Recently, the official account of China's Ministry of State Security published an article titled "Military Secrets Leaked — Could It Be Because of This?" It pointed out that even common smart bands and watches — wearable GPS devices — can lead to the leakage of military secrets. The article was somewhat vague: "A leak of military secrets caused by smart wearable devices in a certain country has drawn global attention. At the time, an important piece of military equipment from that country was on a mission. An officer, while jogging, wore a smart sports watch that continuously recorded and publicly shared high-precision GPS data. This led to the exposure of sensitive information, including the real-time location of the military equipment, causing significant and irreparable damage to the country's national defense." It did not specify the exact data source. The author, being curious, searched for the case and found a likely match.
Strava Heatmap Incident
The Strava Heatmap Incident, also known as the "Strava fitness heatmap leak," broke out in January 2018. Strava is a highly popular fitness app among sports enthusiasts worldwide. In November 2017, Strava released a global "heatmap" of user activities. This map aggregated GPS exercise tracks uploaded by millions of users via smart wearable devices. The brighter the area on the map, the more people were exercising there.
In GIS, this is a routine data visualization. However, in January 2018, Nathan Ruser, an Australian university student, noticed a flaw while examining the heatmap: In large cities like those in Europe and America, the heatmap was bright everywhere, showing no anomalies. But in barren war zones or desert areas like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the map revealed bright "isolated islands" and specific routes.
