Thread: What data to collect?

Just wondered if I can be of help.

I already have a tracking software developed that could be changed to collect the data your after. It already works by internet or wifi and works on an sqllite database.

I found out alot about nmea strings on this site. Hugely helpful.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/mobile...ications1.aspx

One of the key things I found out about was accuracy. Each nmea string has its own variable of how accurate it is so its easy to set a level of accuracy to consider worth collecting or not.

anyway if you need me I'm here and interested.

There's some good info in that article! Thanks for posting!

Originally Posted by Fiberoptic

That is great! Do you have any more details on this?

what details do you want?

You can check it out here

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/gps/...me-server.html

I've been thinking more about this. I concentrated on the issue of privacy because I think to get the large number of people required to get this to work its going to have to be private.

Its possible for me to modify my software so that each user gets an automatically generated user id. Nobody would have any idea who the user was as no personnel details are collected and you don’t have to log onto a site first. This could be like a GUID key. I know its technically possible to trace these but isn’t everything.

I could then get the client (or server) to update the ftp site through a proxy site. That way there’s no tracing of ip’s.

Speed could be sent to the server as a range so >30mph rather than an actual value. These could be the major speed limits so for the uk it would be >30,>60, and 70 of course.

Lastly I could implement a random removal of points that could identify location. I think this last point could be removed over time as more of the map is fleshed out.

I think you’d also need to get the big skin people on board as well. If the likes of DigitalFX , Lsx Void and CF (I know its not a skin) where involved then the distribution would go up hugely (my software has been download <100 times that’s not gong to make for a great map!)

Getting thunderstick interested with his sign recognition software would be a major step on the way as well as nobodies going to be interested in imputing data as they drive.

Originally Posted by lambosprit

I've been thinking more about this. I concentrated on the issue of privacy because I think to get the large number of people required to get this to work its going to have to be private.

Its possible for me to modify my software so that each user gets an automatically generated user id. Nobody would have any idea who the user was as no personnel details are collected and you don’t have to log onto a site first. This could be like a GUID key. I know its technically possible to trace these but isn’t everything.

I could then get the client (or server) to update the ftp site through a proxy site. That way there’s no tracing of ip’s.

These are good ideas! I think they represent a good balance of usability and privacy. If possible, it would be good to allow people to obfuscate their tracks parametrically. Heh-heh. I said parametrically. What I mean is there should be options to share more or less data that can be set by the user. So, one checkbox might be 'only share data after 3 minutes of travel' and the user can set that to whatever he/she wants. Another might be 'don't share data within x miles of this location'.

I wouldn't have too may of these restrictions and maybe just something like a "share a lot of data" or "share less data" setting for users to help them out.

Originally Posted by soundman98

the other issue, while not that big of a deal for me, is that some members would like a link to be added to their signature to show how many tracks they have uploaded. like i said, this is not a big deal for me(i am fine with just a 'mp3car map data contributer' title in my sig). maybe there could be some sort of link that would update with the user upload account that the member could specify.

well we could allow that. It just needs the member to supply their guid to the site. Then the site could show the uploaded miles etc. Kind of an opt in.

Originally Posted by soundman98

i would be happy to contribute as long as the a random data cutoff is used, and there is no personal data connecting me to any specific upload, so i don't have to worry about getting tickets based on my uploaded data.

No probs with that. As I said I think this is the major issue. If people feel safe they'll sign up and give loads of data. If they dont they wont touch it.

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

These are good ideas! I think they represent a good balance of usability and privacy. If possible, it would be good to allow people to obfuscate their tracks parametrically. Heh-heh. I said parametrically. What I mean is there should be options to share more or less data that can be set by the user. So, one checkbox might be 'only share data after 3 minutes of travel' and the user can set that to whatever he/she wants. Another might be 'don't share data within x miles of this location'.

I wouldn't have too may of these restrictions and maybe just something like a "share a lot of data" or "share less data" setting for users to help them out.

Parametrising is not a problem. It could be kept as simple as "I like my privacy" or "I'm not bothered".

The other thought I've had is more people don't have internet in the car than do. I suspect most have wifi though. Do you think we could rely on this or would it be better to have an off line mode , say file and another little app that uploads the data from a desktop. Trying to keep things simple and easy to use here.