I like getting photos of mushrooms because they’re cool, but I know some people will use this info to collect some edible species.
I have no idea which mushrooms are in danger of this, so I was wondering if I should obscure all mushroom locations?
When I do obscure a location, it would actually be fairly easy to figure out the location if I’ve made an observation at point A a minute before I saw it, and another observation at point B a minute afterwards.
For other species, when I make an observation of, say, a bird, how would I know whether or not its location should be obscured? Especially if i just identify it as ‘birds’ and someone else adds the exact species later.
Are there some species where locations are obscured automatically?
How do you handle obscuring locations for species in danger?
But otherwise, basically just use your best judgment. You can also delay posting your observations or not post at all if something is very sensitive. There are a lot of other threads on obscuration and how to make decisions about it, so you could look through previous forum threads too.
When an observation is obscured, the exact date and time is also obscured. What shows up is the month that it was observed in, but no other information about time. So if you take a bunch of photos during a hike and only obscure one, someone won’t be able to work out exactly when and where on the hike you observed the obscured observation. On the other hand, if that’s the only time you ever iNated in that month, they could guess where you were.
Some species are automatically obscured, particularly species with legal protections in a specific country/state, or ones know to be heavily poached.
Most common edible and desirable mushrooms will have the about tab on the taxa page filled in with the wikepedia article which should tell you enough if you should obscure it. Many mushrooms are edible but not heavily seeked out and if you’re enough of a mycologist buff to know it’s edibility you probably don’t need to use inat to give you specific points to potentially find it, so I wouldn’t bother obscuring most fungi.
That being said, I mostly deal with plants and only have a few fungi observations obscured to protect foraging spots. My usual process get stricter the rarer/ more desirable a plant is.
If it is rare/threatened but locally common and the location can be found from other sources, the observation is obscured but not every other observation from that spot.
If it is a rare/threatened species or habitat I will obscure all observations from that location, but if I have observations from multiple areas many miles apart on the same day I might leave those from other locations unobscured.
My last one is for really rare/threatened species/habitats, I will obscure everything from that day and also set the date to just the month.
I also obscure to keep locations and properties private, I sometimes take pictures while on a clients job site, or to make my tresspassing harder to prove
I do the same thing with my observations of edible mushrooms and rarer species, and its totally okay!
iNaturalist will automatically obscure observations of many taxons if they are at risk of commercial harvesting (example: Psilocybe cyanescens) extinction, or habitat disruption (I’m not 100% on iNat’s policies, but those criteria are the ones I think I know about…)
I’d say that you’d have to be a pretty lame person if you go on iNaturalist sleuthing around, trying to find peoples unsuspecting Chanterelle patches. But, we also live in a world where those people exist, sadly.
I wouldn’t obscure all of your fungal observations though. I’m pretty sure no one is going to go after the spot you found an Inocybe at!
I think it’s really down to preference on this one. If you find something cool that you don’t want any one to really find, then go for it. Mushlove!
I think it may be worth obscuring chaga (that has commercial value and is fairly long lasting and slow growing) but many soft mushrooms are ephemeral and not under a lot of foraging pressure.
I will both post and forage a few species, and I don’t worry about protecting locations. I figure that a certain amount of work (walking and looking) will find you some and given the timing constraints, someone else’s observations are only useful to identify the general season and area, not to lead you to a particular clump.
I do see occasional evidence of someone else harvesting hen of the woods in my areas, but it’s unusual relative to seeing naturally rotted specimens.
I suppose it wouldn’t be good to share exactly how to do this publicly, but there are methods of figuring out where obscured observations are, especially if you make other unobscured posts that day.
Obscuration doesn’t stop a determined user from figuring out the date of the post, in fact it is still possible to see the exact date and time of an obscured post without any complicated workarounds (I just timed myself, and it took 14 seconds on a random obscured observation. Half of that was loading time.). If you upload your observations in chronological order without obscuring anything else it is especially simple to deduce where you were. I’ve tested it - it’s fairly easy, and it has worked hundreds of times. I decided some time ago that the only reliable method of protecting location accuracy is to simply obscure everything and be very careful with what information I reveal publicly.
Recommendations for protecting location accuracy on observations (that don’t involve falsifying data):
Obscure everything from the area, or don’t make any other observations.
Never show landmarks in the background. Don’t upload wide habitat photos.
Don’t upload observations in chronological order.
Avoid observations that hint at a specific location (if you observe a plant that is known from only one spot in your region, for example).
Avoid duplicating observations that were made on “unobscured days” on other days that your observations are being obscured.
Of course, avoid directly giving out compromising information yourself, at least publicly.
obscuring all your observations still doesn’t fully protect the true locations any of your observations. at least right now, the only way to really protect your locations is to never post them in the first place.
Of course, that goes without saying. Any record can be compromised. Even if you never make a physical or digital record of a plant I want to find, I’d probably still find a way to read your mind to get it.
it’s not that any record can be compromised. the issue is that none of your records were ever really protected. all those recommendations you made for protecting locations are like putting all sorts of locks and bars and such on your front door and windows and then leaving your back door unlocked.
Are you talking about data breaches? If someone gets a hold of my iNat data, they’re going to get a lot of really nice parking lot coordinates with huge inaccuracy ranges, if that makes it any better.
Note, that date and time is obscured in the web version but not in the app (I filled a bug report about that) so it is still available. Also, all EXIF data including precise time and location from your photos are saved by iNAT and can be inspected by pressing (i) under the photo. So, you are meant to clean it yourself before uploading.
if you’re recording very imprecise locations as your true locations, that’s similar to my suggestion of not recording locations, and that’s fine when done properly. my issue is with your suggestion that there is anything else that can be done to protect locations if folks are actually recording precise true locations underneath the layer of iNat obscuration.
this is not true if your observation is obscured. this is one of the true protections that iNat’s obscuration feature provides.
Are you able to make recommendations on how to “lock the backdoor?” Is this just a general cryptic warning about putting information out onto the internet? I’m not experienced with computers and code beyond normal use, but I know you are, so if you have anything to add it would be very much appreciated.
there is nothing that you can do to lock the back door in this analogy. the best advice is still simply to not post locations if you need them to be 100% protected. explaining the problems in any detail only helps the bad guys and won’t lead you to better advice than that which has already been provided.
You should only obscure a location if you have a specific reason to – and if you do obscure, try to use the least restrictive means possible. The main problem I run into is obscuromaniacs, who obscure almost everything they report, which defeats the purpose of citizen science and making data publicly available to researchers and others.
For mushrooms and plants, rather than obscuring locations (which also obscures times), consider just using a general or vague location, e.g. an entire park, rather than precise coordinates. This should be sufficient for most fauna as well. Also, if you have concerns, just consider delaying posting your observation rather than obscuring it.
Few birds in your area would be classified as sensitive except nesting or roosting owls or other nesting raptors. And that issue can usually be resolved just by using vague or general locations, as discussed above. So I wouldn’t worry about it.
I should probably do this, too!