how to find zone from user location?

[HimanPH]

I am working on a project of carpooling platform in which sensitive data such as location details will be encrypted. So in order to match the driver and the passenger, we have devised a concept of Zone in which a unique zone id is provided to each zone(area). We have the latitude and longitude of the user but we are not able to figure out how to formulate zones and map car owners and passengers... Any suggestions will be of great help

[1715023727]

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[1715023727]

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[1715023727]

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[1715023727]

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[saerlingen]

I am working on a project of carpooling platform in which sensitive data such as location details will be encrypted. So in order to match the driver and the passenger, we have devised a concept of Zone in which a unique zone id is provided to each zone(area). We have the latitude and longitude of the user but we are not able to figure out how to formulate zones and map car owners and passengers... Any suggestions will be of great help

I have very little knowledge of longitude/latitude, but i think you can specify zones using longitude/latitude also.

I.e if user latitude is between 20-30 and longitude is between 15-20 then you can derive that they are in zone that contains these specific values?

[LoyceV]

I am working on a project of carpooling platform in which sensitive data such as location details will be encrypted. So in order to match the driver and the passenger, we have devised a concept of Zone in which a unique zone id is provided to each zone(area).

I have only one question: why?
If you keep the location data, you can provide a more accurate service. Many companies including car dealers, lease car companies and public transportation agencies keep records of my address, I wouldn't mind adding a carpool platform to that list. Obviously, your platform should be secure enough for the kind of data you're storing.

[HimanPH]

I am working on a project of carpooling platform in which sensitive data such as location details will be encrypted. So in order to match the driver and the passenger, we have devised a concept of Zone in which a unique zone id is provided to each zone(area).

I have only one question: why?
If you keep the location data, you can provide a more accurate service. Many companies including car dealers, lease car companies and public transportation agencies keep records of my address, I wouldn't mind adding a carpool platform to that list. Obviously, your platform should be secure enough for the kind of data you're storing.

No, we will not save user location, rather it will be end to end encrypted so only users(passenger or driver) will able to know about their location if interested in creating the carpool. So that's why for able to show carpoolers near user's location we have thought of using the zone. So just to clarify my question was is there anything which will help in finding the zone in which that user is present.

[saerlingen]

No, we will not save user location, rather it will be end to end encrypted so only users(passenger or driver) will able to know about their location if interested in creating the carpool. So that's why for able to show carpoolers near user's location we have thought of using the zone. So just to clarify my question was is there anything which will help in finding the zone in which that user is present.

Why bother with the zone stuff at all? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just copy what all other apps of the sort does. Show your users a list of carpoolers/freeriders within x miles/kilometers of their location. Perhaps even let them specify in how big an area?

[etherixdevs]

I suggest you to use the google maps information. It is much easier for you guys

[yantha]

You have the option for GPS tracker on vehicles, which is the future.
There is a physical disconnect from a smartphone and a car. It will never be "safe"

Right so Yantha is actually creating a GPS tracker for carpooling in order to provide active rides on platform unlike legacy true carpooling platforms like blablacar types

So solution which we are building is combination of Blockchain and IOT
And probably we are overthinking about the security aspects, hence this post 
www.yantha.com

[yantha]

okay, sorry I misunderstood what you were saying. The thing is there has to be a public announcement of the location, it's the nature of carpool. Atleast it has to show up after the GPS coordinates are registered. Or did I get you wrong?

Ok let me reframe the question
There are 2 ways of connecting riders with drivers

1. Simple way
We get location of moving vehicle from IOT device
Push it on server
Map the incoming ride requests with drivers and they can go about managing their rides, like it happens on all ride hailing apps

Pros : Easy to implement.
Cons : Location of moving vehicle is saved on server atleast for a while

2. Secure way
Instead of location we get the zone (geofenced say radius of 5-10 km) where in the vehicle is in
Push it on server
Map the incoming ride requests with drivers in same zone
Share public key of passenger with the vehicle IOT device
IOT device then shares the encrypted location back to passenger device
Hence this location can only be decrypted at the passenger end
This way it becomes more trustless so commuters don't give a second thought before sharing the ride

Pros : End to end encryption brings extra level of security and trust
Cons : How do we get Zone ID


I do understand the later approach will have overheads and still is not 100% secured but atleast has an extra security over former.

So the problem is as to how to get the zone id of moving vehicle ? what would be the best approach for calculating zone ID ?
and a generic question for community also arises : Is it actually needed ? May be we are overthinking

[LoyceV]

IOT device then shares the encrypted location back to passenger device
Hence this location can only be decrypted at the passenger end
This way it becomes more trustless so commuters don't give a second thought before sharing the ride

Pros : End to end encryption brings extra level of security and trust
Cons : How do we get Zone ID

You're thinking about privacy, but security is more than that. If something (think about a crime) happens to either the driver or the passanger, it's nice to have a central database that knows exactly where they were when that happened.

[NeuroticFish]

From what I understand you want to have a more coarse format for coordinates, basically your own representation of longitude and latitude.
This means that the program that runs in the car will have to always translate its GPS position into your coordinate system and basically that's all.

How to "declare" the zones? Like the squares on a well defined chess table. Well defined meaning each square is between certain real coordinates. Then you make the mapping.
Get a map where x miles is 1 cm, draw on a transparent plastic a grid with each square having 1 cm * 1 cm, number the squares 1..whatever horizontally and a...whatever vertically, glue the grid on top of the map (the mapping is permanent) and you have it. And now make a formula that splits Earth into your Zones (since there are formulas that tell what means on GPS x miles in longitude and x miles in latitude).

Keep in mind that for optimization you may need to store not only the position by your coordinate system, but also maybe some sort of distances to the (center of?) neighbor squares. I mean that if somebody "invokes" a car from a neighbor zone, it's good to know if the available car needs to travel 0.5 x zone width or 1.5 x zone width.

However, as the other said, I also find this "zones" idea an unnecessary over-complication.