Listing obscured observations ordered by observed date

[trscavo]

In the last year or so, obscured observations have been substantially hardened (i.e., made more obscure) but there’s at least one flaw in the process that allows the location of an obscured observation to be interpolated. I suspect this is a known bug. If so, please direct me elsewhere.

For example, suppose you make a bunch of observations in a single day, but only one of those observations has an obscured location. Using the Explore tool, list all of the observations, ordered by observed date. The observation with the obscured location will appear in the correct position, that is, between the two observations closest to it in time. The location of the obscured observation is now easily interpolated from the locations of its nearest neighbors.

Apart from obscuring the locations of ALL observations, is there a workaround that plugs this hole?

[thomaseverest]

Not sure if this is a big deal or not, but here is a staff response to a similar post:

Please don’t discuss detailed strategies here. If you can edit your post, that would be great

As noted before, these changes are designed to make it more difficult and the opportunity cost higher. No one here as said they’re foolproof.

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/obscuring-observations-now-obscures-the-date-of-comments-and-ids/24929/35

[jdmore]

I went ahead and unlisted this topic for now, due to the concerns that Thomas noted. You can still reply, but it’s not publicly visible.

[kevinfaccenda]

I had messaged kueda about this before, and while making coordinate interpolating more difficult is on the staff’s TODO list, it is not an urgent priority. The solution is to make a new randomized, obscured date, such as how is done for the obscured coordinates.