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

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.