Slashdot Mirror
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."
Admittedly I'm not the biggest fan of google, but they have driven innovation that really impact society using the world wide web. The google maps/satellite functionality is a perfect example.
The "informative" response that the maps are already publicly available really exposes how ignorant the people in charge truly are. Yikes!
The only thing I'm surprised about is that the EU hasn't decided to create a "global" organization to control google, and informed us in the U.S. that google doesn't comply they will ban it and create their own search engine and tools.
Similar questions are for Sun Workstations. It is most likely a situation where while they have faith in their product and its stability. But they don't want to risk the liability of having it on a nuclear reactor, so if there is an error even from a hardware malfunction due to high radiation, they don't want to be responsible for it and they never tested it in that environment.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
GOOGLE Declines to Publish Other Publically-Available Information
Someone should tell Debbie Frost, spokewoman for Mountain View, California-based Google, that *HER* personal name and address information is *LIKEWISE* available via publically-available sources, and yet GOOGLE seems to be choosing to keep *THAT* information to themselves...
My own view is that governments, acting on the behalf of the people (I'm speaking hypothetically, seeing as how our own government comes to mind...) has a legitimate interest in protecting state property and military interests from undue scrutiny and harm.
While the information may very well be available publically, it doesn't have to be made *EASY* to find just by typing a query into GOOGLE.
SHOULD Information be Searchable Online Even if it IS Publically-Available?
I like GOOGLE as much as anybody and it has definitely become my second-brain half-the-time, but I think there is a realistic point that some information needs to remain more obscure, even if it is technically public, just for the safety of everyone involved.
That said, I also don't think that this should be a good reason for the wholesale obfuscation of information either-- I think it needs to be carefully weighed, preferably by an uninterested, neutral, third-party (like that's going to happen...) who can evaluate the various interests in these cases.
Open-Source Counter-Terrorism
On the other hand-- there is another point-of-view... If GOOGLE would *START* publishing *LIVE* data (as live as it can get) maybe the OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY could do a BETTER JOB THAN THE !@*^%$# BUSH ADMINISTRATION in finding OSAMA BIN LADIN and the OTHER TERRORISTS.
After all, two can play the "Where do they live" game... and one might consider that 50 million amateur photo-analysts might just succeed where a few professionals working for an administration that doesn't _really_ have an interest in winning anything, can't.
As long as the Bush administration is fighting the "War on Terrorism", they have a ready-made and pat excuse to hand Haliburton and all of their @#$!@&* Buddies no-bid "sweetheart" contracts and otherwise RAPE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Does anybody really KNOW that the Bush administration did not secretly PAY Bin Laden to step up the terrorism? Afterall, it sure is working-out very conveniently for some pretty well-placed companies and people! And I find the fact that we _haven't_ found him in almost four years to be patently absurd.
Why does Google hate America?