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Hi everyone,

Strava’s competitive and athletic features attract cheaters and fraudsters. We constantly encounter cases where segments are completed using cars, motorcycles, e-bikes, and other tricks. What’s even more surprising is that Strava allows uploading any tracks, which are essentially text files with XML markup, without any validation.

To prove my point, here’s an example of a website that lets you “speed up” your own (or even someone else’s) track, making the result indistinguishable from a real activity: https://starva.duckdns.org/

Try it yourself and see—there’s no protection in place. Meanwhile, you’ve disabled FlyBy by default and keep cutting features in the free (non-subscription) version. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on tackling cheaters?

Oh, did you really post that. I can't believe my eyes.

Strava should sue that website for trademark infringement.

Strava should sue that website for trademark infringement.

 

I think it would be cheaper for them to buy this site along with the algorithm.

But the point is different - they don't care about protection against modifications at all.

​@Yurixx What is you proposal how Strava should differentiate between original and manipulated files?

​@Yurixx What is you proposal how Strava should differentiate between original and manipulated files?

They may restrict importing plain text files (e.g., .gpx). They may check uploaded files for duplicates. They may flag activities with anomalous GPS data and exclude the results from segments.

​@Yurixx The last two points are already at work, though with a low success rate. It wouldn’t do much anyway if someone deletes the original activity and doesn’t overly exaggerate the manipulations. For the gpx ban I would think that could be done, but we would have to check first if there are still devices out their where people only have the gpx option for transferring tgheir activities to Strava.

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