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Google Terror Threat
bogd wrote to mention a CNN article wherein Indian President Abdul Kalam stated his concerns that Google Maps could be used to aid terrorists. From the article: "The Google site contains clear aerial photos of India's parliament building, the president's house and surrounding government offices in New Delhi. There are also some clear shots of Indian defense establishments. Debbie Frost, spokewoman for Mountain View, California-based Google, noted that the software uses information already available from public sources and the images displayed are about one to two years old, not shown in real time."
I think you have to balance the threat against the public benefit.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
The worst presidents (and other heads of governments) are those that continuously state that terrorists are a threat, and that everything that could possibly help a terrorist has to be taken down.
Terrorism is about threat, and continously emphasising that threat is only helping the terrorists.
The fact that the images are a few years old isn't really a rebuttal, since government buildings don't tend to move all that often. I think there ought to be areas of the world - e.g. governmental and military installations - that Google Maps blocks out. The level of detail available in many inner city areas would be very useful, it has to be said, to potential terrorists. But we can't run the web presuming every, or perhaps indeed any, user to be a terrorist. That's just daft. Perhaps a sensible compromise in this case - along the lines of what I suggest? - would be a prudent step for Google.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.
Paper maps proclaimed to be a threat to national security as they can be used to guide terrorists to important government buildings.
Okay - The most recent terror attack I recall was on the Lonodn Underground. This used suicide bombers. We also saw a large attack on trains in Spain, involving planted bombs and another suicide attack involving hijacked planes. There seems to be no evidence that terrorists have any substantial technological capabilities.
All of these were possible without maps.
The locations of most public buildings is already very well known. Government tends not to keep its existence a secret.
I just don't quite see how the information gleaned from google maps is really going to help a terrorist organisation any more than, say, mobile telephones and large bags.
You can't blame technology for terrorism. Terrorist will use whatever tools are at their disposal. People don't seem to remember that 9/11 occurred with terrorists using low technology methods take over a plain with Box Cutters (BTW it is tough to actually kill a person with a Box Cutter, But they could get a nasty cut) And they did it without google maps they did it with finding flaws in the Beurorocracy[sp?] of our government. Technology has little to do with terrorism the only major technological advancement that aided Terrorism is the airplane because it removed the water borders between countries that makes it easy for people mad at us half way around the world to come here.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
But not all the other maps (online and none online)? Perhaps maps.google.com is a a threat somewhere, but most likely it is elsewhere.
Why is it, that leaders everywhere invoke the terrorists notion, and almost always it is during an election or when they want something that is not related? It is becoming like the hitler thread.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Most things can be used in a "Terror act".
This information can be gathered at other places but just beacuse we can find it on one place its dangerous? pffft.
... about how evil and "cowardly" terrorists are, how we have to stand firm against them, never negotiate, never give into their demands, etc. And then they want us to limit our lives in assorted stupid ways because if we don't, "Oh no! The terrorists will get us!" Anyone see the contradiction here?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Everyone including the terrorists know that the maps are not up-to-date. I assume that terrorists go to the place physically for security reconnaissance and so forth. I can't believe they are blaming Google for aiding the terrorists. It's insane.
"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for it's children." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If you are a terrorist you probabaly haven't been waiting for Google to put up maps and show you how the indian parliament house is built or where it is. I am sure any promising terrorist can use basic language skills or a simple map to locate those structures by himself.
It's not like you wake up one day and think to yourself, "Wow, Thanks to Google maps I can locate the foreign department's offices in new Delhi now, I might blow them up".
Austrlalia's parlimant and prime ministers private residency are accesible throught google maps quite easily, but any self discerning terrorist would probably know where these are long before those become available.
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Computer Support in Sydney
Guys, emphasis is mine, but where else can I get this already available information to the public apart from a service similar to what Google offers? I do not know of any!
. . . the rich and powerful never minded when public information was available, so long as it was only available to the elite. Now that it's available to everyone, it's a problem that the alcalde's property tax bill, what cars he owns, and, yes, pictures of his palatial estate, are available to all comers on the in-tar-web.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Food helps terrorists. Air helps terrorists. Maps help terrorists.
You know what else helps terrorists? Constantly freaking out about how every little thing is either vulnerable to terrorists or helps terrorists.
Seriously, what is it with the people that can't think about anything but terrorists? Don't they realise they are part of the problem? Calm down, chill out, have a cup of tea, and don't be part of the problem.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Before governments publicized their worries about terrorists looking at maps of sensitive places, the government could probably make use (subpoenaed/secret/coerced, etc.) access to Google's logs to see who was trying to peek at these places. Cross-referencing anyone who tried to look at super secret "nuclear installation Q-345" with other data might help the government find terrorist cells. Now, after the government complains, 100,000 normal folks immediately go to Google Earth to try to find these sensitive locations and pollute the access log files.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
"Why of course the people don't want war... (snip) That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
... a double standard.
As governments (made up of people) pursue the invasion of privacy of individuals in the name of anti-terrorism than it should not be a double standard.
What would happen if the whole world was able to look at any area and/or spot on the planet in various resolutions and as it currently is (up to date), as well as time lapse sections?
The arguement for invasion of privacy is to prevent wrong doings and identify those pursuing such criminal direction.
So lets apply open source software methodology to the world view of google maps and earth!!!
Lets' identify the fuckers with their war machines and intentions....and when they argue against it, throw them in the prison of total world exposure for being intentional unfair and supporting double standards.
Lets get Google Maps up to speed of being current!
We need it to apply open source software methodology in riding the world of terrorism.
So far google has resisted censoring imagery, but how much longer can they hold out?
Bzzzzzzt.... How would you call the blurring out of the white house?
Oh wait - it's god own country, that's something completely different.
As long as it's the tree hugging pussies that are the first ones to die, I've no problem with your appeasement policy. Just appease the fuck out of the Muslims, as long as they're running planes into Hollywood and Berkeley and San Francisco.
As long as it's pacifists that are dying, not brave men and women, I'm all for multi-culturalism.
I have a twisted question regarding privacy: if you argue that satellite imagery should be publically accessible, what's wrong with a camera in every street, and storing the images for a long time?
Actually the OP (and the Indian PM) has a point ...
If Al-Queda wanted to cause a complete breakdown in the United States' economy, the most ultimate economy shattering that has been delivered in the history of the world - they would go into India and destroy the tech sector by blowing up the tech parks and computer infrastructure. IBM, Dell, HP, Compaq, Microsoft, all the banks in America, all the airlines in America - they are all heavily over-invested in having moved their tech centers to India - and a few back-pack nukes set off in Bangalore destroying all the tech parks there would bring the US economy to its knees.
Forget the goverment offices, forget doing anything on US soil - all they have to do is send a few dozen Al-Queda guys with AK-47s, grenades and torches into India to burn down 50 or so hi-tech buildings and the US economy would never recover. It would make September 11th look like a picnic, and it would be a heck of a lot easier to coordinate and carry off, Google maps blurring the PM's house or not.
Ironically enough, thanks to GWB, Al-Queda doesn't have the resources or strength to pull off that level of attack (which is a good thing, given how bad doing so would destroy America's economy, and how easy and cheap it would be to accomplish.)
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
FOOD !!!! FOOD can help Terrorists to stay alive, while planning attack. Many may agree, the the use of FOOD should be regulated and controled in some kind of way. If this is impossible, we might even consider to abolish FOOD Or even have everyone who has bought or tried to buy FOOD within the last two month before 9/11 arrested and asked some serious questions. I mean, come on - this is dangerous !! And without FOOD 9/11 would not have happened!!
It would seem that DHS and similar have created a new golden opportunity for terrorists everywhere.
In the 'old days' terrorists had to mess with dangerous explosives, or if really ambitious, chemical and biological hazards. The old holy grail, dangerous nuclear material was generally out of reach.
Today, they can create just as much terror in government and the civillian population just by thinking up something a terrorist MIGHT think of and promptly mentioning it to appropriate authorities. The kicker is that by taking that approach, they are mostly indistinguishable from 'the good guys' and still accomplish their goal.
Many, if not all, of the call centres in Hyderbad, Bangalore, etc. do integrate "accent and regional terminology" instruction into their employee training. Maybe the person you speak to is new, and is still trying to get the new accent down (I'd ask "How's YOUR Hindi, but given 15+ years of The Simpsons, and people imitating Apu, I figure that 90% of Americans do a pretty damn good Indian accent...Mine is awesome... :/ )
It's not about speaking English. English is a major language in India. The accent, hey, nothing wrong with nicely asking the tech to repeat, and then even to say it back to them once you get it...They'd probably listen to your pronunciation of it and try to better say it like that.
I read all the flack India's call centre population get, and I don't understand it...I've got mad respect for that whole scene. Granted, the choice of giving "them" "our" jobs, I can understand as being a bitching point, but we should aim that at the folks who in a greedy negative move, decided to screw over their countrymen for a buck. But the bright side is that they also accidentally did something good by giving localities in such an economically screwed, yet, intellectually RICH country a chance to come out into the tech sector like this, and really improve local economies that definitely could have used a little jumpstart..In a few years, when all those Indian call centre employees are working for (or perhaps owning) the giant Indian software megalith corporations that will soon be emerging, the call centre jobs will come back to the US...Maybe when they do, you'll even be getting trained to speak at your call centre job with a more understandable INDIAN accent.
I can't wait to visit India...Stopping into a call centre is one of my plans... (Getting screaming drunk with as many of the techs as I can is another)
Thank you, come again.
All you need is lurv.
But what does this have to do with Google? It's not like Google takes the pictures itself. Map imagery is public data. If they don't want pictures of certain buildings made public, then whoever Google gets the photos from needs to do that, not Google. msn virtualearth also provides satellite images and makes them easily accessible. Both, however, blur images of the whitehouse because that's how the images came. This is not the responsibility of Google, Microsoft or any other company which provides an interface to the images. It's the responsibility of the organization providing the data in the first place.
And anyone caught looking up popular destinations only in Google Maps, is headed to Guantanamo.
That would be funny if the feds hadn't told cops to be on the lookout for people carrying almanacs. Or if they weren't hassling casual photographers everywhere.
That would be 'stewards', not 'stewerds'. Oh, and third paragraph; first sentence: no apostrophe in "its".
In the ensuing weeks after 9/11 my then-coworkers (who at that job tended to be old - like 50's to 60's old) looked at me in shock when I told them that I've flown my plane into a building in Flight Simulator pretty much every single time. When they asked why I just told them "because landing is hard"
We used to lament how lame it was that Flight Simulator didn't have "cool crashes" - after 9/11, we were glad it didn't.
Schnapple
1) The US has not outsourced all, or even most important functions. Banks keep financial records in the US. Really, I've seen the computers on which they do it. No point in sending them over to India, legal problems aside, you aren't going to save any money. Most outsourcing is lower-level stuff, call centres and the like. R&D is still largely US based.
2) India is a real, no shit, well-armed nation. If Al-Queda started trying to pull off attacks in India, they'd work to stop them, and by and large succede. Also note that India doesn't have a bill of rights, the authorities get more latitude when dealing with criminals over there, and many things considered cruel and unusual in the US are normal there. What's more, in a matter that was national security related, they'd have even less restrictions.
3) Al Queda NEVER had the resources to pull of an attack like that.
So please, let's cut the mad-tinfoil-hattery here. India has better security than to allow every US intrest in India to be destoryed and if you blew up all the call centres, the world would not stop turning.
Google onlu blurred it out in Google Local (used to be Google Maps.) Google Earth has it uncensored still.