The ban on Pokemon Go has nothing to do with security, it's about controlling the society.
To make it more specific: place a rare Pokémon near the target to have a constant horde of zombies going there and trying to catch it. Or alternatively, place a bunch (3+) Pokéstops close to each other near the target and you get a place where regular players will hang around (there's a powerup called "Lure" that can be dropped on a Pokéstop, which causes increased chance of random encounters with Pokémons in the proximity for the next 30 minutes; if you have 3+ Pokéstops close to each other and each has a Lure on it, you can basically grind all the in-game valuables without moving from where you're sitting).
I'd say the first strategy is most viable, because Pokéstops are placed on the same spots Ingress portals are, so it would be immediately obvious if someone added a new stop/portal next to a classified target.
How China is dealing with this? Are they allowing people to play Pokemon Go?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...
[0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/3s4abq/ingress_in_...
I think this issue is more about that for the type of islam practiced in iran any form of representation of images of living beings is a sin.
Pokémon Go can be rightfully suspected to be a surveillance device given how it works (geotracking, camera overlays and stuff) and how popular it is among general population. Not every nation is, or wants to be, in bed with the US, so such concerns are no surprise.
Pretty clear though that if you are playing Pokemon Go, and your actual identity is attached to your account, then there is a way for Niantic to tell someone where your are right now, and where you have been.
Given enough adoption in the population, that data set could be used to illuminate organizations and memberships which might otherwise be considered classified. Both for players, and for non-players.[1]
[1] Examples are available in the literature where people using good OpSec were identified by employees who did not.
Also, isn't tinder already banned?
The regime is afraid of peoples life style change. They do know if people life style changes toward western culture then they have no place to rule.
Any banning, suppression / etc you can see from Iran regime is because of this. They block access to YouTube, satellite, porn, Facebook, etc, not because they think these things are wrong. They do it just because people must not become familiar with western life style.
"If they become familiar, they will understand Islam,tradition,etc is bullshit and if status quo changes ,then we don't have any place to rule"
P.S. I live in Iran right now and I always track political analysis about Iran regime.
Don't they (government) themselves believe in Islam so much?
My Machiavellian instinct was to say - demand the servers be located in India, and the data not leave India. Also - demand data be shared with agencies.
Agencies need data collection - and this seems to be a fairly cost effective way of collecting geo spatial data.
I mean if security is a concern not sure why the government refuses to work out some deal w/ the Pokemon folks rather than go all ape and ban it.
