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Debunking the Google Earth Censorship Myth
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Sep 27, 2008 09:26 PM
from the just-what-they-want-you-to-think dept.
from the just-what-they-want-you-to-think dept.
waderoush writes "There's a persistent Web meme to the effect that Google obscures sensitive or top-secret locations in Google Maps and Google Earth at the insistence of national governments. A July IT Security article promoted on Digg, 'Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren't Allowed to See on Google Maps,' revived this notion. But the article has been widely criticized, and I did some fact-checking this week on the six Boston-area locations mentioned in the IT Security list. As it turns out, not one of the allegedly blurred locations has degraded imagery in Google Maps, as my screen shots demonstrate. My post looks into the sources of the misleading IT Security piece, and of other mistaken rumors about Google Maps."
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So what about the other 45 locations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what about the other 45 locations? (Score:5, Informative)
Did this guy really not look at these locations? Those were in the top five, and there are links to the Google Maps locations in question, for crying out loud.
Parent
Re:So what about the other 45 locations? (Score:5, Funny)
Did this guy really not look at these locations?
Maybe google knows his IP address.
Parent
Re:So what about the other 45 locations? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:So what about the other 45 locations? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a well known fact that the imagery providers have to obscure certain things. Just because a few of the images mentioned in the story turned out to be unobscured later doesn't mean they weren't at the time of the writing. The images are updated quite regularly, and once Google's satalites start working it'll be even more freqent.
Yes, it's censorship to obscure the imagery, but it's a tough balance to strike. Yes, information wants to be free. And as a taxpayer, it could be argued that you have a right to see whatever your government has been spending your money on. But people in other countries do not. Furthermore, the plans and everything for most of these buildings are located in the bottom of a filing cabinet in a dark basement room with a sign on the door that says "Beware of Leopard". That said, it sure is cool to look at government stuff, and the imagery being available makes it real easy.
For me, it's fun to find black helicopers and such, but that's basically it. It's just fun to look at stuff. I like those 'eyeball' things over at cryptome.org [cryptome.org] also. The risk is pretty low that someone would be able to plan an operation or something with just the image data. So they take away the fun to hopefully mitigate a small amount of risk.
On the flip side (again), there seems to be so many secrets these days. Too many, if you ask me. But, hopefully they know what they're doing.
Soon people will be able to upload their own photos to the view, like in that Microsoft thing, but on a 3d globe like Google Earth. People taking photos from passenger airplanes and such. More private aerial photos and satellites with small resolution and lower latency. It will happen. Google is on the right track with GIS, I think it'll be the killer app of the 2010's. Google has the power to pull everything together, it might take a while but soon there will be a nice parallel universe inside their datacentres. Unfortunately in that world, it makes extreme paranoia as actionable as extreme information gathering.
Parent
Re:So what about the other 45 locations? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly.
I like to check out through google maps places I used to be stationed at while in the US Army over a decade ago, and I can clearly see how most roofs are showed as white rectangles, and antenna pads are whited out so you can't see in which direction they point. This is on both training facilities and in active duty stations.
In the case of a medevac heliport all you can see is whited out taxi areas and pads, while at the same level of detail in a civilian facility you can easily follow the lines pa
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you really not read the article?
"As Google has acknowledged in the past, there are spots, such as the U.S. Naval Observatoryâ"home for another 116 days to Vice President Dick Cheneyâ"that have been deliberately blurred or pixelated by the companies that sell aerial imagery to Google. (See image at left. You can click on this image and all of the images in this article to see larger versions.)"
So Google didn't censor it, the company selling them the images did, that's what the article says.
Hmmm (Score:2)
Right on time, the NSA pays off /. to debunk this. (Score:3, Funny)
Who should I believe? You, or my lying eyes?
Error establishing a database connection (Score:5, Funny)
Error establishing a database connection
They sure blurred him out fast.
Digg? Inaccurate? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean an article that was inaccurate or just flat out wrong was massively promoted on DIGG? No, I simply can't believe it.
Digg: It's like Slashdot if concussed monkeys took over.
Re:Digg? Inaccurate? (Score:5, Funny)
You mean it's like Slashdot, if the concussed monkeys took up drinking.
Parent
Re:Digg? Inaccurate? (Score:5, Funny)
You mean it's like Slashdot, if the concussed monkeys took up drinking.
Hey! I resemble that remark.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
...considering his uid is HALF that of yours...
He's getting senile.
Re:Digg? Inaccurate? (Score:5, Insightful)
But with fewer dupes.
I'd say the main difference is that a much higher percentage of digg posters are raving morons, while Slashdot has more refined trolls.
Parent
Blurry, no; pixelated hell yes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blurry, no; pixelated hell yes (Score:5, Insightful)
FWIW the Naval Observatory is blotted out in all satellite photos. It's my understanding that this is a "national security" requirement and (besides it being a no-fly zone) satellite and areal photography are required by federal law to obscure it. Since Google still buys most of these pictures from other people, I wouldn't blame Google for this one, per-say...
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Per se [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
FWIW the Naval Observatory is blotted out in all satellite photos. It's my understanding that this is a "national security" requirement and (besides it being a no-fly zone) satellite and areal photography are required by federal law to obscure it.
That's like placing a sign on an aircraft.
"No Hijacking"
Re:Blurry, no; pixelated hell yes (Score:5, Funny)
Well... i guarantee that the percentage of aircraft with "No Hijacking" signs on them that don't get highjacked would have a significant number of 9's in it, so it obviously works and works well, provided you measure the outcomes correctly.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They are all taken from planes no matter what service you use.
Re:Cite a source... (Score:5, Funny)
russians have many low altitudes geosynchronous satellites
Damn Reds and their lack of respect for physics!
Parent
Re:Cite a source... (Score:4, Interesting)
> I wonder how many russian satellites have good coverage of the United States.
Since 1992 it has been possible to purchase Resurs and Kometa imagery of the US through the state company Soyuzkarta. This required the declassification of the military Kometa's cameras - a 10-metre resolution topo and a 2-metre resolution mapping camera.
One of the first customers, and one which has been a reliable repeat customer, was the USAF. They used imagery of Washington to plan General Dolittle's cortege.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe that is because the USNO contains primary frequency standards, so any attempt to take accurate photographs would result in a violation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Naval Observatory is the location of the residence of the Vice President of the United States [whitehouse.gov].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Rye Playland (Score:5, Interesting)
Playland, the amusement park in Rye, New York, also shows up as blurred compared to the surrounding suburbs:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.248722,4.43965&spn=0.3,0.3&t=k&q=52.248722,4.43965 [google.com]
Cannot imagine why!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
better link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=rye+new+york&ie=UTF8&ll=40.965803,-73.673158&spn=0.013999,0.020449&t=h&z=16 [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Finally, we know the undisclosed location Cheney is always going to!
Re:Rye Playland (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, we know the undisclosed location Cheney is always going to!
I've always suspected it involved a handbasket.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Abandoned amusement parks are usually prime real estate for evil geniuses, their evil projects, and their hordes of henchmen. It wouldn't surprise me that certain amusement parks are pixelated given the secrecy involved in taking over the planet.
I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Outdated (Score:2)
The Whitehouses roof used to be blanked out with matte tan. Now it isn't. The pentagon also used to be blanked out. I looked at these locations myself a long time ago. More recently I was surprised to see them unblanked.
Re:Outdated (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Well it's not like they probably have much choice (Score:2)
Unfortunately people are too thick to realise that terrorists would probably visit the area they want to bomb to scope it out rather than visit google maps.
The Truth of it all is.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
<Parent removed due to violation of a National Security Letter>
But does Google Street View steer clear of Obama? (Score:5, Interesting)
Google Street View steers clear of Obama's neighborhood [valleywag.com]
hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Ramstein airbase is whited out (Score:5, Informative)
I discovered today that Ramstein airbase in Germany (hugely important to US) is "whited out". At first I just thought it was a really big building, then I thought white concrete surfacing. Finally I realized that it was blacked out, but they tried to make it look like it wasn't. They even threw in a a few fake aircraft and shadows, but didn't quite make it past the uncanny valley. It's just a matter of time until they perfect the fabrication of imagery for those locations.
See for yourself; that ain't real. [google.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ramstein airbase is whited out (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but that sounds like conspiracy talk. To me, the white area looks like just a big newly-constructed concrete ramp. I've been seen and been to a lot of airports, so I know what a ramp looks like.
If you look at the top and bottom, you see areas that are still under construction. Some taxiways and even portions of the runway are bright white. What possible reason reason could they have for "whiting out" the runway's threshold and blast pads? The overall white area doesn't look anything like a building and all the actual buildings are arranged around it, just like any other airport. If you scroll around a bit, you'll see other areas that are nearly white but plainly older because they have streaks of gray running through them.
Back in the day, I understand that satellite photos used infrared to generate fairly visually-accurate monochrome images of the ground. On those, thick forests and bodies of water should show up black while roofs and roads would be a lot lighter. I would take a wild guess that the satellites which capture images these days use infrared to enhance the visible light photo and brand-new concrete reflects a whole bunch of the sun's infrared back at the camera. This oversaturates that area on the picture and makes objects on the concrete difficult to see. But that's just a theory. I'd appreciate hearing from someone who knows how it really works.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RamsteinAB.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Looks to me like there is a lot of pavement.
I think something's wrong with my browser... (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Google, Please Obscure My Country's Top Secre (Score:4, Insightful)
Propaganda piece of an article (Score:5, Informative)
This article is BS. As anyone how bothers to see there are places on google earth that are blurred or cut out and replaced with green fields.
Here are two examples.
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&q=52.109911,4.326597&ie=UTF8&ll=52.109912,4.326596&spn=0.00456,0.009549&z=17&iwloc=addr [google.com]
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&q=53.2232,5.754861&ie=UTF8&ll=53.223199,5.754862&spn=0.01778,0.038195&z=15&iwloc=addr [google.com]
Re:Fact Checking Failure (Score:4, Insightful)
so you think Google spent twice the amount of money to use 2 separate satellite imaging services? or that they use two disparate censorship policies, so that if the government asks them to obfuscate the VP's residence they would only comply for one service but not the other?
i don't know if the summary is correct or not, but logic would suggest that Google would use the same satellite images for both sets of aerial maps, and if they were going to blur out a location in one service it would be done to the other as well.
Parent
Re:Fact Checking Failure (Score:5, Informative)
All the higher-res images are airplane shots, not satellite. Why does this need constant reminding?
Parent