - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17738847 - Aug 2018 (21 comments)
Trap street - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992748 - Jan 2013 (22 comments)
South Pacific Sandy Island 'proven not to exist' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4818584 - Nov 2012 (46 comments)
Not a Word: The story of Lillian Virginia Mountweazel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1504126 - July 2010 (10 comments)
Trap Street - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17738847 - Aug 2018 (21 comments)
Trap street - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992748 - Jan 2013 (22 comments)
South Pacific Sandy Island 'proven not to exist' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4818584 - Nov 2012 (46 comments)
Not a Word: The story of Lillian Virginia Mountweazel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1504126 - July 2010 (10 comments)
Why do maps show places that don't exist [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35769492 - May 2023 (1 comment)
I spent a number of years in mapping, global reconcillation of pre-WGS84 ellipsoids and datums with post GPS unification, national mapping projects etc.
There are many map arcana tales, yet another reason for "trap streets" - fake data infill, is to realistically fill voids left by top secret classified national security areas.
The UK Ordnance Survey famously produced rich detailed maps across all of the United Kingdom .. save for blank voids over naval shipyards, weapons testing, secret nuclear bunkers, etc . . .
Eventually somebody cottoned onto the reason these voided areas became magnets for Russian agents - nothing signified something of great interest.
There are many map arcana tales, yet another reason for "trap streets" - fake data infill, is to realistically fill voids left by top secret classified national security areas.
The UK Ordnance Survey famously produced rich detailed maps across all of the United Kingdom .. save for blank voids over naval shipyards, weapons testing, secret nuclear bunkers, etc . . .
Eventually somebody cottoned onto the reason these voided areas became magnets for Russian agents - nothing signified something of great interest.
> The UK Ordnance Survey famously produced rich detailed maps across all of the United Kingdom .. save for blank voids over naval shipyards, weapons testing, secret nuclear bunkers, etc
The US/UK BMEWS station at Fylingdales in North Yorkshire used to be omitted from OS maps. Utterly pointless as there were three huge 40m+ high radomes on the site, which was next to a main road.
The US/UK BMEWS station at Fylingdales in North Yorkshire used to be omitted from OS maps. Utterly pointless as there were three huge 40m+ high radomes on the site, which was next to a main road.
A natural spot to shout out Map Men on YouTube. [1]
[1] https://youtu.be/DeiATy-FfjI
[1] https://youtu.be/DeiATy-FfjI
I can't find it now (so it may be an apocryphal story), but an Australian man went to one of these places, didn't find it and decided to set up shop.
It was already on the map, so he figured that it might as well actually exist.
It was already on the map, so he figured that it might as well actually exist.
When you want to sell your data because it's so valuable people will pay money for it...
But you don't want people to copy it, so you fill it full of garbage.
It's a bit like Walmart adding a little bit of sewage to their consumer goods so people are less likely to shoplift. Don't worry, the baby formula only has 3 grams of human fecal matter in it!
But you don't want people to copy it, so you fill it full of garbage.
It's a bit like Walmart adding a little bit of sewage to their consumer goods so people are less likely to shoplift. Don't worry, the baby formula only has 3 grams of human fecal matter in it!
It's more an equivalent of a RFID tag. Sometimes placed in the middle of a printed page of a book, or irremovable in other ways so others are wondering whether you actually bought the item, but oh well...
Is this concept living in the age of satellites? What is a moral side of doing map which is not going to work in 0.0001% case?
There's a subtle art to telling geographic lies that ultimately don't matter. Overpasses which go over a few extra dead ends on paper but miss in reality. Any underground passageway is easy simple to fudge so long as it connects the right ends. An extra footpath in a cemetery full of of winding unmarked footpaths. A spare non-public road in a closed off industrial facility. So many ways
> Is this concept living in the age of satellites?
It is even worse in the age of Digital Rights Management were you buy something and do not own it. A fake detour in a map with hundreds of thousands seems mild in comparison.
It is even worse in the age of Digital Rights Management were you buy something and do not own it. A fake detour in a map with hundreds of thousands seems mild in comparison.
Isn't this bad for travellers who use maps to navigate ?
Not sure about you, but I always assume physical paper maps arent like 100% perfect and exaggerate on detail, I can't remember when in school I was taught this, but I since learned not to blindly trust maps, they're mainly good for a rough ballpark (INSANELY GOOD BALLPARK!).
That depends wildly. What you described is known as quasi geographical, which basically amounts to "its ok to stretch features but not beyond recognition depending on the purpose of the map". If you're looking at a street map, you mostly care that all the joints are connected as depicted, not that the distances depicted between each corner are truly correct down to some precision. That tourist highway map in the gas station, they mostly need to see where the roads go and some additional markers to have a visual reference for where to turn and what to look for. No one is bothered by making those roads curve a bit more or go at a slightly wrong angle in order to fit more map on the page. Just don't try to use your street map for geological surveys, and don't try to use your subway map as a street map.
When I was growing up, someone told me that a printed map is out of date before the ink dries.
That's a really good point! I like that.
Isn't this similar to the concept of Paper Towns?
It's tangentially related to paper streets - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_street
I read a nice book over summer - The Cartographers - which was based around that concept
Similar concept behind https://www.oreillyauto.com/flux-capacitor
There's a fun read that centers around this! The Cartographers is really good (if you don't mind a couple of unfilled plot holes)
I understand fake names and phone numbers are included in phone books for the same reason.
Also dictionaries.
> In August 2005, The New Oxford American Dictionary gained media coverage when it was leaked that the second edition contained at least one fictional entry. This later was determined to be the word "esquivalience", defined as "the wilful avoidance of one's official responsibilities", which had been added to the edition published in 2001. It was intended as a copyright trap, as the text of the book was distributed electronically and thus very easy to copy.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
> In August 2005, The New Oxford American Dictionary gained media coverage when it was leaked that the second edition contained at least one fictional entry. This later was determined to be the word "esquivalience", defined as "the wilful avoidance of one's official responsibilities", which had been added to the edition published in 2001. It was intended as a copyright trap, as the text of the book was distributed electronically and thus very easy to copy.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
Not to be confused with a trap house.
Edit: okay, downvote me, but English is absurd sometimes. Imagine trying to teach a person who doesn't know English at all, from first principles, the extreme difference between a trap street and a trap house in common USA slang vernacular.
Edit: okay, downvote me, but English is absurd sometimes. Imagine trying to teach a person who doesn't know English at all, from first principles, the extreme difference between a trap street and a trap house in common USA slang vernacular.
> Trap streets are not copyrightable under the federal law of the United States. In Nester's Map & Guide Corp. v. Hagstrom Map Co. (1992), a United States federal court found that copyright traps are not themselves protectable by copyright. There, the court stated: "[t]o treat 'false' facts interspersed among actual facts and represented as actual facts as fiction would mean that no one could ever reproduce or copy actual facts without risk of reproducing a false fact and thereby violating a copyright ... If such were the law, information could never be reproduced or widely disseminated."