The Google Maps Android app has more than 5 billion downloads. It’s safe to say that it has at least a few hundred million active users who rely on Google Maps to get around every day or just to get to a new place. Maps can help you get to the fastest route by telling you where you will be facing traffic. However, it is not that difficult to fool the traffic functionality of Google Maps. Artist Simon Weckert shows this by creating fake traffic jams on Google Maps on the streets of Berlin.
How traffic forecasting works on Google Maps
Obviously, Google is not an omnipotent God. It is a technological enterprise that relies on data generated by its users. With so many people using Google Maps, it’s easy for the business to know when a group of users is stuck on a road and is moving more slowly than it should. It could only mean one thing, traffic. So when this happens, Google Maps will make the street red or yellow, depending on the speed at which users move on that particular street or route.
Specifically, it is the mobile phones that Google tracks, not the users. The company has no way of tracking users who are not wearing a cell phone or at least a smart watch. Thus, by analyzing this outsourced data for factors such as the number of vehicles, their speed, etc. Google Maps generates a live map of traffic.
Simon Weckert uses this very functionality of Google Maps to spoof virtual traffic as he transports his cart through Berlin.
Create fake traffic on Google Maps
Imagine someone with a cart full of smartphones, 99 to be precise. All are on and connected, with Google Maps installed. This cart was real and it was actually going around Berlin by someone. This is an experiment by Simon Weckert who posted it on YouTube. According to the video, the phones deceived Google Maps into thinking that there were a large number of users on the streets, moving quite slowly.
Thus, Google Maps assumed that there was a fairly large traffic jam everywhere the cart was traveling, including at the front of the Google office in Berlin. Naturally, the Maps app started to turn green streets into red. Here’s Simon Weckert’s video on YouTube if you want to watch the Google Maps spoofing live.
The way this video is presented does not really inspire much confidence in it and it may be just a ruse. Although Google hasn’t commented on it yet, it puts users in potential danger. It’s not hard to imagine a crazy person planning such a virtual traffic jam hoping that you take another route, where they can probably execute any evil plan they have. Yes, I watch a lot of movies.