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Rand Report Says Geospatial Data Not Big Threat

Posted by simoniker on from the maps-and-diagrams dept.

scupper writes "An article in Federal Computer Week came out Monday that announced The Rand Corporation has published a report (sponsored by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) concerning the threat that publicly available geospatial data on US Government web sites might pose in the hands of terrorists that 'found that less than one percent of the 629 federal data sets they studied appeared to have notable value to would-be attackers', according to the report titled: Mapping the Risks:Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Available Geospatial Information. A curious 'finding' from page xxv of the summary not mentioned in the article states: 'However, we cannot conclude that publicly accessible federal geospatial information provides no special benefit to the attacker. Neither can we conclude that it would benefit the attacker.' The release of this report reminded me strangly of the Washington Post news story about a George Mason University graduate student, whose dissertation mapped critical fiber optic network infrastructure."

2 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. infrastructure by koshimetsu · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sean Gorman mapped and correlated data about a whole lot more than just fiber optic lines. Data, electric, transportation and god knows what more, wrapped up in a nice little program that makes the data quite easy to get at. Incredibly useful, but quite potentially dangerous in the wrong hands. Now what I wouldn't give to have that thing in MY hands...pretty...

  2. They rather go post-card shopping by j.leidner · · Score: 3, Informative
    Of course geo-spatial data is VERY useful for all sorts of purposes. Just like with a steak knife: you can do wonderful and fun things with it and cause a lot of nasty wounds and red stains on the living-room carpet as well...

    But seriously, the (US) governments totally gets the mind-set of these people wrong. They don't download multi-gigabyte maps from the net before they attack, they simply and effectively pick so-called postcard targets, because they seek to attract media attention and these targets stand for what they resent.

    Most terrorists are surprisingly low-tech, but that's actually why they can be difficult to track down: if you never use Web browsers, phones and credit cards you leave few traces.
    If you read the recent intelligence 'success story' where they tracked some people because they used a Swiss pre-paid mobile phone SIM-card from somewhere in Pakistan, apparently swapping mobile phones and not SIM-cards instead of the other way round, this gives you an idea of what to expect.