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There's a couple of regulations for selling GPS enabled devices in China (I am a software guy on a major PND manufacturer with products being sold in China). -

There's a couple of regulations for selling GPS enabled devices in China (I am a software guy on a major PND manufacturer with products being sold in China). - The map data is scrambled (GPS coordinates are encrypted). - To correlate a GPS position with the map data, you plug the HW position through an encryption library (which you have to compile in a specific government building in Beijing). - Border drawing is strongly regulated: no border line between Mainland China and Taiwan, Tibet is of course China, South East Asia Islands can't have border lines drawn and Kashmir is a big thing also with border lines. - You can't show pure GPS coordinates - You can't include a number or POIs in your map (mostly government buildings/facilities). As a note, India as a certain degree of insanity as well: You can't export a map. Launching a PND there involved shipping a bunch of map technicians there to actually make sure we never got a map outside of India... Cheers, R

andrewcooke 15y ago
so what you're calling scrambling/encryption is actually a transformation? the encryption library transforms the coordinates so that they match the distorted map? what is the advantage of this? couldn't an attacker get a copy of the software? is there some kind of real-time authorisation step so that they can disable the transformation or change it? [edit: thanks; wasn't thinking you thought it a good idea, just curious for more info]
- machinagod 15y ago
  Yes... it's not very hard to reverse engineer. I'm not questioning the advantage (in my view it's a small roadblock if you're motivated enough to actually get the data) just stating an inane regulation...
yaix 15y ago
Everywhere in China you can buy illlegally imported smartphones (cheaper, avoids chinese sales taxes) from Hongkong, all with GPS included.
- jrockway 15y ago
  One country, two systems.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  This makes me wonder if I brought my US Android phone to China to use it as a Wifi tablet device, am I technically breaking the law?
Luc 15y ago
(PND = Portable Navigation Device)
est 15y ago
> Tibet is of course China Do you guys put Tibet as disputed area on like 90% of the maps in the West? Really?
- tokenadult 15y ago
  On most maps published in the West, Tibet is shown as an integral part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, even though plenty of Americans drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers on their cars. That is the GOVERNMENTAL position of the United States at present, that Tibet is part of the territory of China. (Of course historical Tibet includes regions outside the current boundaries of the Tibet Autonomous Region administrative division of China, including most of the territory of what is called Qinghai Province and quite a bit of land in Sichuan Province.) The case of Taiwan is even more confusing. A world globe I have from a decade ago, commercially published by a private business corporation rather than officially published, shows Taiwan and the mainland territories of China in the same color. (Usually this globe distinguishes different countries by different colors.) However, the globe also marks the location of both Beijing and Taipei (so spelled) with a star symbol indicating a capital city, suggesting that Taipei is the seat of a national government. United States law under the Taiwan Relations Act strikes a delicate balance between agreeing with the original assertion of both the P.R.C. and R.O.C. regimes that there is one China and Taiwan is a part of China and the current facts on the ground that China (the P.R.C.) and Taiwan (the island of Taiwan and various outlying islands, including some that historically were part of Fujian Province) are under distinct national administrations. The Wikipedia article on Taiwan independence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence seems to have enjoyed some good editing back-and-forth so that it is not entirely slanted to one point of view or another.
  - mrtron 15y ago
    Here is my perspective on Taiwan grossly simplified. A bunch of Han Chinese moved to the island. The Dutch established a small colony there. Japan took over. Post-WW2 they were given independence from Japan. The pre-communist leader of China moved to Taiwan and took over politically. The KMT party ruled until recently, when Taiwan peacefully transitioned to a democracy and now has two main parties. There is nothing in Taiwan under Chinese control. They have their own government, constitution, military, their own passports that are recognized worldwide, etc. However, there is a looming threat that China will attempt to take over which drives mandatory military service, and tight relations with the US.
danbmil99 15y ago
What this reminds me of is USA's inane attempt to control encryption technology. Every state is used to controlling information, the tech is just moving too quickly for bureaucracies to even respond. I'm sure there are thousands of Chinese engineers with careers transforming map coordinates. You don't want to put these people out of a job, do you? Humans are funny.

andrewcooke 15y ago

so what you're calling scrambling/encryption is actually a transformation? the encryption library transforms the coordinates so that they match the distorted map? what is the advantage of this? couldn't an attacker get a copy of the software? is there some kind of real-time authorisation step so that they can disable the transformation or change it? [edit: thanks; wasn't thinking you thought it a good idea, just curious for more info]

machinagod 15y ago
Yes... it's not very hard to reverse engineer. I'm not questioning the advantage (in my view it's a small roadblock if you're motivated enough to actually get the data) just stating an inane regulation...

yaix 15y ago

Everywhere in China you can buy illlegally imported smartphones (cheaper, avoids chinese sales taxes) from Hongkong, all with GPS included.

jrockway 15y ago
One country, two systems.
georgieporgie 15y ago
This makes me wonder if I brought my US Android phone to China to use it as a Wifi tablet device, am I technically breaking the law?

Luc 15y ago

(PND = Portable Navigation Device)

est 15y ago

> Tibet is of course China Do you guys put Tibet as disputed area on like 90% of the maps in the West? Really?

tokenadult 15y ago
On most maps published in the West, Tibet is shown as an integral part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, even though plenty of Americans drive around with "Free Tibet" bumper stickers on their cars. That is the GOVERNMENTAL position of the United States at present, that Tibet is part of the territory of China. (Of course historical Tibet includes regions outside the current boundaries of the Tibet Autonomous Region administrative division of China, including most of the territory of what is called Qinghai Province and quite a bit of land in Sichuan Province.) The case of Taiwan is even more confusing. A world globe I have from a decade ago, commercially published by a private business corporation rather than officially published, shows Taiwan and the mainland territories of China in the same color. (Usually this globe distinguishes different countries by different colors.) However, the globe also marks the location of both Beijing and Taipei (so spelled) with a star symbol indicating a capital city, suggesting that Taipei is the seat of a national government. United States law under the Taiwan Relations Act strikes a delicate balance between agreeing with the original assertion of both the P.R.C. and R.O.C. regimes that there is one China and Taiwan is a part of China and the current facts on the ground that China (the P.R.C.) and Taiwan (the island of Taiwan and various outlying islands, including some that historically were part of Fujian Province) are under distinct national administrations. The Wikipedia article on Taiwan independence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence seems to have enjoyed some good editing back-and-forth so that it is not entirely slanted to one point of view or another.
- mrtron 15y ago
  Here is my perspective on Taiwan grossly simplified. A bunch of Han Chinese moved to the island. The Dutch established a small colony there. Japan took over. Post-WW2 they were given independence from Japan. The pre-communist leader of China moved to Taiwan and took over politically. The KMT party ruled until recently, when Taiwan peacefully transitioned to a democracy and now has two main parties. There is nothing in Taiwan under Chinese control. They have their own government, constitution, military, their own passports that are recognized worldwide, etc. However, there is a looming threat that China will attempt to take over which drives mandatory military service, and tight relations with the US.

danbmil99 15y ago

What this reminds me of is USA's inane attempt to control encryption technology. Every state is used to controlling information, the tech is just moving too quickly for bureaucracies to even respond. I'm sure there are thousands of Chinese engineers with careers transforming map coordinates. You don't want to put these people out of a job, do you? Humans are funny.