[OSM-talk] Oxford University use without attribution

[Thomas Wood]

On 10/22/07, Peter Miller <peter.miller at itoworld.com> wrote:
> This is great, but it would be embarrassing for the University and very
> damaging for OSM if the data was vandalised in their patch and appeared on
> the University web site for any length of time.
>
> Scenario: someone fiddles with the data, goes to Oxford University Web,
> checks that their vandalism is visible, takes a screengrab and posts it on
> some blog site and then loads of people follow the link back to the main
> university site and it ends up on the TV news. Far fetched? Possibly not, I
> remember the CIA hack that turned it into the Central Stupidity Agency, and
> someone could do something about as high profile using our maps.
>
> So... is their progress on the system to allow contributors to 'watch' areas
> that they caretake, and an 'undo' for malicious changes? I think we need
> that functionality asap and have a few people watch Oxford.
>
> Personally I keep an eye on central London and on Ipswich and the only
> vandalism I had noticed until recently had been in central London and was
> basically down to a small number of people scribbling across the map area
> which wasn't even visible because it wasn't tagged, but last week I noticed
> that someone calling themselves 'randomjunk' had changed the name of a
> section of Bishopsgate to 'Norton Folgate' (follow link below to see it).
>
> http://informationfreeway.org/?lat=51.520878289225685&lon=-0.081481346760652
> 77&zoom=15&layers=B000F000
>

>From the number of traces in their profile, randomjunk appears not to
be a vandal.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/randomjunk/traces

Also, the name change could be legitimate, Google locates that name closeby:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Norton+Folgate

(I can't claim to know much about central London myself)

>
> (I will sort it out soon if no one gets to it earlier, but I would really
> like to know if they have changed anything else as well)
>
> I think we should make the 'watch' system a high priority if it isn't
> already and make it clear that only places that are 'watched' should be used
> on public sites.
>
> Also, the watchers could then provide a level of confidence for their areas
> as to completeness and accuracy which could also be available to users of
> the maps to help them choose whether to use them.
>

These tools will certainly be required to assist with vandalism in the
future as OSM becomes more well-known.

-- 
Regards,
Thomas Wood
(Edgemaster)