Are your database servers somehow encoded?

Question

Looking at workflow on PGC is more than clear that all data accesible via Groundspeak API are cloned to PGC database servers where are they processed to stats, maps, checkers etc.

But if in all these data are also my solved mysteries and multi or wherigo caches with coordinates that I can show on map or share through VGPS it means that in database are corrected coordinates confirmed from more than one source. So are coordinates somehow encoded or hashed ??? Who can access these data ?

Comments

Just a pedantic note encoded in computers usage mean that the information is converted to a specific format like stored a images as a JPG. What you ask for is if they are encrypted

In this case that is likely that the coordinates are in Decimal degrees and stored in a two double (sized floating point value) in the database as that is the format the API and the checkers get.

Hashing is conversion that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to data of fixed size. There is no simple way to convert a hash value to the input and multiple inputs will result in the same hash value. You can use hash values to store password because you dont need to know what they are on the server only that the hash of the the provided password is the same as the stored. For the coordinates you need the real values to use on your maps so hashing is not useful and would provide no extra security it Project-gc could convert them back or would make usage of them impossible if a good cryptographic hash function was used.

Answer 1

By logging into PGC you gave permissions to PGC to read this data (anyway I believe Groundspeak is the owner of this data). The data can not be encrypted nor hashed since you are not providing (and can not provide) any cryptographic primitive/secret that would allow doing so.

I believe it is part of the agreement between PGC and Groundspeak, that these data will not be accessible by other users (unless explicitly shared in VGPS?).

And who can access this data? Anyone with physical access to the servers unless there is some self-destroying military-grade mechanism in place (which I very doubt there is). Then all the people with superuser access to the servers. Clarifying this would be a good idea from PGC side, since it can raise many questions once the VGPS is shareable now.