Open letter to Spotter Network

[Skip Talbot]

To me, SN has come off as a service where the users are supposed to feel privileged to use it. Its a responsibility to be trained properly and reporting accurately. I don't disagree with this mentality since the reports are often accepted as official and directly consumed by the NWS. Personally, I could care less if SN reported my speed as well. I speed while chasing, not excessively, usually something like 10 over, and occasionally faster if I'm trying to race a core crossing the road or catch a storm that's pulling away. If that makes me a reckless yahoo, than so be it. At the same time I can see how others are more than concerned about how this data is being used.

It seems like the "spotter elite" mentality that its a privilege to use this system is starting to clash with the larger user base that likes ot use the system for their own personal position reporting. Those running a tight ship are butting heads with the users who disagree with the policies. I think it would be very advantageous for SN to guard its data (but not close it or make it invisible) like it guards the quality of its reports, and take to heart considerations made by its users. Like Danny says, however, perhaps its time for an alternative system that puts the emphasis on the chaser instead of on the system and the quality of reports. It seems many people are more interested in posting their position and chase updates without moderation, as opposed to carefully worded reports.

 

[Darren Addy]

Labeling something "not relevant" does not make it so, nor does labeling posters who don't agree with you "trolls" make them such. Do you always paint with such broad brushes?

May I suggest stepping away from the keyboard, going outside and scooping an old lady's sidewalk or making some snow angels in the park and then perhaps coming back to the subject after the endorphins kick in?

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

A little background information... and I'll try to remove as much bias as possible...

Iowa State's IEM site had an application that collected, archived, and performed some calculations to display a "Spotter Ground Speed Estimator". This application had several admitted issues with its algorithm, and as a result, indicated that many chasers/spotters were breaking the law and driving unsafely. By using the full names with no obfuscation and not excluding the page from web crawlers, it was very possible that a Google search for "<full name> speed" could return this page as the first result. The application was removed last night:

http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/plotting/sn/fe.php?

Ah, I see.

I guess the question that I have is "why are you upset with the makers of Spotter Network over this?" I would have taken it up with ISU IEM, the people who are (were) running the program that offends you. Unless SN was somehow affiliated with them, which, having now browsed over to the other thread, they appear not to be.

If you know where someone is at time A and where someone is at time B, you can calculate the average velocity between those points. This is maths. If you voluntarily report your position and time to the world at fixed intervals, it follows that you are also reporting your average velocity between points. This is unavoidable and the only one to take it up with is God Himself. I can understand Tyler's frustration at trying to explain this as this seems the sort of thing that chasers, who deal with extremely complicated atmospheric sciences, should fundamentally understand.

This whole thing to me is analogous to someone signing up to a service that reports to the world your bank account balance and all expenditures that you make, and then for that someone being upset when a third party creates a program that calculates when you are out of money. There is little reason to be upset because you were already providing this information to anyone who could do maths.

From what I've read over in the other thread, part of what some people are upset about is that the ISU program was allegedly proving inaccurate velocities. I don't know if that's true or not, but that seems like something to take up with the maintainers of the ISU program. The inaccuracies may be due to their coding or it may be due to the inaccuracy of SN, but either way it's not SN's problem as it's not one of the products that they provide.

 

[Andy Jackson]

I think the facts should have been laid out on the first post. Obviously "public" stormtrack was dragged into this... Oh and by the way SN's supplying info is just the tip of the iceburg as far as computing goes this day and age. Big brother is watching LOL.

 

[Jeff Duda]

From what I've read over in the other thread, part of what some people are upset about is that the ISU program was allegedly proving inaccurate velocities. I don't know if that's true or not, but that seems like something to take up with the maintainers of the ISU program. The inaccuracies may be due to their coding or it may be due to the inaccuracy of SN, but either way it's not SN's problem as it's not one of the products that they provide.

This exact issue was taken care of by the disclaimer at the top of the page of the former application: "SpotterNetwork is a community project that brings storm chasers together. The IEM collects the minute interval position reports from this project and archives them. This application uses those reports and attempts to produce time series plots of spotter ground speed. A whole boat load of caveats apply, but the app works well if the GPS data is good! This archive begins 7 April 2010. "

Apparently people are not getting the message from this disclaimer that basically says "this may be wrong". The calculation is based off of very simple average velocities between two points and rounding/binning of time steps is probably the reason for the inaccurate velocities.

 

[mikegeukes]

Web Site mentions

SpotterNetwork - Spotter Ground Speed Estimator
Application has been removed

Mike

 

[Rob H]

Ah, I see.

I guess the question that I have is "why are you upset with the makers of Spotter Network over this?" I would have taken it up with ISU IEM, the people who are (were) running the program that offends you. Unless SN was somehow affiliated with them, which, having now browsed over to the other thread, they appear not to be.

If you know where someone is at time A and where someone is at time B, you can calculate the average velocity between those points. This is maths. If you voluntarily report your position and time to the world at fixed intervals, it follows that you are also reporting your average velocity between points. This is unavoidable and the only one to take it up with is God Himself. I can understand Tyler's frustration at trying to explain this as this seems the sort of thing that chasers, who deal with extremely complicated atmospheric sciences, should fundamentally understand.

This whole thing to me is analogous to someone signing up to a service that reports to the world your bank account balance and all expenditures that you make, and then for that someone being upset when a third party creates a program that calculates when you are out of money. There is little reason to be upset because you were already providing this information to anyone who could do maths.

From what I've read over in the other thread, part of what some people are upset about is that the ISU program was allegedly proving inaccurate velocities. I don't know if that's true or not, but that seems like something to take up with the maintainers of the ISU program. The inaccuracies may be due to their coding or it may be due to the inaccuracy of SN, but either way it's not SN's problem as it's not one of the products that they provide.

Most of us don't know anyone at ISU, but we do have access to Tyler, who stated that he gave ISU explicit permission to use the data in this manner. SpotterNetwork is the content provider and the arbitrator of who can use the data and how.

I voluntarily share my PII in the hopes of enhancing public safety, and take whatever consequences come from that. I voiced my concern that these consequences were starting to shift into an area that I was not comfortable with. I'll be honest, I was not happy with Tyler's response. This thread is the fallout from other people not happy with it.

 

[Jeff Duda]

The most important part of this for me, is that this application used my data that I submitted specifically to help a public safety initiative, to paint myself, and chasers/spotters as a whole, in a negative light and wasn't really that useful of an application. I am not OK with the data being used that way.

What I don't understand, Robert, is why you assume that this former application painted you in a negative light. So it claims you exceeded the speed limit a few times. So what? Does that make you a bad person and label you as anything other than an occasional speeder? All chasers do that while chasing (and I would be willing to bet that nearly every single licensed driver in the USA has exceeded the speed limit at some point while driving, so you're not alone), and the data would certainly not be admissible in court unless you provide it yourself.

Regarding the usefulness of it: I don't necessarily see any significant use of the application myself, but I thought it was fun to peruse. Anyway, if you're going to argue that all useless information on the internet should be taken down, then there goes at least 50% of it. Why this particular application?

 

[Danny Neal]

I don't think it boils down to the program and/or who utilizes the data anymore. Initially yes. But now it seems to have turned more personal. A lot of people I have talked to about the issue are more concerned with the attitude they got from the owner of SN. People are upset with the snark, demeaning nature of the responses they get back. Whether the owner of SN is under a lot of stress and doesn't want to hear it or other people need thicker skin is yet to be determined. I would think though that the number one goal with a service like SN was to be as inviting as possible and not demean and snap at those expressing concerns. Just my observations from hearing what people have said to me. To be honest, snark or not, someone's attitude isn't going to stop me from seeing a tornado and calling it in. Perhaps this issue should be put to rest before things really start getting personal over something that was already removed.

 

[Rob H]

What I don't understand, Robert, is why you assume that this former application painted you in a negative light. So it claims you exceeded the speed limit a few times. So what? Does that make you a bad person and label you as anything other than an occasional speeder? All chasers do that while chasing (and I would be willing to bet that nearly every single licensed driver in the USA has exceeded the speed limit at some point while driving, so you're not alone), and the data would certainly not be admissible in court unless you provide it yourself.

Regarding the usefulness of it: I don't necessarily see any significant use of the application myself, but I thought it was fun to peruse. Anyway, if you're going to argue that all useless information on the internet should be taken down, then there goes at least 50% of it. Why this particular application?

No one should seriously be arguing at this point that this data could be used as evidence in a court case. I don't personally think that site would have been damning to me, but it was *concerning* to me that the SN data was being archived and massaged in this way. Along with that, chasers have a bad enough reputation in the public eye - just read TWC forums or Youtube comments to see what the average Joe thinks about us. Why would I be happy with anything that could weigh negatively on me or my hobby? Logically, this shouldn't really be an issue, but we all know how much of a non-issue the Casey/Wurman drama was, and look at the outpour on other forums and Youtube - and we still ended up drooling all over that topic when it landed on our shores!

I'm also not against putting up useless information, and I admit that this was a neat application (with very limited usefulness). I've said that I would be OK with it staying around with a few small changes (obfuscation of full name, and removal from web crawlers). Throwing in the 50% of the Internet thing is kind of a strawman, but I get your point.

This is how the conversation played out in my mind (in Star Wars terms so we all understand):

Rebels: "Hrm, there's a concern about this personal data and how it's being presented on a 3rd party site."
Empire: "We gave them permission. Deal with it."
Rebels: "Yeah, but we might not be cool with it. Can't you do something about it?"
Empire: "We don't want to, and no we can't. Talk to them."
Rebels: "But surely there are technical ways, and you gave them permission. Surely you could enforce your ToS if you wanted."
Empire: "I find your lack of faith.. disturbing.."

All joking aside, my issue is an organization's response to a privacy concern. Danny makes a good point above. I'm not sure I will feel comfortable with my data in the future, if this is the path that it progresses down.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Once again, ST has proven that rational discussions can't take place without people getting emotional or snarky, or bringing arguments to the table that are not truly relevant or have been discussed up and down before. If no one is going to behave, I suggest we just lock this thread. Of course, that's just my opinion, and I'm sure my supporters will thank me, and my detractors will thank the first opposing opinion in a stunning display of the thanking system's intended use

I dunno, the discussion doesn't seem too crazy in this thread. While it may not be so in your case, I would submit that *usually* when people write open letters to individuals in a public forum or when they publicly ask to be removed from some service (or publicly quit a forum, or say "I'm through with the internet forever!",) they're looking for a sympathetic reaction. You may not have entirely received the reaction that you were expecting, but that's no reason to lock the thread. One of the reasons that I asked for additional information is that you didn't really provide much in your original post aside from the fact that you were really passionately upset; you may as well have been writing to General Electric or your landlord. It seemed less like you wanted a real discussion about the merits of your situation and just wanted a sympathetic pile-on.

While you've made some interesting points about privacy and data security, try to remember that you voluntarily signed up for a service that publicly publishes your positional data for the entire world to see. A data breach requires an implied sense of privacy; Spotter Network is the antithesis of privacy as you are voluntarily offering up positional data for public consumption. That's the entire point of the application. Additionally, you have to opt-in to publishing such data by running the Spotter Network program on your computer and asking it to listen to your GPS unit and you can stop reporting such data at any time by either turning the program off or telling the program to stop reporting positional data. Every time you turn on Spotter Network and tell it to listen to your GPS feed, you are in essence saying "I want anyone in the world to know exactly where I am, where I've been at precise times, and how fast I'm going and was going." This is common sense. I think this is why some are having a hard time feeling outraged for you; in essence, you are saying (to borrow a line from Casablanca) that you are shocked to find that positional data is being reported in here. It's either faux-outrage or it's outrage based on rather incredible misunderstanding of what Spotter Network is and what kind of data it collects and provides to the world.

 

[Rob H]

<words>

But I didn't start the thread... I think you have me confused for someone else

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

But I didn't start the thread... I think you have me confused for someone else

Ah, drat, you are correct! My comments about how the thread was started, the implied need for sympathetic outrage, and the inability to understand what Spotter Network is for are directed at Wes, not you.

I guess this entire topic just baffles me. Much of the passionate outrage I've seen in this thread and others I've had a hard time registering as genuine; it seems like one would have to be incredibly willfully ignorant to not realize that a full-time public-facing geo-locational reporting service isn't "private". Combine that with the fact that this started in a private forum and was rather perplexingly re-started as an open letter in a publicly-indexed forum (along with a call to arms on Facebook), and it starts to feel like people finding pretenses to re-ignite old rivalries. Of course, I have no idea (I'm pretty ignorant of past chaser drama), but if people were thinking logically this topic wouldn't exist.

 

[Rob H]

Ah, drat, you are correct! My comments about how the thread was started, the implied need for sympathetic outrage, and the inability to understand what Spotter Network is for are directed at Wes, not you.

I guess this entire topic just baffles me. Much of the passionate outrage I've seen in this thread and others I've had a hard time registering as genuine; it seems like one would have to be incredibly willfully ignorant to not realize that a full-time public-facing geo-locational reporting service isn't "private". Combine that with the fact that this started in a private forum and was rather perplexingly re-started as an open letter in a publicly-indexed forum (along with a call to arms on Facebook), and it starts to feel like people finding pretenses to re-ignite old rivalries. Of course, I have no idea (I'm pretty ignorant of past chaser drama), but if people were thinking logically this topic wouldn't exist.

The only way you can win is by not playing the game I guess - that goes for posting in this thread and sharing your information on the Internet.

I don't think people realize how much of their data is floating around on the Internet, and to see a proof of concept like this was eye-opening for some. Keep in mind that this discussion has been carried on in emails, phone calls, on Facebook, in ST chat, in ST private messages, two threads on ST, and one thread on SN - so there has been some build up to this point.

Let me ask an honest, albeit hypothetical question: how would any of you feel if I harvested SN data and sold it to marketers or worked as an insurance adjuster and found some way to gain from your information? The privacy policy and the ToU make it sound like the data is primarily intended only for NWS/EMS/etc. use and due to implementation limitations the feed ended up being public. Where is the line drawn? Why should it even be an issue if I just want to report a tornado that's about to hit a town?

If the initial response from SN had been more open, I honestly don't think this issue would have gotten as far as it has. This whole issue could have been as simple as "This is kind of a a concern, what can be done" and "I'll look into it, thanks for the feedback", but it didn't play out that way for whatever reason.

Btw, having a call to arms about privacy issues on Facebook is irony of the highest degree

 

[Darren Addy]

But I didn't start the thread... I think you have me confused for someone else

Yeah. You have him confused with the guy who started this thread. Completely different forum, topic, and poster. Well, forum anyway.