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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 Smith admits the image is about two years out of date, he also says he doesn't 'want to provide any easy assistance to anyone who wants to interfere with the site.'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."
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?
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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.
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/
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.
"In the "information age" as they used to call it, secrets and closed policies just aren't feasable anymore."
Really?
This would seem to contradict you:
"The Bush administration filed sealed documents with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan in the case that the American Civil Liberties Union brought, aiming to keep hidden dozens of photographs. The ACLU is seeking information on treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
The administration incredibly contends that releasing the pictures would violate the Geneva Conventions rules by exposing the prisoners to additional humiliation."
From: http://www.roanoke.com/editorials%5C28746.html
Hate to say it buddy, but even under FOIA, it often can take up to a decade to get information from the government. This is especially true given this administration's extreme interpretation of Executive Priviledge (can't say Clinton was any better, but at least he was only trying to cover up sex scandals versus real crime). John Roberts' past judicial record is also being kept from the public. For those saying that it's lawyer-client confidentiality, keep in mind who the client is when we're talking about the Solicitor General (hint: it's "We the people...").
We've a long way to go still before we reach a transparent government.
I have some information that explains all of this quite easily.
The head of ANSTO is a terrorist, Trying to set up the Nuclear Reactor for an attack. The idea is to get the insecure areas blocked out on Google Maps. It's a public and deniable way to give them information on how to breach security.
They've already saved the images to disk, and are just waiting for information on what areas are considered "insecure" before they start planning how to blow it up.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Because in classic fashion, the government won't get off their fat arses until someone embarrasses them into it. Since the info in now public, they will be forced into fixing it, thus the head of ANSTO, far from being stupid, is actually quite clever. Which is why he is the head of a nuclear facility.
Aside from which, the whole "nuclear plant" thing in this case is overblown anyway.... it's a scientific reactor, making fuel for X-ray machines etc. It's not a nuclear power plant as you would think of them. Even hitting it directly with an aircraft wouldn't create much damage or pollution.
But in our new fear happy world, any threat is a good threat as long as it keeps the populace frightened. Frightened people are easier to control, and control is what governments always seek more of. Google having maps means WE have control and can watch the watchers, so they don't like that.
Visceral Psyche Films
We're much worse in Canada. After the London bombings, our Deputy PM was on TV saying, "We'll be next!", as if it were a GOOD thing that we'd be targeted by terrorists.
Then there was a brief uproar about how smart it was to scare the living shit out of the populace with unfounded scaremongering like that, and a bunch of terrorism experts calmly told us that nobody in Al Qaeda cares about Canada.
So the Deputy PM was on TV again, saying, "Oh yes, they hate us too! And what's more, we're incapable of stopping them! Run in fear!"
It was the most surreal one-upsmanship I've ever seen. Politics at its best.
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.