Technology is fragile. Most of the applications that software developers build today rely on algorithms that take advantage of patterns of everyday life. For example, a hedge fund might hire a software engineer to build an application that tracks cargo ship traffic in order to track market trends. In this instance, Google hires software engineers to build and maintain their mobile application, Google Maps. Which of course has traffic tracking capabilities and alongside directions.
Building applications that rely on patterns of everyday life is extremely difficult since it’s impossible to prepare for every possible use case. If you’re able to discern a pattern from the output of a program, you in a sense have the power to control that program. The video I shared is a great example of this; Simon Weckert was able to figure out that Google Maps used the speed and location of every device using Google Maps in the world to calculate traffic patterns. Weckert was then able to ‘control’ Google Maps by wheeling a wagon full of phones running Google Maps around the streets. Pretty cool!
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