How to make Google Maps believe in a non-existent traffic jam

Many people use the Google Maps application to monitor traffic conditions. Google tracks the movement of users using the geolocation function in the smartphone. When the system sees that a large number of users are moving slowly along the road, it automatically assumes that there is a traffic jam in this place and marks the road in red. It turns out that this feature can be used to trick the system.

German artist Simon Weckert has learned how to generate non-existent traffic jams. He simply loaded 99 smartphones into a cart and began to roll them through the streets. As experiments show, the method works. The cart with smartphones, in fact, imitates 99 full-size passenger cars located at the same time in the same place. The fact that the signals come from one point, the system writes off on errors in navigation. As a result, even on an empty road, a traffic jam is displayed in Google Maps.

The funny thing is that this method affects other Google Maps users as well. When the system sees a traffic jam on a section of the road, it automatically starts laying routes in alternative ways. Thus, in several cases, Weckert managed to completely clear the road, ensuring that not a single car drove onto it.

Of course, not all drivers in the world use Google Maps. But it should be understood that this map service is integrated into many applications, such as Airbnb and Uber. “Google Maps has fundamentally changed our understanding of what a map is, how we interact with maps, removed many technological limitations and influenced how maps look aesthetically”, Weckert writes on his website. According to the artist, Google Maps have a huge impact on reality. So, knowing how to manipulate this system, you know how to manipulate reality.

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