Spy Chief Hints At Limits On Satellite Photos 309
An anonymous reader writes "Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, says that the increasing availability of commercial satellite photos may require the government to restrict distribution. 'I could certainly foresee circumstances in which we would not want imagery to be openly disseminated of a sensitive site of any type, whether it is here or overseas,' he said. This would include imagery on Web sites such as Google Earth, because the companies that supply the photos get help from the NGIA with launches." I had never heard of this particular intelligence agency. During the early months of the invasion of Afghanistan they bought up all satellite imagery over that country, worldwide, in a tactic later dubbed "checkbook shutter control."
Re:NGA not NGIA (Score:1, Informative)
Somewhat pointless, horse, barn, ... (Score:5, Informative)
NGA = NIMA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:3, Informative)
The same information can be sold many times, it's not something that can be out of stock.
There is always the chance of someone having the information and not wanting an "exclusive deal" with the US intelligence community.
In Soviet Russia... (Score:1, Informative)
Agency names (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How to mirror google earth (Score:2, Informative)
That's easy. Download USAPhotoMaps, the free...shareware program. All the map data gets downloaded to your local HD and is there for ever and ever.
Re:You americans are living in intelligence hell (Score:5, Informative)
you can be jailed for going over the speeding limit by 20 mph
This is bogus - you're only going to get jailed for doing 20mph over the limit if you kill/mame someone in the process.
there are more cameras than people
Where'd you pull that statistic from? Sure there are a lot of cameras, but nowhere near that many.
its illegal to own GPS recievers that tell you where the speeding cameras are
Completely bogus - GPS receivers and speeding camera maps (and the combination of the 2) are completely legal.
new speeding cameras that identify individual cars and time you over long distances to see if you broke the average speeding limit
Not over long distances - over short distances such as a mile or so. You're talking about the SPECS cameras, which many consider to be much safer than GATSOs since they don't cause hard braking. (Note: I'm opposed to speed cameras, but I don't see how you can claim that SPECS is worse than GATSO).
I'd rather live in the US than in England.
It seems that you're basing this almost entirely on bad information.
High res photos on Google Earth are not Sat (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:5, Informative)
The general public has basically no need for this sort of information, but a hypothetical attacker does. There may not actually be many terrorists or spies in the US right now, but there's a decent chance that there are some, and in the past they've been very interested in this stuff. Maybe they can get it anyway, but let's make them at least risk exposure to do their reconnaissance, OK?
You can rant all you want about security through obscurity, but the real world isn't a cryptosystem. The attacker has less time to study your nuclear site security offline (at least, as long as photographing it is illegal). Furthermore, Kerckhoff's principle doesn't say that systems shouldn't be obscure, just that their security shouldn't depend on it. Obscurity is still a valid defense in depth.
Re:Can you receive and decode this stuff yourself? (Score:5, Informative)
look, forget it. Weather satellites are geostationary, and the pictures they send are small. There's a intro to VHR satellite imagery here [eurimage.com].
Re:Somewhat pointless, horse, barn, ... (Score:5, Informative)
For all those who ask 'how hard can it be?' (shades of Top Gear...) entry level into the commercial Very High Resolution satellite business starts at around half a billion -- don't forget the ground segment. Even future missions are not planning to go much below
The Man may well have bought 'all the coverage of Afghanistan' -- from a single operator. The Ikonos mission (1m pixel) was the only one operating at the time. The US Govt. does retain 'shutter control' rights of all the VHR missionslicensed by them - which is all the current VHR missions. That will change - especially with COSMO-SkyMed [eoportal.org], a constellation of all-weather radar satellites with a max. resolution of >1m, coming soon.
There's a intro to VHR satellite imagery here [eurimage.com].
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:2, Informative)
Are you sure about that? Just by you saying that, out of curiosity I want to fire up Google Earth and find such sites, just to see if they are grayed out or how they look. In fact, does the general public 'need' to look at their house on the satellite map? Do they 'need' to see how Disnay World looks from space? - No they don't. Except for some specific applications people don't 'need' to use satellite maps, Their lives were fine before the Google Earth came about and they would probably been alrigh if Google Earth would have never been released.
The point is that people 'want' to look at those sites. Not because they will go there, or attack them or do anything evil, but just out of curiosity or because 'they can'. As the grandparent put it, the govt. can tell the US business not to map certain areas, but then Chinese, Japanese and European satellites will map it and, surprise, make it available on the net. Besides if the layout of some nuclear plant is the only thing that keeps that plant secure from 'teh terrorists' then we might as well blow it up ourselves because it is close to not having any security at all then.
The attacker has less time to study your nuclear site security offline (at least, as long as photographing it is illegal)
Of course, except for blowing themsevles up and wanting to kill thousands of innocent civilians, such an attacker would _never_ break law and take pictures, right?
The secrecy of location / layout will not and should not be considered as a 'defence'. Because the govt. is reacting this way, means that they do rely, at least partially, on 'security-by-obscurity'. Instead of forcing the US business to gray out maps, they should adapt and accept the fact everything will be visible from space. The did that during the Cold War, I don't know why they can't hold the same assumption now.
but let's make them at least risk exposure to do their reconnaissance, OK?
Performing reconessance is not that difficult and I don't remember any terrorist plots being foiled recently because someone was caught doing reconessance. I do recall many photographers being harrassed for taking pictures of bridges, building and other such things, you know... the same stuff they have been taking pictures of the last 200 years or so...
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:3, Informative)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Barksdale
Those are B52s and those are their parking spots. While not realtime data with Google Earth at least you can get the latitude and longitude of those spots. That Air base like most the rest of the US has no real anti-aircraft defense systems it would be very easy to target those planes. You can also see a lot more than three buildings in an L shape. If that isn't good enough for you here are the weapon storage bunkers http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Barksdale
and just for fun some fuel storage http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Barksdale
and just to show you how good these images are these are some older aircraft they have on static display at the base. This is a B52 with a Mig-21 fighter next to it. I am not an expert but the photos are good enough even for me to identify pretty small aircraft. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Barksdale
I am not saying that I like the idea but to dismiss it seems less than honest. This is not a black and white issue.