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Google Urged to Drop Images
Nqdiddles writes "News.com.au is reporting that the head of Australia's nuclear energy agency has called on Google to censor images of the country's only nuclear reactor. While Dr. Smith admits the image is about two years out of date, he also says he doesn't 'want to provide any easy assistance to anyone who wants to interfere with the site.'
Citing the precedent of the blocks of colour over the White House and Treasury buildings, he's critical of their own security, adding 'there's a small area near the middle of the site which is quite secure, but the bulk of our site isn't all that secure' and is easily visible from the road and commercial airline flights. Google has defended the technology, noting the images were six to 18 months old and not detailed enough to zoom in on people."
nothing to see here, please move along
Wow, this is right up there with Sadam using CNN to get info on our movements in the Gulf wars.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein
the only reactor in the country? that means if i go to the vistor's center after my flight to australia and ask the lady "g'day mate.. wheres the nearest nuke plant", i'm pretty sure she's gonna tell me where its at. they should build fake plants to throw off terrorists and have those plants make candy or something.
lameness filter thwarted.
This is the google earth/maps imagary, short of writing a robots.txt on the roof, I don't see an automatic way to stop it.
However, the first thing they should have done is spoken directly to google who should be able to do something about it.
liqbase
...pixelize the fuel rods and we can use our imaginations.
Way to RTFA.
The minister is complaining about maps.google.com and satellite imagery. Google has already acquiesced to the US government, regarding satellite imagery of the White House and Treasury Buildings.
Did you even read the article? It's referring to Google's satelite shots of the nuclear plant via Google Maps, not just plain old web images.
I was under the impression that the images Google used were not copyrighted. Even if Google were to block them or blur them out, what would stop a terrorist from just finding the photo somewhere else?
This sig has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease.
Google is just licensing the satellite image data from DigitalGlobe and other vendors. It's the same data that Microsoft, TerraServer, NASA, etc. have and is publicly available for everyone with a stamp. My library even has CDs full of (outdated) full-res satellite images of the world.
Asking Google to censor it just means that the "terrorists" will just go to Microsoft's new beta map.
use robots.txt in the first place.
I hope that was supposed to be funny!
Since they are talking about the Google map, not the cacheing of their actual website!
However, I do wonder how they get the fund to build that thing but not the fund to secure it... tell you how important some people think security is.
because the summary kind of sucks and by "censor images" it means censor the images within Google Maps' satellite view.
At least, that's what makes sense to me. Why else would there be low-quality images of the plant floating around the web?
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
WTF? RTFA.
The guy is complaining about Google providing imagery of his nuclear site. Nothing to do with Googlebot.
Because it's not about websearch but rather about satellite images used on http://maps.google.com./ Duh.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
How can you use a robots.txt file to prevent satellite photos? They're complaining about Google Maps.
Alright, all there was was a old blocky picture, and now everyone knows that "the bulk of [the] site isn't all that secure" ... great move Mr head of ANSTO :)
I think the world should get used to the fact that restricting the flow of information is going to be more difficult with every passing year. This isn't strategically-important data. If Google was transmitting a real-time high-resolution image, maybe I would agree with the AU gov't, but censoring 2-year-old satellite photos is simply unnecessary. Actually, we should rejoice that this information is available publicly, because in an age where governments can use information to attack the rights of their citizens, it is somewhat comforting to know that their secrets may not be safe from public scrutiny.
Yes, let's put a real life robots.txt file that can be accessed via satellite from outer space. Aren't you a genius.
use robots.txt in the first place.
You obviously didn't RTFA, but the summary was terrible and the site is very slow, so I don't completely blame you.
This is referring to the satellite images shown on google maps. It doesn't refer to Google images.
Becasue I am sure attacking google and having the story posted to Slashdot will give them the low profile they are looking for.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Doh, sorry, my bad. I should have read the topic :(
I'm an idiot.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
I doubt that even a terrorist would use Microsoft's mapping software. Google is definitely the way to go.
Apparently no one is in a humorous mood today, I thought it was funny.
is they want nuke sites protected by legions of troops and super security, but i bet their water supply isn't subject to the same protection
Perhaps politicians are mentally challenged, if terrorists really want to screw you and cause a panic there are a million other ways to do it other than hitting a nuke reactor surrounded by armed guards
--AC
Google aren't the only ones.
Just today I read about this Australian company that plans to provide **live** satellite feeds (Google Earth in real time).
And of course there's Virtual Earth and a bunch of other sources.
But, if the cops one day find Google Earth printouts in some terrorist's bag, well... that won't be good for their PR.
Actually I'd be surprised if the government already didn't have Google Earth backdoor with alerts set on sensitive locations worldwide.
So, at first I thought that someone wanted Google to shut down its images service. Then, I read a little bit of the story and thought that Google was being asked to remove images of Australia's reactor. Then, I finally figured out that they were only being asked to censor those images. Now, I have a headache.
sig not found
Because the "blocks" Google has put over the whitehouse obscure sooooooooooooooo much. Would it really be that hard to visually identify the whitehouse?!?! Even with these blocks? You can drive by it and see what it looks like... you can still match up the general overall shape of the building....It isn't like they put a huge block over the whole thing, they blocked out the actual shape of the building!
Google never did anything of the sort for the government. The company that flew the planes that took the pictures did.
Now, what's all this then?
If readers started reading the articles, then posters and submitters might have to follow suit.
In other news, Google was asked to blur out endagered species of bear in Moscow...
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
If he doesn't want to "provide any easy assistance to anyone who wants to interfere with the site", then why is he publically pointing out the weak spots of their security?
If Google is willing to cooperate with China on their "Great Firewall"--an attempt to suppress democracy-related information and control the Chinese people--they can hardly object to this. Google has already demonstrated its willingness to cooperate with totalitarian governments in suppressing peaceful, pro-democracy information. Hard to see how they can draw a line now. If anything, Google's "Don't be evil" motto requires them to actively try to subvert Chinese censorship.
Australia is making a reasonable request that Google voluntarily censor a very small number of images of a nuclear reactor--images that could clearly be used for violent and dangerous terrorist activity. Aside from satisfying idle curiosity, there aren't many important, legitimate uses for those images.
Since Google has long since slid down the slippery slope, why stop now?
I predict that this is the first of many to come. As resolution increases and this technology becomes more mainstream, we're going to see real-time or near real time images and most likely an archive.org style site where you can shift backward in forward in time whilest looking at a site.
Governments are going to just love that...
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
yeah i was high too when i read the story and easily got it confused also.
lameness filter thwarted.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=groom+lake,+nv&ll=37 .233696,-115.807915&sll=36.587891,-114.840674&spn= 0.045233,0.063515&sspn=1.029297,1.873077&t=k&hl=en
..it would be hypocritical for them to not work out a compromise with the Australian agencies which would allow for the images to not be indexed in the search engine. They censor plenty of stuff for the Chinese government as is.
That being said however, I think that if the Australian government doesn't want pictures to be observered, they should not be putting them on the internet in the first place.
"There's a small area near the middle of the site which is quite secure, but the bulk of our site isn't all that secure," he said.
Essentially, the original concern was over a satellite image. I probably never would haved looked at that image.
That said, now the concerned fellow has told me that his site is insecure, for the most part, and that I could just walk in there anyway.
How come this one is not fuzzed out?
a rkway,+Mountain+View,+CA&spn=0.016998,0.035306&t=h &hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1600+Amphitheatre+P
Here's the HIFAR reactor's website, with information:
http://www.ansto.gov.au/natfac/hifar.html
They have a convenient "how to get to ANSTO" page here (so terrorists can just side step the whole Google earth lookup thing):
http://www.ansto.gov.au/ansto/dir.html
Ehh, you can almost put an actual human to monitor google image searches, because I bet you 99.9999% of image searches are of images depicting human beings, most of that being porn. The rest are images of galaxies, cars, and pictures of what to put on your school report. That's why they got the offensive filter off setting, as soon as someone sets that, ehh, they're looking for porn. But you have to beware of cunning terrorists who will set that filter, and still look for the nukular plant images.
I'm tempted to mod you +1, Insightful for that ;-)
In the future, instead of going "Ooops, my bad...", just make condescending remarks that none of the people who pointed out your mistake "Got the joke."
Suggestions include, but are not limited to:
* making wooshing sounds, imitating the joke going over their heads
* insulting the Slashdot moderators for giving you anything except a "Funny" rating. Bonus points for working a Nazi reference into the post.
* Use of a "<sarcasm>" html tag, as a bit of commentary that text does not convey meaning as well as spoken word.
This has been a public service announcement by your friends at Every Political Blog on the 'Net... where never admitting we were wrong is job #1!
I got the impression that google's images just went and scooped up whatever images it finds on various web sites.
If that power company didn't want a picture of their reactor on the web then why did they put one on their web site?
Assuming it was a mistake and they took it down, why is it news that they are asking google to remove that image? Google seems to be decent enough about that sort of thing.
If that is so, what difference would it make if you took it off google? They would just fly in as a tourist, or drive by the plant, and take way better photos then anyone could find on the web...where most images are tiny and compressed to conserve bandwidth, et al.
You idiots,
This is the very reason why the internet is doing so well. if your gonna fool with censor ships just pull the fscken plug
your all idiots
Now that we can all communicate with email, the Web, digital images, and other comm tech quickly, cheaply, and easily, lots of fake "security" that we've all paid $billions (A$2billions ;) is starting to look like complete crap. So instead of admitting "we're finally busted", officials of high-risk systems like Dr. Smith, Oracle's Security Chief, and a cavalcade of American Homeland Security / Defense Department / National Security Administration (isn't that all redundant?) bureaucrats are screaming for us to "stop looking". Every country and big (and small) corporation has their counterparts. Their emperors wear no clothes, so we should just avert our eyes, and keep handing over all that cash and power. Someone get these frauds out of the way before someone gets really, seriously hurt.
--
make install -not war
Then, you find out they're being asked to censor their maps service, which has nothing at all to do with Google Images. Off the top of my head, I can come up with 5 headlines that explain this better.
Furthermore, within the selfsame article...
That certainly sounds to me like Google censored the images of the White House themselves, and not the company that provided the images.
So now a nuclear reactor that most people neither new or cared about and that probably had very few searches will now be looked at by 1000's of slashdotters, blog readers and surfers and probably cached and saved on a million different machines never ever to be lost. Nice job.
I bet this was one of those lame PR stunts where they say 'oh no you have to censor this' so everyone looks at it and in fact gives them more publicity - they were probably just frustrated that no-one had ever tried anything!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Oh no!!! I just found that Google Maps has an image of the area where I live!! Now the terrorists can discover that I have a TV and they'll blow me to smitherines!!! I must get it censored!! damn google for providing this to them evdil terr0rist0rzzz!!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
And that's Google's fault?
Taking a look at google maps I can see the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant by my house. I dont see why Australian power plants should be any different.
Google has already acquiesced to the US government, regarding satellite imagery of the White House and Treasury Buildings.
Excuse me, but do you know that Google has censored its content? Keep in mind they buy their satellite data (look at the image sources at the bottom of the map). Want to bet it is censored at the source (the guys with the satellite)?
Don't ever even start censoring - it always becomes unstoppable.
You didn't notice that the entire building is actually the radius of a nuclear blast away, did you? Smart of them to move it around ..
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
I belive this is the Google maps image they're talking about, based on this map and some of the photos. This part of the facility is surrounded by security fencing, and it appears a new reactor is under construction at the time of the photo.
Any Australians who can confirm or correct?
Yay for security by obscurity. Like some terrorist couldn't get that information anyway if they really wanted it.
Why the press release? Why not just quietly ask Google to remove? If it was a security risk before, it certainly is now with everyone looking.
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
Not sure though...
Seems to be the new mantra. Stupid enough that you put up images of your insecure nuclear reactor? Why, harsh out all those people who link to it! Stupid enough you have a security hole that could bring down the entire backbone? Why, threaten the security experts with jail if they let anyone know about it! Don't like the photos some striking unionist has posted? Block his site instead of getting a C&D order!
Gahd.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Google claims to not be evil. That means NOT FOLLOWING A NORMAL CORPORATIONS PROCEDURES. Getting banned from China for not filtering is EXACTLY WHAT NOT BEING EVIL REQUIRES! Don't get mad at the public for pointing out something google claimed they'd do.
Being banned from China is google being a martyr. Instead of looking out for the bottom line, they'd be looking out for what's "right". "Don't be evil" means doing what's right at the cost of the bottom line. It's not the OP's fault that google made the claim. And he should be commended for trying to hold Google to the standard they claimed they'd abide to.
Perhaps too many years of politicians saying one thing and doing another has made you complacent enough that you think that's what's SUPPOSED to occur.
Those censored maps were USGS images, straight from the States (and censored by them too). If Mr. Smith thinks Google did that, he should also check them on World Wind.
In any case, I'd be bitch-scared like him, too, if that was my only nuclear reactor. With all the things publicly available on the Internet (for now), I'm sure government bigs everywhere are finally thinking of underground utility buildings.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Lucas_Heights&ll=-34 .051459,150.979722&spn=0.003834,0.007522&t=k&hl=en
It's not so important for the 2 year old blurry images to be blocked out. What they are probably thinking is that no doubt the images will increase in resolution as time passes. Thus, if they block it out now they are safer tomorrow.
Link to satellite images of ANSTO I _think_ that is where it is. I could be wrong, but that looks more like a nuclear facility than anything else in the area. Thanks to ANSTO for providing a map. :)
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
'there's a small area near the middle of the site which is quite secure, but the bulk of our site isn't all that secure'
Whoa now! You are worried about old blurry satellite photos, when you just gave away information like that? I suspect one person is out of a job...
Build 10 or 20 more nuclear power plants so you won't have to worry about having a "most sensitive" site.
Woooosh...
I absolutely agree !
The title very obviously states that some kind of power is trying to get Google to shut down its whole Images service.
And who do I see as the editor of a story with such a misleading, borderline-disinforming and simply damn false title ? Whoa hey, if it isn't my good old friend Zonk !
E N O U G H !
How would putting "blocks of color" over the buildings, like the ones over the white house, help CSIRO? The resolution of the CSIRO images are pretty low, and things like the layout of the fences are probably more important for them.
Ridiculous as it is, there'll always be someone more, just as paranoid for the perceived "protection by hiding something", crying "you have to hide my house, too" - so in the long run, anyone who's ever censored anything ends up having to censor pretty much everything.
In other words, the textbook example of a slippery slope...
I hope their security isn't that bad that the guards are standing in the same positions after 18 months...
I'm getting tired of the "Are the Chinese better off with no Google/Microsoft at all".
The answer is yes, they're better off with companies not acting as collaborators to their own opression.
The original poster makes a valid argument, if they're willing to censor political dissent in one country, it makes no sense if they're not willing to censor something made in a more "free" country like Australia, that is security related. Ideally, google wouldn't have to do anything, but since they have already tweaked their stuff for China it doesn't make sense that they can't do it for Australia.
BTW the chinese are better off when no company decides to do business with their government if they impose laws and make them enforce things that violate basic human rights.
- sigs are for wimps.
Actually, the images of the whitehouse that Google has are not supplied by DigitalGlobe, they are USGS images, which were censored by the USGS themselves, not Google. You can see this by using NASA WorldWind, which uses the same image source as Google does for Washington DC.
Hehe, that aside, I sure hope (given that a robots.txt actually WOULD/COULD prevent satelite images from being taken) that besides running a nuclear plant, they would have the technical know-how to compile a decent robots.txt...
Perhaps a satelites.txt mowed in the lawn! :-p
/me gets his tin-foil hat and a lawn-mower out. Now I just need a lawn...
"Live free or don't."
I can't find them. Anybody knows the coordinates?
Let's review some notably successful attacks and see if we can learn something...
There is an awful lot of effort being expended protecting us from complex high-tech attacks, when the demonstrated pattern has been for Al Qaeda to use relatively low-tech methods and strike at targets that are easy to hit and achieve significant headlines. If we should learn anything from this, it is that Al Qaeda spends its terrorist money well, getting maximum effect for a minimum of resource.
What we need is more thought and less hasty action, so that we too, might be capable of effective action in return. Pointless blustering actions like this, intended to reassure the public and sustain existing administrations' terms in office, do more to aide and abet the enemy than to frustrate them. We need reason and logic as our allies, instead of keeping them locked in the basement.
Not to say that we shouldn't adopt reasonable means of securing high-impact targets, but we are ignoring medium and low-impact targets in favor of protecting the high-impact targets against exceedingly improbable attacks.
And of course the Real Problem is that it is impossible to protect everything. We must work on improving our intelligence operations against them, and surgically taking out Al Qaeda FROM THE TOP DOWN, if we are ever to achieve any sort of victory over them.
Why surgically? Because when you use a hammer to smite a fire ant, you wind up dealing with many more fire ants than you can handle. Flashy methods (e.g., large-scale military invasions) play right into the hands of Al Qaeda, becoming free recruiting tools and bringing millions of new budding terrorists into the fray.
Use covert assassinations instead, and spend more effort on attacking them in this way than on elaborate schemes to defend that which cannot be defended against every possible attack.
"When in Danger, or in Doubt, Run in Circles, Scream and Shout" -- Laurence J. Peter.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=34.9450+N+69.2575+E& spn=0.003968,0.007522&t=k&hl=en
Bagram airfield. Just a few months old. I can see the building I lived in not too long ago as well as significant new construction that is new since I left.
You can make out guard towers, see where different kinds of aircraft are kept, pick out chow halls, see the Army's hospital, gates, the PX, and other items of interest. Of course some Taliban or AQ asshole won't have such familiarity with the place, but how much help do we want to give them?
While I don't want to dismiss your research in finding this facility out-of-hand, I am curious as to the apparent lack of water.
I was under the impression that most (if not all) nuke plants needed a large source of water for cooling.
Other folks have already pointed out how little sense this makes (how many other ways can you get the same info? why draw so much attention to yourself?). The more I think about it, the more this seems like it has nothing to do with Google maps -- it's just a convenient way for this guy to force politicians to pony up for more security. He releases this thing, accuses Google, and people all over the world are talking about how undefended this reactor is. Who wants to bet that, within a week, the whole complex will be secure?
You are referring to the linked incident below. I believe you are honestly mistaken -- it was Fox that got into trouble... CNN just reported it (Fox hardly did... heh).
Fox News pre-announced troop movements (Geraldo).
Complaints like this should be more properly addressed by removing the offending images from the hosting site, not by asking Google to black them out. The images, of course, will still be visible to anyone who comes to the site by some route other than Google. It also reflect a basic misunderstanding of what Google is and how it works.
However, why not alter the content of your site if it was accessed via Google, or any other search engine? Want some content to be seen only by people who actually come directly to your site? Don't let Google see it or index it.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It's not as easy as you may believe to disguise oneself as a dirty arab thug. Assassination and infiltration aren't going to do the job 100%. The soldiers doing the job for us are required to be a little more conventional then you seem to desire -- if we don't annihilate all this islamofascist infrastructure (physical and political), new thugs just replace the ones which are 'surgically' killed.
At first, I thought they were being asked to remove the image search, I was afraid they were going to take away my por... I mean image search.
Should be: He also says, "Of course you bubble headed booby!! I don't want to provide any easy assistance to anyone who wants to interfere with the site"! Anyone born before 1975 should get the reference. Anyone born after 1975 who gets the reference, yer way cool.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Just to add to the list. 'Area 51' isn't on there either.
. 272835,-115.798731&sll=36.518555,-115.561924&spn=0 .060081,0.085402&sspn=0.127029,0.120678&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=groom+lake,nv&ll=37
We Australians feel left out. Every time there is a "terror" scare in, say, the US or UK, our forces switch to Super-Ultra-Crazy-High-Look-At-Us-We're-Targets-To o-No-Really-We-Are alert.
The boys get to play in our Blackhawk helicopters over Sydney and Melbourne, sliding down ropes with slung MP5s, wearing their best Matrix gear, and impressing the hell out of the news chicks.
It's all part of the great Australian national inferiority complex: we're ashamed of our "Convict Heritage" while desperately trying to convince the rest of the world that we're a 'significant first-world player', and not some minor nation hidden away downunder.
Really, the lack of terrorist attacks on Australia is so embarrassing to us that we now actually have to point out the insecure targets to the terrorists.
So, Google, let's blot out pictures of every chemical plant, refinery, gasoline depot, and whatnot. Seriously, there are so many juicy targets that we can either live with it or turn ourselves into a frightened populace begging for a police state to "protect" us.
WTF, why is the parent offtopic?
Here in Sydney, Australia, we have a saying. It goes like this:
"Is that the truth, or did you read it in The Daily Telegraph."
My take on this story is that reading it on slashdot is probably the first the the head of ANSTO has heard of it all (ie: he said nothing of the sort!!!).
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Eh, I think Digital Globe is the image providers here responsible for censorship, not Google. At least e.g. the White House carries identical censoring as the same place found via NASA's World Wind, so I really doubt it's Google that censored that one... Can't see why they'd suddenly need to start making exceptions. Go after the map and data provider, not the service host.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
As is covering the white house - everybody knows where it is. You think osama is going to sit and refresh hoping to catch bush up there?
Silly.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Someone on IRC noticed a blur on google maps, a single house in Florida.
By tracing the map to figure out the city and street, and googling on that, I was able to figure that it was probably a Senatorial candidates house.
I can't imagine why they would blur it out, it just induces curiosity, and I can't imagine what use anything they blurred out could have been, unless Bush's daughter was nude sunbathing at the time or something.
And get the senate to pass a special law just for them.
The Lucas Heights reactor is in the middle of a middle-class suburb. It's about 30 minutes drive from where I live. It's clearly marked on all road maps of Sydney.
You can drive by it, stop and look through the wire mesh fence. You can take photos and the guards will never see you. It is just not possible to conceal the installation form observation formt he road or nearby scrubland. If you call yourself a high school teacher, ANSTO will mail you brochures that would let you work out the floor plan. You can join a tour group or ask for a tour for your own group.
Lucas Heights used to be a desolate piece of bushland next to a military firing range, but then developers were allowed to build the suburbs of Lucas Heights and Barden Ridge there. Two schools a golf course and several sporting fields are only a few hundred metres from the reactor.
Just use the website of The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) !
;)
Rigth Here!
Tsk tsk
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You'd think being lost in space for all those years would have calmed him down a bit, but he seems to be as terrified by life as ever.
Make sure to find out what angle the satellite cameras will be looking from - probably won't help if you've written it upside down.
They ask for 2 year old images to be removed because they're paranoid about a terrorist attack, but meanwhile they advertise their own security and tell the world that their access points can be seen clearly from the ground or any aircraft.
These people are morons.
look at US attempts to censor porn
Where? I'm in the US, and I've been looking at porn on the internet for quite some time. Could you point to some of those attempts to censor porn you're referring to?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The reactor is not intended for power generation, it is simply a research reactor and not particularly useful as that either. ANSTO is a fairly silly dinosaur-like organisation, so these sorts of comments aren't that surprising.
when they dealt with the Nazis.
. shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jun2001/ibm-j27
It'd be better if all companies took at stand, that would more likely change the attitudes of the Chinese government than having companies act as collaborators in their opression.
- sigs are for wimps.
18 months ago, I was sunbathing naked in my backyard, I am calling on Google to censor the images !!
Are Aussie nuts? why do they construct a nuclear plant adjacent to a town? They have enought terrain to do it far away from any town.
All they need to do is follow the lead taken by the Ocean Meadows Golf Club!
link
...oh, wait, their our ally!
You have to admit it's not a nice thought that google has satellite images of much of the world available to just about anyone who wants them (there's a free trial on the service, so anyone can get to it, even a five year old.)
It's one thing to think that the government may use those satellites themselves to keep an eye on things, another to think that basically anyone in the world can.
why shouldn't google have to remove the pictures? it's like requesting to have your name and phone number removed from phone directories. the world isn't everyone's business. from a privacy pov, i think google ought to readily comply with anyone who wants to keep prying eyes off their front porch, public, private, whatever.
not a basic human right.
To compare the right to free speech and dissent against smoking pot is truly going beyond the ridiculous. Ironically, how can you complain about the "violation" of the "basic human right" of smoking cannabis if you don't have free speech?
Common sense and not being ridiculous indicates that the two are not comparable, and that one opens doors for more things than the other. Let's be serious.
As for following "Chinese law", again, let's put this in a Germany circa world world II setting and stop making that absurd argument. We can come up with a lot of extreme arguments about laws that cross the line, but let's not get started.
BTW, I'm glad you support the right of the Chinese government to supress political, religious, and just plain free speech rights.
Amazing!
- sigs are for wimps.
Have you read the textbook on slippery slopes?
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Really, your argument is so stupid. Google is a business. Even if they want to change Chinese politics (they don't have to), there is *no way* to do it that doesn't require them to cooperate -- at first
First off, neither your post nor mine was a troll, nor did either deserve a downmod. We just disagree. I wish that was tolerated more by slashdot moderators. That said, you were being a jerk about it.
The reason I expect Google to try to change Chinese politics is (a) because China's government is evil. Really, really evil. Google has an explicit "don't be evil" policy, and, even if they didn't, there is precedent for punishing companies that cooperate with evil regimes.
Part of the problem is Google's arrogance. They think that they're so great that the harm done to the Chinese people by not having access to Google would exceed any potential political benefit. The other argument being made here is the opposite--Google is nothing special and could just as well be replaced by a Chinese government-run search engine. Both of these arguments are wrong. As the best search engine around, Google has some leverage, but it's not like Chinese peasants will die if they can't check their Gmail accounts. If building a Google-quality search engine was easy, then their US competitors would have done so.
US corporations can make a difference in China's policy, by making it clear that they won't cooperate with human rights abuses. It won't always work, but it will help.
The ethical justification for allowing a free trade relationship with a repressive regime is to promote positive change. That will only happen if we grow a backbone.
Just a thought--China actively violates a vast array of US internet and intellectual-property related laws (think spam, widespread commercial piracy, hacking attacks, etc.). Why don't we try to actively subvert their "Great Firewall"? Imagine what the geniuses at Google could do if they put their minds and hearts into it...
Aside from the fact that they have better aerial photography of the site on their own web site that in google you can go along to the site anyway. It's not at all secret. They pride themselves on open information. Much of the products are low level stuff used for nuclear medicine. The people who work there a really nice. This whole thing is not doing anyone justice but hell it's another slashdot conspiracy.
From http://www.google.com/remove.html
To remove your site from Google only and prevent just Googlebot from crawling your site in the future, place the following robots.txt file in your server root:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /
-David
I'm not in australia but we're on the top five list of countries that they want to attack. I've worked on contract at nuclear facilities that make you jump through hoops to get clearance to work there, and after you do they give you some idiotic temporary parking pass that a child could duplicate that grants admission (if the guards even feel like looking for it as you pass them at 20 MPH..."hmmm piece of paper looks official to me" he says to himself as he smiles and waves you through. On top of that they post PDF's with topographical photo's pointing out each sector of the building and its purpose. All within a half hour flight of the airport. Oh, and I've also worked at the airport...more illusions. Security? We're on top of it!
Republicans are jackballs...there, I said it!
My vote would be Capital Hill Canberra... ;-)
Well gee Doc, dont you think the terrists know where your site is and can take their own pictures? Did this guy get his Doc from some mail order diploma school? I mean he just broadcasts that they have no security over most of the reacter. What he did is just tell everyone the site's security flaws and gave a number of sociopaths ideas that they probably would never have thought of. I didnt know there was a doctor's degree in stupidity.
What is the news about aussies? Much worse has happened. The USA actually enacted a law to ban making satellite photos of the jewish Dimona reactor.
That is the place the zionist empire has illegally manufactured 400 nuclear weapons. This is the site which christian convert peace martyr Mordechai Vanunu exposed in 1986 to the british press and the world.
The big problem with nukes is not Iran, nor the communist Korea, but the jews, who terrorize the east and the west with the 400-strong A-bomb cache.
Mossad even killed JFK, when he wanted to stop Israel from completing the weapons reactor they got by bribing the french in 1959. The juden are so mighty, they also blackmailed the UK gov't into selling them 20 tons of heavy water, in total secrecy, which was in violation of every UK-USA treaty. Even the imperialist servant McNamara was offended.
This latter info is breaking news, it was discovered and posted by BBC a few days ago:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4743987.stm
So powerful is the zionist empire, they make the aglo-saxon foreign policy and the US and british population are mere puppets or golems in their games!
And now they;ve just told us that an image of said power plant is online, please raise your hand if you knew of this top secret information before and havent actually gone now and googled it now that it is news.
WTF?
...DON'T BUILD A WEBSITE FOR THEM!!!
If you don't want terrorists to see pictures of your secret nuclear generators....
idiots.
Coding Monkey.org - Spanging the heavy spade of truth into t
lucas heights from satellite scraped off google.
What did you expect the terrorists to say? (You thought they were guards? :)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If the image is two years out of date, then isn't this the perfect piece of disinformation to confound any prospective terrorist?
It's not you: I'm just this horrifically socially awkward with everybody.
Just in case anyone out there was interested its at -34.051675, 150.98044 as far as i can tell. you can see the new reactor being built on left. If you want directions by road try here
I couldnt find an official location on google. And i really dont care about any terrorists getting their hands anywhere near it. the reactor is about the size of a washing machine and doesnt hold all that much material. It supplies mainly medical isotopes and some physics research. Doubt there is enough material for a bomb, and for a dirty (and effective-in terms of death) bomb i would be much more afraid of any caesium containing X-ray machines...
Disclaimer: Do not read if you are currently residing in an axis of evil.
Some of us have to sacrifice goats and burn black candles to get Google to index our site, while a nuclear friggin' plant didn't think to put name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" in their meta tags on a pageful of sensitive data before posting it on a web-accessible site.
And they're lying.
It's what they do now.
I can't imagine what use anything they blurred out could have been, unless Bush's daughter was nude sunbathing at the time or something.
If it was Clinton's daughter doing the sunbathing, it would be a national service to blur it!
They way to combat this is to censor it themselves. They need to string a giant blue tarp, or alternatively, several smaller tarps, over the area. This will block all future areial/satellite photographs, revealing only a giant blue area.
Ok, so they should paint those lines on the top of the nuclear reactor? A really interesting idea.
Will this also work with military satellites? Then maybe all military sites should write on their roofs:
User-agent: enemy
Disallow: /
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
From the eppisode featuring Tasha Yarr's sister, there was a sign near the reactor saying "you can never at too much water to a reactor"
When asked about his reaction to this story being posted on Slashdot, Dr. Smith could only reply:
We're doomed... doomed! Oh, the pain... the pain...
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
Has anyone looked at how google covers the White House and Treasury Dept? You can tell the size and shape of the buildings just fine. Besides these photos are all a matter of public record (or else Google wouldn't have them).
"In the "information age" as they used to call it, secrets and closed policies just aren't feasable anymore OUTSIDE THE USA."
There, fixed!
WTF does the Bush administration have to do with Australian national security? Been looking at the 'World' as shown on MSN maps too much?
I guess they forgot to paint "robots.txt" on their roof.
I'll get my coat.
More of the same...
Soon after 9/11 I was asked by local government personnel (as webmaster of my local R/C flying club's site) to take down certain pictures of members' planes in flight that showed our city's power plant in the background. The reason I was given - I have the email - was that they didn't want potential terrorists to realize that bomb-laden R/C planes could be flown into the power plant from our field.
Cause, you know, that's how they do things, with toy planes and M-80's and stuff.
drink beer, and let the water run the mill
Striker: My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow, we're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 18:00 hours. We're coming in from the North, below their radar.
Elaine: When will you be back?
Striker: I can't tell you that? It's classified.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Check out the capitol Building. All blurred out.1 8&spn=0.014454,0.026786&t=h&hl=en
6 0&spn=0.007229,0.013393&t=h&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.889981,-77.0094
Now check out the Pentagon. It's across the river to the Southwest. Crystal Clear. I guess they figure it's just too easy to spot the Pentagon to even try to hide it.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.871055,-77.0559
TODO create witty sig.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Sheesh, didn't they even consult the web admin to see what he thought? ...er, unless this is a PR stunt.
Good thing you didn't. Some fag has been metamodding me unfair for modding comments like that "Informative" lately.
Well they buggered that one up, cos now everyone has it...
is to not let anyone know that you have secrets!
:)
Failed on that at least