Re: Can You Believe That Online Map Data?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Ted Dolotta" <Ted () Dolotta ORG>
Date: April 7, 2009 10:40:11 AM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>
Cc: "'Lauren Weinstein'" <lauren () vortex com>, "'Robert M. McClure'" <rmm () unidot com 
>
Subject: RE: [IP] Re:   Can You Believe That Online Map Data?
Reply-To: <Ted () Dolotta ORG>

Ah, the law of unintended consequences strikes again ...

Reminds me of an incident a long time ago, when
Woolworth started selling inexpensive wallets that
had a realistic-looking Social Security card with
a real-looking SS number.  Years later, the Social
Security Administration realized that thousands of
people had used that number as their SS number for
their payroll deductions ...

Ted Dolotta

From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 6:38 PM
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Re: Can You Believe That Online Map Data?

Milt Terry was one of the first people I had serious interaction with  
when I arrived at Bell Labs in 1956. Milt was one of the pioneers of  
applied statistics. He was the one that taught me a lot about the  
field. In particular something he said always stayed with me  
throughout my career. That was, don't believe any simulation that you  
don't have a real system to test it against and see if it's simulating  
what you think your simulating.

Dave

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert M. McClure" <rmm () unidot com>
Date: April 5, 2009 5:12:34 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Can You Believe That Online Map Data?

This is actually a very old story.  Many (40+) years ago, I attended a  
lecture at Bell Labs
given by Milt Terry on the subject of preparing data for the FCC for  
the first WATS service.
Bell asked for and received permission to put recorders on the lines  
of a number of large
companies just to record the numbers dialed.  They then analyzed them  
to look at the
statistics of the distances called, time on line, etc.  They were  
surprised to discover that
of the so-called "toll" calls (long distance), a non-trivial fraction  
were for zero distance.

Examination of the data revealed that whoever geocoded the location of  
the numbers
called, when they could not locate the callee geographically, would  
arbitrarily assign the
location of the capitol of the state.  When the caller was also in the  
capitol this resulted
in a zero distance call.  This resulted in, as you can imagine, a lot  
of additional man hours
of work in correcting the data.

Bob McClure
rmm () unidot com

At 12:07 PM 4/5/2009, you wrote:


> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> Date: April 5, 2009 12:33:31 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Can You Believe That Online Map Data?
>
>
>                     Can You Believe That Online Map Data?
>
>                 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000535.html
>
>
> Greetings.  There's an excellent piece in the L.A. Times today
> discussing how geocoding errors can result not only in clusters of
> inaccurate data being displayed within online maps, but also in the
> spread of that bad data to other databases and systems.  Of course,
> all manner of critical factors and decisions concerning services,
> privacy, and so much else can end up being based on such data:
>
> http://latimes.com/news/local/la-me-geocoding-errors5-2009apr05,0,5966285.story
>
> This "garbage in, garbage out" truth should be obvious, but we all too
> often tend to look at colorful online maps and just assume that
> they're accurate.  Yet the underlying assumptions of the mapping
> system designers play a major role in the results when geocoded data
> in particular is in error or cannot be interpreted properly.
>
> A map, like a picture, may be worth "a thousand words" -- but that
> doesn't necessarily mean that those words are always a reflection of
> reality.
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein
> lauren () vortex com
> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
> http://www.pfir.org/lauren
> Co-Founder, PFIR
>   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
> Co-Founder, NNSquad
>   - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
> Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
>   for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
> Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
> Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
> Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
> Twitter: LW1
>
>
>
>
>
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