Location, Location, Location

It's not about who you are, but where you are. At least that's what a whole range of location based games might lead you to believe. It's not that many years ago that owning a GPS was for the advanced walkers, sailors or military among us. Now, they are everywhere and various recreational pass times are really benefiting from their prevalence. This article will talk about location based games, including a discussion about the security problems that they can cause.

If you're following the technology curve, you'll have at least one GPS enabled device on your person almost all the time. Most modern SmartPhones have GPS technology as do iPads and surely similar tablets will do too. Ok, well, how true that last statement is we'll talk about in a minute. Let's just assume that our devices know where they are on the planet and leave it at that for now. If our devices know where they are and they almost always have access to the Internet, then it follows that we can download content that is relevant to our current location.

For many people, the most useful incarnation of this is simple mapping software. Using a Google Maps or other similar service based application while out and about is a fantastic experience. As someone who has carried 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 maps around on walk after walk around the wilder areas of the UK, I can attest how useful this tool is on my iPhone. For the pedants out there, Apple may have borrowed the mapping data from Google, but your iPhone does *not* natively run Google Maps. I am constantly reminded of this fact by my friend who works at Google.

It's a great tool in the city too. My phone knows where I am, so why would I need an AtoZ of London? Or Manchester, Edinburgh or Cardiff? Better than just maps of these cities, I can download detailed satellite pictures of where I am looking and overlay the road data. This is truly wonderful when it's working well. If there is sufficient detail in the satellite imagery and it is not too old then it is simply marvellous to be able to see pictures of where you're stood.

Geocaching
Hang on though. That sounds like sensible use for GPS technology. This article was supposed to be about games and fun stuff. So let's talk about Geocaching first of all. From the Geocaching website: "Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache's existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS device can then try to locate the geocache."

I've been into Geocaching since 2006. I was introduced to it by a customer while I was working on site on a firewall install. "What are you doing at lunchtime?" "Nothing, why?" "You're coming for a walk with me then..." I went out for a walk with her that lunchtime into the middle of nowhere armed with her Garmin GPS and a map. I was hooked on the idea immediately. There is something that appeals to the little boy in me that watched James Bond and always wanted to be part of something clandestine. Geocaching is certainly still under the RADAR of most people.

I started heading out to find caches whenever I could. As I travel a lot for work, this meant that I've visited caches from Chester to Milton-Keynes. It was always tricky in those early days however, as I was using a first generation Magellan marine GPS (shown below), a paper map and a notebook with details copied from the website. The co-ordinate references were given in a format that wasn't directly compatible with my GPS, so I had to convert them before I could go hunting.

Good times.

Ok, rubbish times. So bad, i fact that I pretty much gave up until 2010. I found a couple along the way, but mostly this game became dead to me. Now that I'm using my iPhone and iPad for geocaching, the world is very, very different. It's awesome to be able to access the Internet and download information about local caches, while the GPS is far better. Access to 'always on' online mapping technology from Google Maps and/or Bing means that finding a cache is a much better experience.

What do you get out of it? Well, it's true that there is no material gain from it. In fact, it probably costs you money in fuel, a GPS and shoe leather. But if you're a walker already, it can be a great way to find some new spots that you would never have otherwise visited. There are so many caches in a typical area that this game is open to anyone. I've been getting my kids to assist in finding caches, so they are learning about using maps, understanding aerial photos and so on.

FourSquare
Another location based game that I've been playing for over a year now is FourSquare. According to the website "Foursquare gives you & your friends new ways to explore your city.
Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things."

It works by allowing you to 'check in' to locations near to you using your portable GPS enabled device (aka Phone). So for example, I was working for a client in London when I opened FourSquare to take this screenshot:

If I wanted to see more about Gordon's little diner, I could select it. I can find out more information about it, including a location map and tips that others have left about the venue:

If I read some good reviews in the tips section and was lucky enough to be allowed in, I could check in myself:

I'd be rewarded with some points if I went ahead and completed my check in. And perhaps the "Posh Restaurant Newbie" Badge?

Security Impact
The problem with these location based games is that they could be used for nefarious ends. If you know that an individual is three hours from home then you have two and a half hours to go round to their house, rob them and get clean away.

I recall that credit card swipes were being used for this same purpose a few years back. The idea was that someone watching the database of credit card access would have a) the name and address of the holder and b) the location of the last time it was used. These details were found to be being passed to unsavoury individuals outside of the credit card companies by rogue employees. I remember the uproar.

Now, no one would be so stupid as to advertise this kind of information to strangers, would they? Oh. Yes, they would. Because you can link FourSquare (et al) to Twitter and other public messaging systems. It's one thing to use FourSquare within a closed group of friends. It's quite another to publicly broadcast where you are... and where you have been. A FourSquare check-in that is linked to Twitter looks like this:

As you can see, it includes a link to the details of the check-in. This in turn includes a map. So it is possible to check where the check-in occurred and when. This is fine, unless the user also checks in "At Home" each morning and evening. Then it's easy to see where they are, where they live and how far apart these two events are. Add to this the casual tweet: "Stuck in traffic on the M25" and the thief knows that they have several hours to rob the house.

Perhaps it's not robbery that the criminal has on their mind? A stalker or sexual predator could easily use this information to track the whereabouts of an individual over a period before making a strike. These are valid concerns that can be dealt with by ensuring that you follow these steps: