Drift Diary: An app for Continuous Cruisers to log and prove their distance travelled

[Higgs]

1 minute ago, magnetman said:

You can do limited welding with a battery these days. 

 

Could they do 'limited' paintwork jobs after. ? Or, run very fast.

 

 

[magnetman]

https://www.wellyweld.com/products/fronius-accupocket-150-240v-battery-welder-73067.aspx

 

 

[enigmatic]

18 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

They could carry portable welding units and weld one onto every boat not showing a licence...

 

I did actually meet a couple of Irish chaps whose job was to surreptitiously attach transponders to trucks they suspected were carrying cargo places it shouldn't be taken.

 

A lot of the time they just chucked a cheap mobile phone in the back

 

13 minutes ago, IanD said:

Have you actually looked into what AI image generation can do nowadays?

 

 

I got StableDiffusion to draw me some narrowboats recently

 

It's stopped weirdly fusing them with narrowbodied aircraft, but the results still aren't going to pass for actual narrowboats, never mind NB Kingfisher near Bridge 34 on the Popular and Busy Canal, what3words location boat.wasn't.there

 

13 minutes ago, IanD said:

I was proposing that an app like this could make it no longer necessary to have manual boat spotters roaming the system, or trying to recognise where photos were taken, so the money saved could be spent on better things like fixing locks. That means using modern image recognition technology (yes, AI again!) to match the photo with a stored database for that boat, and read the registration number. No manual intervention needed except in the case of a dispute, which would be only a tiny fraction of cases -- for the vast majority of CCers software can check and verify their travels.

I think once OCR and digital chain-of-custody is introduced into the app it becomes a £xxx,xxx per annum contracted thing licensed to CRT rather than an interesting side project! Not sure how good OCR is at handling number plates at oblique angles through windows or fancy signwriting either

Edited August 1, 2023 by enigmatic

[magnetman]

1 minute ago, Higgs said:

 

Could they do 'limited' paintwork jobs after. ? Or, run very fast.

 

 

I don't think anyone is going to be doing any running after being welded to a boat. 

 

 

[rusty69]

1 hour ago, Hudds Lad said:

Sadly, it's by Russell Brand

 

"People do this a lot. They don't seem to realise that the future is just like now, but in a little while, so they say they're going to do things in anticipation of some kind of seismic shift in their worldview that never actually materializes. But everything's not going to be made of leather, the world won't stink of sherbet. Tomorrow is not some mythical kingdom where you'll grow butterfly wings and be able to talk to animals -- you'll basically feel pretty much the same way you do at the moment.

RUSSELL BRAND

My Booky Wook"

Thankfully I have never had the misfortune to read 'My booky wook'. 

[Tasemu]

3 minutes ago, IanD said:

Have you actually looked into what AI image generation/deepfaking can do nowadays? 😉

 

Trying to identify where a picture was taken *from the picture* is not only relatively difficult (maybe needing locals who recognise the area -- but this isn't easy...) but pointless for location logging, since the GPS data says *exactly* where the photo was taken.

 

I was proposing that an app like this could make it no longer necessary to have manual boat spotters roaming most of the system, or trying to recognise where photos were taken, so the money saved could be spent on better things like fixing locks. That could mean using modern image recognition technology (yes, AI again!) to match the photo with a stored database for that boat, and read the registration number. No manual intervention needed except in the case of a dispute, which would be only a tiny fraction of cases -- for the vast majority of CCers software can check and verify their travels.

 

Yeah totally get what you were proposing and it would be awesome, i do hope that it has nothing to do with me though haha. And you're right you could totally use an LLM to to match boat photos and places. I do work with LLM's in my day to day though haven't been involved in the actual training of said models. From my experience interfacing with these models i agree that it would be viable to have an LLM recognise your boat and the area it is in, but not so viable for an LLM to create a fake image that would be visually convincing for a particular boat in a particular place.

I think i had got your previous response backwards in my head and thought you meant a black market using LLM's to generate fake pictures of your boat in certain places on the canal and then injecting geolocation meta tags into the image.

[Hudds Lad]

1 minute ago, rusty69 said:

Thankfully I have never had the misfortune to read 'My booky wook'. 

Me either, i just googled the quote  

[magnetman]

4 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Thankfully I have never had the misfortune to read 'My booky wook'. 

Me neither but I did have the misfortune to be in very close proximity to the irritating [word removed] as was moored a few hundred yards down from his 4 million pound house by the Thames near Henley. Arrogant person. 'anti capitalist' with a £4m house? Oh yeah? Go away ! 

 

I saw it written on a wall but yes it probably does come from that idiot which is sad. 

 

I was quite shocked to find he has several million viewers on his endlessly vacuous youtube chanel. I suppose there is a market for this trash.

Edited August 1, 2023 by magnetman

[IanD]

1 minute ago, enigmatic said:

 

[snip]

 

I got StableDiffusion to draw me some narrowboats recently

 

It's stopped weirdly fusing them with narrowbodied aircraft, but the results still aren't going to pass for actual narrowboats, never mind NB Kingfisher near Bridge 34 on the Popular and Busy Canal, what3words location boat.wasn't.there

 

I think once introducing OCR and digital chain-of-custody is introduced into the app it becomes a £xxx,xxx per annum contracted thing licensed to CRT rather than an interesting side project! Not sure how good OCR is at handling number plates at oblique angles through windows or fancy signwriting either

 

All you need for verification is a face-on photo of the side of the boat showing the name and number -- it's not a pretty boat-in-canal-landscape photo, it's one taken specifically to prove where you are. Character recognition is trivial in this case, even phones do it all the time.

 

To improve security further, you also get the app to verify that the phone taking the photo belongs to the boat owner by having it registered to them in the system -- this is what all two-factor authentication systems routinely do nowadays. Software to do all this already exists and is relatively cheap to buy, which is why so many banks and online merchants use it. There's absolutely no reason CART couldn't do the same, and it wouldn't cost the fortune you're suggesting.

 

Far mode difficult authorisation/verification problems than this are solved millions of times per day by a vast number of businesses... 😉

[enigmatic]

2 minutes ago, IanD said:

All you need for verification is a face-on photo of the side of the boat showing the name and number -- it's not a pretty boat-in-canal-landscape photo, it's one taken specifically to prove where you are. Character recognition is trivial in this case, even phones do it all the time.

 

To improve security further, you also get the app to verify that the phone taking the photo belongs to the boat owner by having it registered to them in the system -- this is what all two-factor authentication systems routinely do nowadays. Software to do all this already exists and is relatively cheap to buy, which is why so many banks and online merchants use it. There's absolutely no reason CART couldn't do the same, and it wouldn't cost the fortune you're suggesting.

 

Far mode difficult authorisation/verification problems than this are solved millions of times per day by a vast number of businesses... 😉

 

Sure, my point was that coming up with a digital chain of custody solution for CRT isn't really a hobby project like a photolog is, and Andy Russell signwriting isn't optimised for OCR!

 

And whilst the components may just be libraries stitched together, anybody that pitches CRT a custom app to save them the job of hiring several enforcement officers for less than £xxx,xxx per annum is underselling themselves, and has vastly underestimated the number of meetings they'll have to sit through to deliver it  

[IanD]

18 minutes ago, Tasemu said:

 

Yeah totally get what you were proposing and it would be awesome, i do hope that it has nothing to do with me though haha. And you're right you could totally use an LLM to to match boat photos and places. I do work with LLM's in my day to day though haven't been involved in the actual training of said models. From my experience interfacing with these models i agree that it would be viable to have an LLM recognise your boat and the area it is in, but not so viable for an LLM to create a fake image that would be visually convincing for a particular boat in a particular place.

I think i had got your previous response backwards in my head and thought you meant a black market using LLM's to generate fake pictures of your boat in certain places on the canal and then injecting geolocation meta tags into the image.

 

It might well not be your app, for the time being this could be used as you intend to help verify where a boat has been in case of a dispute.

 

But I think it would rapidly become obvious to CART where this could go, either with a similar app of their own or maybe by buying/licensing yours -- this is how many app writers have made money in the past... 😉

 

Your last line is exactly what I meant, it's no different to deepfakes putting politicians heads on pornstar bodies -- someone takes a photo of their boat at a given location and time, then the boat image (face) is swapped over. Though if the tags can be edited you don't even need to do this, just take loads of photos of your boat and hack the tags anyway...

 

All this can be avoided if only photos taken within the app are used for location verification, and the metadata includes the phone model/IMEI/SIM data which is registered to the boater -- this is how remote access authentication works.

 

It all depends whether you want to do all this or just have a "digital diary" application. If you want people to be able to use it to show where they were and when for CC verification -- and avoid a response from CART of "this can easily be faked" -- then this needs more security.

 

Because sure as eggs is eggs, if it can be relatively easily spoofed and used to convince CART, this is *exactly* what some CMers will do... 😞

 

1 minute ago, enigmatic said:

 

Sure, my point was that coming up with a digital chain of custody solution for CRT isn't really a hobby project like a photolog is, and Andy Russell signwriting isn't optimised for OCR!

 

And whilst the components may just be libraries stitched together, anybody that pitches CRT a custom app to save them the job of hiring several enforcement officers for less than £xxx,xxx per annum is underselling themselves, and has vastly underestimated the number of meetings they'll have to sit through to deliver it  

 

It doesn't have to be that to start off with, but it could easily become that. Many app writers have made money that way... 😉

 

P.S. Signwriting doesn't need OCR, reg. no does and these are usually pretty clear for obvious reasons...

Edited August 1, 2023 by IanD

[rusty69]

14 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Me neither but I did have the misfortune to be in very close proximity to the irritating [word removed] as was moored a few hundred yards down from his 4 million pound house by the Thames near Henley. Arrogant person. 'anti capitalist' with a £4m house? Oh yeah? Go away ! 

 

I saw it written on a wall but yes it probably does come from that idiot which is sad. 

 

I was quite shocked to find he has several million viewers on his endlessly vacuous youtube chanel. I suppose there is a market for this trash.

I can not think of a more irritating person than Russell Brand. But good luck to him If he can sell Brand Russ (see what I did there) and make a fortune spouting the rubbish that he does. 

[enigmatic]

2 minutes ago, IanD said:

It doesn't have to be that to start off with, but it could easily become that. Many app writers have made money that way... 😉

I agree with this bit  

 

Chuck a wad of cash in my direction and I'll throw in a lawyer who can prove if a boat was or wasn't where the photo claims it was using satellite imagery (reason number 99 why spoofing wouldn't work if CRT were remotely suspicious) and lessons learned from hideously expensive and ludicrously simple apps used in fishing regulation...

 

 

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I agree with this bit  

 

Chuck a wad of cash in my direction and I'll throw in a lawyer who can prove if a boat was or wasn't where the photo claims it was using satellite imagery (reason number 99 why spoofing wouldn't work if CRT were remotely suspicious) and lessons learned from hideously expensive and ludicrously simple apps used in fishing regulation...

 

 

Up-to-date high-resolution satellite imagery isn't cheap, and despite what TV shows depict it can't read a numberplate from orbit -- the best it could do is show that *a* boat was there at some time. Given the number of boats moored on popular spots, this wouldn't be much use... 😞

Edited August 1, 2023 by IanD

[rusty69]

21 hours ago, Tasemu said:

I am seeking volunteers from this group to participate in the first round of closed alpha testing for Drift Diary. This would involve using the app and providing feedback on any issues you encounter and your overall experience.

So as to not appear to be totally off topic on the whole thread, may I ask how many people you are seeking from this group, and how many have come forward to offer to participate since you posted this thread. Also whether you are asking elsewhere, and if so, what total number are you after?

 

Thankyou.

 

Appologies if this has already been asked.

 

Thank you again.

[magnetman]

Signwriting v index number plate is interesting. 

 

Is it not part of licensing requirements to display the actual number plate ? 

 

Boats are not cars (well some are but it is very rare) but BW/The CRT issue difficult-to-forge pressed number plates for larger boars.

 

On cars you are not allowed to paint the number on and fonts are regulated (unless you are a scrote or drug dealer). 

 

So is it in the licensing requirements to display the number or the number plate?

[enigmatic]

13 minutes ago, IanD said:

Up-to-date high-resolution satellite imagery isn't cheap, and despite what TV shows depict it can't read a numberplate from orbit -- the best it could do is show that *a* boat was there at the time. Given the number of boats moored on popular spots, this wouldn't be much use... 😞

If you can prove a boat wasn't there (or that it was an approx 20ft cruiser, not an approx 50ft narrowboat) on one or two cases you've proved they've faked the data. You can probably get that far with free Copernicus data, and CRT probably know who in their enforcement process is obviously lying for a whole bunch of other reasons, like regular complaints about that boat mooring on a service point and faking a progressive journey through places you've never been past enforcement officers and bookable structures you're unaware of being really hard...

 

Faking data well is a lot harder than ringing up with an excuse, and a lot harder to defend in court than "honestly, when I told them that I went all the way to Hungerford that month I was just confusing it with another month"

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by enigmatic

[IanD]

1 minute ago, magnetman said:

Signwriting v index number plate is interesting. 

 

Is it not part of licensing requirements to display the actual number plate ? 

 

Boats are not cars (well some are but it is very rare) but BW/The CRT issue difficult-to-forge pressed number plates for larger boars.

 

On cars you are not allowed to paint the number on and fonts are regulated (unless you are a scrote or drug dealer). 

 

So is it in the licensing requirements to display the number or the number plate?

The number, signwritten on is very common.

[magnetman]

I know but I was wondering what the actual requirement is. 

I was just wondering why they would bother supplying proper index number plates if there was no obligation to display them. 

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, magnetman said:

I know but I was wondering what the actual requirement is. 

I was just wondering why they would bother supplying proper index number plates if there was no obligation to display them. 

AFAIK CART only supply proper metal plates for new boats if you pay £20 to pre-register the boat to get the number (so you can have it signwritten on...), like I did. If you just buy a license you don't get any nowadays.

 

So those who have them probably aren't going to use them, and those who might well use them don't have them... 😞

Edited August 1, 2023 by IanD

[StephenA]

18 hours ago, David Mack said:

If its not running continuously it would need a canalplan type route finding function to fill in the route in between, and occasionally that would find the wrong route.

 

When I was playing around with tracking for Canalplan I found that quite often if the phone had problems with getting a solid location from GPS (which happens more often than you'd expect) then it fell back to the cell towers and you could find yourself bouncing all over the place -  so you have to start doing clever filtering of location data to exclude any sudden wild changes .

 

I have an old Galaxy S8+ which has done 3km this morning just sitting on the coffee table in my living room.

 

52 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

Your last line is exactly what I meant, it's no different to deepfakes putting politicians heads on pornstar bodies -- someone takes a photo of their boat at a given location and time, then the boat image (face) is swapped over. Though if the tags can be edited you don't even need to do this, just take loads of photos of your boat and hack the tags anyway...

.

 

 

Or just spoof your location - plenty of tools available to do that - some you can even feed a route to. So maybe people could start selling tracks of their routes to people who want to avoid CRT enforcement.

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by StephenA

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, StephenA said:

 

When I was playing around with tracking for Canalplan I found that quite often if the phone had problems with getting a solid location from GPS (which happens more often than you'd expect) then it fell back to the cell towers and you could find yourself bouncing all over the place -  so you have to start doing clever filtering of location data to exclude any sudden wild changes .

 

I have an old Galaxy S8+ which has done 3km this morning just sitting on the coffee table in my living room.

 

GPS receivers do this internally anyway since individual location readings bounce around, especially in poor signal areas with lots of reflected signals. They use complicated filtering with different modes depending on what the signal is like (poor=more filtering) and can even try and identify whether you're walking/cycling/driving to try and stop the location/speed readings doing impossible things -- though there's never been a "narrowboat mode" AFAIK. Then combine this with a mapping application like Google Maps (or Canalplan?) which do similar things and you get into features like snapping-to-roads if you're a car but not a pedestrian, which can cause all kinds of amusing antics when it gets this wrong... 😉

 

(I was responsible for the design of a GPS chipset many years ago, and there are all sorts of funky things going on under the surface that users are blissfully unaware of...)

Edited August 1, 2023 by IanD

[MtB]

58 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I can not think of a more irritating person than Russell Brand. But good luck to him If he can sell Brand Russ (see what I did there) and make a fortune spouting the rubbish that he does. 

 

Boris Johnson?

 

Although granted, it's a close-run thing...

 

 

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

Boris Johnson?

 

Although granted, it's a close-run thing...

 

 

Who? 

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Who? 

 

That bloke on "Have I Got News For You?" Made everybody laugh and they all loved him for it. Surely you remember?

 

Some crazies even said he'd make a good Prime Minister but I was never so sure. I dunno what became of him.