hillyman

Bet your fun at parties.

powermatt99

Fortunately, we can decide whether or not to use this technology. You get to decide how much other people know, for the most part.

friday1970

Neither did the person referenced in the article. He just happened to be near the area where another person knocked over BLM signs. A twitter person decided the strava user was the culprit based on heat data and then doxxed him.

Because of that article, I've made my Strava much more private. I've got nothing to hide, but no reason to give that info away either, especially to the SJW/Karen crowd.

livedarklions

And there you go with your usual trolling.

What I do for a living often puts me into an oppositional relationship with people of questionable mental health and/or violent tendencies, many of whom live in my immediate home area. You're damn straight I don't care to make my riding habits too easy to find online. As far as security settings, I'm pretty sure I'd screw those up from time to time, and would rather not have to worry about it.

I know there's some risk to riding out in public, there's nothing crazy about avoiding something of very limited benefit that makes that risk any higher.

livedarklions

I get data, I just don't use an app that blasts it out to everyone.

livedarklions

I've had a couple of bona fide stalkers try to hire me to defend them. You'd be amazed how random their obsessions can be.

MattTheHat 

It just doesn't seem like the end of the world to me. If it did, I guess I would worry more about my ride data. The chances of my ride data causing a problem for me is many, many, many times less likely to cause any real danger than the act of riding a bicycle on the road in the first place. And to be honest, I don't worry much about that.

I can think of scenarios where other riders would justifiably feel much differently. But I would think they would have already known that before reading the article.

MattTheHat 

Yep, I can see that. I can also see someone who left an abusive relationship wanting to avoid their data being out there. A few other scenarios too.

We're living in a crazy world, there's no doubt about that.

Riveting

The danger I see from using a tracking app, is that my friends will see how many times (and for how long) I was a slacker when I stopped to rest or just to smell the roses, which is really easy to do now that COVID encourages solo rides.

But seriously, I know that I'll be uploading my ride to the public, so it makes me think twice about viciously laying into someone (rider, driver, or ped) for being a jerk on the road or path (maybe the police should think this way about their body cam footage?). You never know who will try to hunt you down and seek revenge, and the Strava FlyBy (which I intentionally leave enabled) makes it really, really easy to identify me.

Litespud

Hence all this exercise and clean living - I don't want to be just Soylent, I want to be Gourmet Soylent.....

MattTheHat 

After thinking about this a bit more, it occurs to me that I don't have any *need* for my ride data to be public. Even if the additional risk is very minor, it's still there. Why not eliminate it? Strava privacy setting adjusted.

Kapusta

I just don’t see any upside for me to having more of my personal info... in this case my location history... out there in the open, or being collected by a company or government. Only potential downsides.

I need to be getting something of value in return, and I don’t see what value letting others see my rides is really offering me.

livedarklions

That's pretty much how I am with Strava generally--it's big advantage is the ability to compare myself to a lot of people I don't know or care about and for them to compare themselves to me. Really just doesn't bring anything I want. If I wanted my riding to be a social activity, I wouldn't be riding solo all the time.

Also, I just kind of hate the word "kudos". Sounds too much like "cooties".

hillyman

tgenec86

Here's the reality. Simply riding with a smartphone allows you to be tracked. Just ask the rider who was listed as a prime suspect for a home robbery based on the fact that the police had no suspects and used tracking data from a cell tower. The rider had been doing loops in his neighborhood and passed near the house in question multiple times in the general time period when the burglary occurred. It was actually his good fortune he had a GPS computer active because it showed the DA that he never stopped and could not have been the perpetrator. Moral of the story is, between mobile phones, internet devices, camera's, etc... someone, somewhere, knows exactly where you are and what you're looking at. If you don't use a tracking app you're just keeping it out of the public forum. Big Gubment knows. It always knows...

livedarklions

Read the article linked in the OP. The risk they're identifying is that of putting your location data in the public forum. Just because there are other risks is no reason to ignore this one.

CyclingFever

Actually that would be a fun discussion at a party. Before everyone is sloppy drunk of course.

CyclingFever

So you're in a situation where you feel uncomfortable showing your rides online. That's fine. Others are more comfortable. To each his own.

hillyman

Very true. I'm one to think one thing leads to next kind of thing. But Brother BF watching.

Flip Flop Rider

hey, no upload, no ride

mstateglfr 

If someone isnt using Strava for the social side of it, then much(most?) of Strava's appeal is lost.
I could just use my GPS' own website to track data and keep it private.

livedarklions

Exactly!

I use Komoot. Basically, almost no one in the area seems to use it, and it defaults to private.

unterhausen

that's what I decided too, I know cyclists around the world and we have some (albeit limited) contact because of strava.

I think I saw the first person on twitter to identify PW (the wrong guy) and it was clear to me from the picture it wasn't the right person. For one thing, who wears a 20 year old orange MTB helmet if they have a much more recent helmet in their profile pic?

One thing that people probably shouldn't do is have their equipment in their profiles. This may have been the first known issue with strava, thieves.
I don't know if the ride was actually on strava. We don't even know how he was found, it's possible someone recognize him. Twitter certainly didn't mention him at all until after he was arrested. But since he didn't appear to have a gps on his bike, he probably uses a phone, so the ride would have been uploaded automatically. And the default setting is public. So there may not have been any thought about this issue on his part.

billridesbikes

This situation is more like David Eggers’s “The Circle” where the population slowly demands that everyone be surveilled, videoed, and tracked 24/7. Those that refuse are essentially stripped of their rights.

cyccommute 

Just to be clear...and to get this out as broadly as possible...the guy in the article was not the man in the video. He didn’t commit a crime and was only a victim of circumstance.