I want to contribute more to OSM and I understand that changes need to be authored to prevent abuse. Is there any way to contribute (especially via "on-the-go" clients such as Street Complete) without essentially creating a public trail of my exact movements?

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[–] mapu@slrpnk.net 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You can make it anonymous by creating an account with a different username that you don't use anywhere else and a burner e-mail via SimpleLogin or AnonAddy or 10minutemail. Maybe also a VPN? And in the case of StreetComplete, uploading changesets manually at random times.

There's no way to not make a public trail, that's just how mapping works, but you can make it really hard to trace back to you. You also have to understand that no surveillance capitalism is at play here, there's no actor that will consume this data and use it to feed you ads or content.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

All good suggestions. The risk is more if theoretically someone was to monitor your edits they can work out that someone who lives at this location is suddenly uploading from another so their house is currently unoccupied, etc.

[–] mapu@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

It'd be quite hard to pinpoint your place of abode if you live in a mildly dense area, and you can always avoid doing noticeably more frequent/dense/intricate mapping centered around your house

As I said you can also delay the upload of changesets until you're back from vacation if it's only for a few days/weeks (as well as using different accounts for when you're away)

I also think someone analysing OSM changesets like that would be more trouble than it's worth and there's lower hanging fruit out there

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I agree, still good to have the discussion though

[–] mapu@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago

Definitely! Privacy is a human right

[–] Mex@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

Street complete probably isn't the tool you want if you want to preserve privacy like this, people will be able to know where you have been. There is an option to turn off automatic uploads of answers however that will allow you to wait until a time you're happy to submit your changes, but this does increase the chance of change collisions.

A better workflow may be to just take notes with a GPS enabled voice notes tool, or similar and updating the map with one of the standard editors (ID etc) when you're back home.

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can use the various desktop and mobile clients to add details to areas outside of where you live, even if it's just adding buildings from the aerial views.

As far as Street Complete goes, you can save it for specific mapping days, and go somewhere just to map it. There will still be a record of where you were, but it will be generic. e.g. If you visited Bristol for the day and did a load of mapping, that's not going to reflect your day to day life, or any part of the day that you didn't map 👍

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah that makes sense. It's a shame as I'm really enjoying Street Complete!

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I get that. I've been (very slowly) mapping the valley I grew up in, so I've been pretty much sticking there with Street Complete. I'm not overly concerned about people figuring out where I've been, but I do tend to avoid mapping too close to home. I appreciate that other people have different concerns though 🙂