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What problem are we trying to solve?

What3Words, according to Wikipedia, was created for communicating locations, but there’s nothing saying it was for emergency services. The system may be fine to use where the cost of making mistakes is low, when people aren’t under pressure, or when entering your location for a takeaway delivery. That doesn’t mean it’s fine for emergency use. It doesn’t mean it’s fine for use in mountains.

Why try and fix it?

People keep on comparing What3Words to lat/lon, saying that it’s clearly better. I can’t see any evidence around this. I kind of like evidence in safety critical applications.

Why 3 Words?

There’s no evidence that 3 words is a good or optimal solution. If you used 4 words, the dictionary size drops to 2748. It’s a lot easier to avoid complex words and plurals with a list this short.

How were these found?

The NurseryCam Android mobile application was downloaded and then examined. By viewing the code, it was possible to see how the system operates. Several parent users of the system have contacted me. They confirmed that the system operated as I suspected and that the DVR usernames and passwords were the same each time they logged in. There has been no attempt to hack NurseryCam webservers.

What should you do?

In my professional opinion, you cannot quickly fix a system that is this badly broken. You also cannot regain the trust that has been lost by selling a product that is described so inaccurately. If you, as a nursery, operate one of these systems: Unplug the network connection from the DVR. Contact NurseryCam and ask that they inform all impacted nurseries immediately.