A Google Maps Glitch Turned This Korean Fishing Town Into a 'Pokemon Go' Haven (vice.com)

Madison Margolin, reporting for Motherboard: A glitch in Google Maps has turned the small fishing town of Sokcho, South Korea, into a Pokemon Go tourist haven. The globally popular mobile game hasn't launched yet in South Korea, but that hasn't stopped clever gamers from finding a way to play it anyways. The city of Sokcho is taking full advantage of it, according to this video by the Wall Street Journal. Because of Cold War era laws preventing North Korea from obtaining maps of the country, the use of Google Maps is restricted in South Korea, the WSJ reports. However, a fluke in the system allows it to work in Sokcho, in the northeast corner of the country, just outside the DMZ (demilitarized zone) between North and South Korea. Sokcho is outside the range of indexing grids that Pokemon Go developers used for mapping restrictions of South Korea and other countries.

Comments

Someone Please Explain The Glitch

[eepok]

The video glossed over it and the article said practically nothing. Some of you probably understand the issue, so here's your chance to earn some points!

Re:Someone Please Explain The Glitch

[gurps_npc]

Certain areas, such as the entire country of South Korea, are legally forbidden from using GPS style location determination. They are afraid an invading army/missile will use it for targeting.

They put a lock on such services based on geography.

But the lock is not perfect, it uses a grid to determine which areas are GPS allowable and which are not.

The grid is supposed to exclude all of South Korea, but a small town happens to be just outside of their grid. So GPS devices work there.

Pokemon Go requires access to your GPS as part of the game (or rather, they designed the game to need access to your GPS so they can get your geolocation for advertising purposes).

As such, you can't play Pokemon Go in South Korea, EXCEPT in that one small village.

Re:Someone Please Explain The Glitch

[pla]

or rather, they designed the game to need access to your GPS so they can get your geolocation for advertising purposes

I would normally agree with you, but PoGo has exactly zero ads in it (not even the voluntary "Watch this short ad for a buff" type so common in Freemium games). Nor, for that matter, have I received a single even remotely spammy email of any kind at the throwaway GMail account I used to register.

Really, no need - People apparently can't throw money at it fast enough. Can't say I quite get it, though... Cute toy, but to have literally doubled Nintendo's market cap in the past few weeks? Wow.

Re:Someone Please Explain The Glitch

[_xeno_]

Some of the Pokestops are apparently paid ads from businesses. (I know that Ingress portals could be paid ads for businesses as well, so this isn't surprising.)

If we're going to talk about this stupid game, might as well mention that apparently their method of monetizing is making it impossible to catch Pokemon after you break a certain level, requiring you to buy "better" Pokeballs for real money or something along those lines.

Re:Someone Please Explain The Glitch

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with GPS or GLONASS. It's because Pokemon Go (like Ingress) uses Google Maps data, and Google Maps data is less specific in South Korea due to national security restrictions. (2, 3, and this Reddit thread about why Ingress doesn't work in South Korea)

Since Pokemon Go features are tied to map data on roads, landmarks, and buildings, and South Korean maps don't have that data, Pokemon Go doesn't work... except in Sochko, which as a quirk of the grid system is exempt from the data granularity restriction.

Re:Someone Please Explain The Glitch

[swillden]

Certain areas, such as the entire country of South Korea, are legally forbidden from using GPS style location determination.

I was in South Korea last month, and played Ingress, used Google Maps, and used Uber, all over Seoul and various areas outside of it (including on a trip up to the DMZ). My phone was definitely using GPS location. Network location is much less precise and your location bounces around a lot. Wifi-based location is quite precise, but only in areas where there are a lot of APs -- which is certainly the case in Seoul, but definitely not the case in outside of it.

So, your statement seems reasonable, but is inconsistent with my firsthand experience.

Re:Someone Please Explain The Glitch

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, Niantic Labs, the company in partnership with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company and a main driver of the augmented reality genre has had previous issues with their games in Korea. This may be roughly linked with Korea’s outdated laws that restrict the use of mapping data as that has in turn slowed down Google Maps ability to gain a foothold within Korea. Users of the Niantic’s other augmented reality game, Ingress, had been complaining for years about playing in a black landscape in a mapless world, voicing their concerns through the use of the hashtags: #map4korea #niantic #blackout.

Source: Gangnam Gamers.

GPS is perfectly legal in South Korea. This is not an issue with GPS. The game does not work in most of the country because the developer implemented a geo-fence. They used a grid system which covered most of the country but missed the far northeastern corner. The geo-fence is the result of their past experience with mapping issues in South Korea. As speculated above, this is likely to be the result of the restrictions on map providers in South Korea. The developer plans to working around the issues and release the game to South Korea.

Someone in the government doesn't get it

[Solandri]

Because of Cold War era laws preventing North Korea from obtaining maps of the country, the use of Google Maps is restricted in South Korea

Erm, preventing the use of Google Maps in South Korea does nothing. For this to have the desired effect, you have to prevent the use of Google Maps in North Korea, or you have to prevent Google from mapping South Korea.

I'm in the U.S. and can browse South Korea on Google Maps. It even has extensive street view photos to help any would-be North Korean spy to learn the lay of the land. So that government policy is doing nothing to prevent North Korea from getting maps of South Korea. All it's doing is preventing South Koreans from using Google Maps (which may in fact be the real purpose).

This is begging for wearable augmented reality

[mark-t]

Google glass was a bust... Hololens, maybe?

Seriously I'm kinda scared

[future assassin]

seeing young/grown adults acting like that towards a video game.

Re:Seriously I'm kinda scared

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "having fun"? Terrifying!

Re:Pokemon GO distraction story again.

[EvilSS]

Fun fact about Google / US Government street view.

License plates are only blurred on client side. Faces too.

Fun fact: stuff you leave out in public view like license plates and your face are not private anyway.

Items as well for Ingress

[sethstorm]

Some sponsored game items:

AXA, an insurance company, sponsors a shield item.
Mitsubishi's financial group (MUFG) sponsors an "interest bearing container" that randomly duplicates items
Softbank, a Japanese mobile phone network provider, sponsors a link booster.
Lawson, a Japanese convenience store chain, sponsors an energy cube booster.

Re:Pokemon GO distraction story again.

[Dishevel]

I think that is horrible that you use facts and logic to tear down the unrighteous indignation that people so love.