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Comment by nocoder | Hacker News Reader

Blaming strava is absurd. I am a strava user and privacy setting on all my runs by default is that routes are hidden. I have to manually go and edit the run to make it visible to public. As long as strava used the data available publicly I don't see as their fault. It is ridiculous to blame them. I find the privacy setting on strava clearer than any other social network but if military personnel for the sake of vanity end up posting their run publicly then there is anything strava can do. Even without the routes data released by strava, I can simply hover over iraq or Syria and see the running or cycling routes. This feature actually has been of great use to me while traveling.

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As a Strava user, I have to agree with you here and just say that a lot of the outrage seems to come from people that never used the service. I’ve been using Strava for a couple of years already, and I must say that they are one of the most privacy concerned services out there. At one point I was getting annoyed already at them constantly publishing tips on how to change your privacy settings to stay secure and to make sure that others can’t find out your location and that you know the implications of all the new features that they pushed forward (like flybys, home/starting point and others).

What I find absurd here is the fact that people working in the military or other privacy sensitive fields would actually use a public social network to constantly publish updates on your activities and your precise location. I’m just a random guy that runs and bikes and still don’t let my activities public or only share some with friends. I still find it weird to blame Strava here for something that is so obvious. No matter what platform you use, be it you personal site, Facebook or others, you just don’t share certain things when you know you work in a certain environment.

I agree. If there is an obvious privacy/sharing setting, then it's on the user to make a personal judgement and it's on the military to have a policy and educate their members. Every company offering a sharing service can't be expected to know secret locations and geofence.

Histeria is great for getting eye balls to your content. The newspapers are running with it. I also don't see how it's Strava's fault or even that serious (these places are far from secret with all the satellites nowadays).

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