Slashdot Mirror
India Forms Expert Group on Google Earth Images
Digital Inspiration writes "According to Yahoo News, the Indian Government, 'concerned over satellite images of its strategic installations being made available in the public domain by internet search engine Google, has decided to constitute an expert group to suggest ways to safeguard the country's interests.' Earlier, The President of India expressed concerns that terrorists could use Google Earth to plan assaults on the Indian parliament, the President's house and government offices in New Delhi, all of which show up clearly in Google Earth's photos. Google Earth has expressed its readiness to have discussions with the Government regarding the issue."
we can finally find their hidden birdie num-nums
A modicum of snuff can be quite efficacious.
Time for Indians to use Area 51 techniques, put things under the ground, problem fixed.
That was actually pretty funny, with the moving of the browser window and all. Well, until it redirected to Last Measure, of course.
When will they realize that just because it's blurred out in the picture, doesn't mean the building disappeared?
Submitter, don't put something in quotes if you have paraphrased it or changed it. You completely changed what that article says. Your subject says one thing and then the content says another.
Actual Quote from Article: "Concerned over satellite images of its strategic installations being made available in the public domain by internet search engine Google, India has decided to constitute an expert group to suggest ways to safeguard the country's interests."
- what is the definition of simultanagnosia?! I've been meaning to look it up!
Call this office and tell them you will NOT be building your next call center in India if they keep trying to censor the Internet!
Office of the Development Commissioner
Kandla Special Economic Zone
Ministry of Commerce & Industry Government of India
Gandhidham-370 230
Gujarat
Phone: 02836- 52194, 52475, 52273
Fax: 02836- 52250
After hearing concerns voiced by every government on Earth, Google has agreed to only show satellite images of the oceans. This is to prevent terrorists from using sensitive data revealed by the images.
While I understand the concerns of the Indian government, I question the viability of this in the long run. Security through obscurity is at best a short term fix. If their sites can be attacked simply by knowing the above ground layout, one has to question the overall security of those installations. What's to stop a terrorist from simply getting the photos from another source? Perhaps through aerial photography? If Google agrees to help, I hope the Indian government will take the time to implement some genuine security that's not so vulnerable. Perhaps it's time for security people to experiment with the idea of peer-review?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Google wouldn't put the same pics of US installations would it? So it should treat the Indians with the same amount of respect and consideration.
seems to be too concerned about this. Why are they so worried when having parts of your national infrastructure publicly visible via satellite doesn't seem to worry the rest of the world?
Just have them write an "X-No-Archive:" header on their lawn, specifiying the dimensions not to include.
Hey, it works for Google web search and Groups!
I don't see why just blurring out the images or putting giant black boxes over them won't work. If they really wanted to be devious, they could even switch the places around on the map (i.e. 180 degrees of rotation, then mirrored over X or Y axis), add 'fake' security measures to make the building look impenetrable, etc. Google is willing to do it, India is willing to do it, problem solved.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
The recent threat might be the one of causes and then some one send an an email threat to blow up Parliament.
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
We don't want them to give us the same pics of U.S. instalations.
Can you imagine how iritating it would be to get a picture of some base in India when you requested a base in the US?
Considering all the ridiculous things the Shrub administration has done in its so-called "war on terruh", you'd think they'd at least strategically blur satellite photos of our military installations. Lord knows, they'd like to blur that porn you were jerking off to last night. But we all know they would never ask an American business to stop distributing its products in the name of stopping terruh. Regulating capitalism is unamerican! It's just more evidence to me that they are not really interested in protecting our troops and citizens... unless it somehow profits them or increases their control.
Since Google Earth works only with Windows, just ban use of Windows. Problem solved!
Shipping lanes and harbors could be looked at for highkacking and getting bombs in there. That's one of the big issues with people who are really in the know reegarding terrorist attacks: the harbors are the biggest whole.
Imagine, if the terrists had access to....a MAP!
Will code a sig generator for food
These satellites have been up there for some time, and they're not government satellites, they're commercial satellites. This means that any terrorist with enough money could see an image of whatever they want to bomb, Google Earth or not.
I beleive it's time governments figure out a solution to the problem that doesn't involve the reversal of technology. Because it isn't going to get any better for them from here on in.
Anything that a satellite way up there in orbit can take a picture of, a remote-controlled plane with camera attached can take a photo of. Trying to stop terrorists having this information is insanity. India need to come up with security that assumes the terrorists already have this information.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
google earth is just a program that aggregates a ton of information. All of this information is easily accessibly via other avenues. So just talking to google about this problem doesn't do anything at all really, if a terrorist is even slightly resourceful and can type "sattelite imagery" into google search, he can have instant access to the same pictures google earth provides. there really is no point to having these "talks".
In 20 years, airplanes will need to seal their windows to prevent security breaches. No more looking outside.
Sad really.
While I haven't verified this myself, and can't provide links to confirm this, a good friend of mine says that when Google first launched Google Maps with worldwide coverage, he looked at a nearby French military base and was surprised that everything was plainly visible -- buildings, airport lanes, maybe some vehicles. When he checked again a few months later, things were blanked out. It seems someone somewhere made the appropriate phone calls.
So, Google is willing to help governments hide sensitive locations, and I would be surprised India gets a different treatment -- it's just a matter of providing the appropriate info.
Hopefully, this won't get abused (blank countries, anyone?), but so far with the U.S.A. and at least France, such blanking has been done with the right balance.
Have you ever belonged to a pet cat?
Did you ever take it to the vet?
Did you try to put it into a little box to get it to the vet?
Take the hint. If your precious secret hidey-holes and pillow-forts have such glaring vulnerabilities that a picture of them from above would help terrorists, you have MUCH bigger problems than keeping your cat from clawing the hell out of you in the car.
And the really annoying blurring of the entire Capitol Building complex has been removed.
The White House blurring was particularly pointless. You can go up to the top of the Washington Monument and take good pictures of the White House roof, and hundreds of tourists do that every day.
It's good to see some of the sillier Homeland Security paranoia being rolled back.
Just get Google to insert some cloud cover, since there already appear to be areas hidden by clouds. Since my home is covered by clouds in the Google photos, maybe it sugests that the is something to hide near ;)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
When will people learn.
Security through obscurity rarely works.
It is not on FAS but still backed up by archive.org. org/nuke/guide/india/facility/trombay.htm/. org/nuke/guide/india/facility/index.html/. org/nuke/guide/india/facility/airbase/index.html// nuke/guide/india/target/index.html/
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/index.html/
http://web.archive.org/web/20000309002720/www.fas
http://web.archive.org/web/20000304012844/www.fas
http://web.archive.org/web/20000618013500/www.fas
http://web.archive.org/web/20000128044315/fas.org
The only difference here is that India doesn't have a lobby as strong as Israel's. By US law, a satellite company cannot show high-res images of Israel.
Bull, this has nothing to do with security, the real reason is that the leaders of India don't want the people of India to see how they live in huge mansions on drawn out estates while the vast majority of the country lives on under $1000 per year.
... someone hacks into the database containing the list of strategic installations of all the aggrieved nations in the world?
Not that I could see Pakistan starting a nuclear exchange with India. If such an exchange were to occur and, say, 100 million were lost on both sides, India's remaining population would be .9 billion or so while Pakistan's would be in the negative numbers (IIRC, can't be bothered to look it up in the CIA world factbook.) And I'm stealing that quote more or less directly from an Indian government official who said the same thing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The term "security through obscurity" is a technical term that refers specifically to keeping protocols and algorithms of a cryptographic system secret. Trying to extend that concept to mean "anything that is kept secret" is overextending its meaning. Even standard cryptographic systems rely on keeping things "obscure"--like the key, for example.
The question of whether satellite data of military installations needs to be kept secret is something that warrants a separate discussion. I think that eventually, there will be no way around making all defense and police installations secure against aerial photos, but for the time being, aerial and satellite photography may indeed may make them more vulnerable.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/cartosat1_lau nch_050505.html
"Cartosat-1 can capture details spanning 2.5 meters (8.20 feet) on the Earth and will be followed in 2006 by the launch of Cartosat-2 with a spatial resolution of about 1 meter (3.28 feet)."
India spent millions of dollar implementing remote sensing by launching a satellite to watch over natural disasters and environmental changes, obviously those Tsunami is so small, you need 1 meter spatial resolution to detect its occurance.
Who should be worrying about who's watching who here???
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
I can imagine what the terrorists are getting from this nonsense...
"Guys, if you want to get some juicy targets, just load Google Earth, and look for the censored parts! They dont want you to see those, so thats what you should blow up."
...lined with tinfoil, of course.
Security through obscurity is at best a short term fix.
Your statement suggests a superficial understanding of security. There is nothing wrong with obscurity. It is merely one of *many* tactics that should be employed *simultaneously*. Problems arise when someone relies predominately on only one tactic, whether the one tactic is obscurity or something else doesn't really matter.
I went googling for the part number for a new scope for my rifle and only managed to find anal love beads!
go figure.
After discussions with Interpol, Google has decided to stop showing images of the oceans, as this provides terrorists and maritime pirates with critical information about shipping activity. Google Earth will now provide just a single image of the Earth, as is befitting its name.
so why shouldn't it do the same for India?
In 20 years, airplanes will need to seal their windows to prevent security breaches. No more looking outside. Sad really.
Windows are obsolete. People will be using their individual flat panel displays. They will select a view (camera) just like they select the music channel. Everybody gets a view, everybody can see the "sight" visible from only one side, etc. The cameras can be *temporarily* shutdown if security necessitates it.
Keyhole and other organisations had same/similar collections of photos for ages and noone thought that's a threat to security.
But of course, since Google bought Keyhole, and Google is popular, this means their "intelligence" noticed the existence of such data during their casual browsing around Google.
Just this fact makes me laugh about the way they overreact about the whole situation.
...Tibet doesn't exist at all. Thanks for being open, GoogleEarth...
When will people learn. Security through obscurity rarely works.
"When will people learn?" is the correct question. However your statement then goes on to demonstrate a superficial understanding of security. There is nothing wrong with obscurity. It is merely one of *many* tactics that should be employed *simultaneously*. Problems arise when someone relies predominately on only one tactic, whether the one tactic is obscurity or something else doesn't really matter. Today, I hoped you learned that slashdot slogans may not offer a complete understanding of a topic.
On the same note, here are other solutions the Indian experts might want to consider:
On a more serious note (?) Google should definitely have a "blur API" you can use to request to blur your buildings. What about painting a huge crossed "G" over required rooftops ?
Perhaps the Indian Government is looking at the fact that coupled with the layout and pictures of President House, the Parliament or other such places, one of the dozens of Paki/Kashmiri terror groups may actually go ahead and try their luck with a grenade or a rocket to gain notoriety and subsequent funding. That's how many of the current outfits (banned by US as well) have gained prominence, by killing more and striking important facilities.
Even if they understand well that censoring Google Earth would not stop those who want, access to such maps, there point is to not make it easy for wannabe terror outfits.
Had it not been camera-phones, we'd have less of boyfriend-shoots-naked-pics-of-GF-circulates-them MMS-scandals. The analogy is far fetched but can be used to understand the point of Indians.
Unlike US, India is not so insulated with it's porous borders and a scattered distrubtion of religious communities.
~mukul
After the invasion of Afghanistan the US and NATO forces would come across documents in regards to Al Qadea and the Taliban's attempts to create Chemical Weapon systems. In some of the memos were comments along the line of "...the Western Media has reported that nerve agents are easy to create and deliver so we should make them."
In a way, all of this talking about Google Earth is going to do more to get Google Earth known by the terrorist and military operators who could get an advantage from them. For all of the big military players out there (US, NATO, EU, Russian Federation, China, Japan, Israel, RoK) they have much better imagry than what Google Earth offers. The lower end terrorist groups and seperatists as going to hear about Google Earth not from thier IT people, if they have them, but from the Media.
If Google Earth was out there without the Media going - Look it shows all the ingress and egress routes for an Assassination of the President of India at his house! - the people that might use Google Earth for this likely wouldn't know it was out there.
My 2 cents on the above.
Blacking out or greying out areas is definitely a bad response, considering that it draws more attention to what should probably be kept lying low. As for Security through obscurity - um - what're we talking about here? Is this some sort of algorithm whose mathematical innards are left open for peer review and testing, to prove that its unbreakable? If you were to do that for actual installations - wouldn't that be saying Hi there! This building is open for testing and peer reviews - please come in, try to blow it up, and prove to us that it is indeed secure.
Grow up!
Imo, the whole issue is being grossly overrated. So India forms a committee. Great. They have a bunch of pen pushers trying to think about how the problem should be sorted out - whats to say they won't be able to do it? As someone mentioned above, security in India might look warped, but its one of the most efficient in the world.. and if the same pen pushers can do such a good job doing what they do (albeit with their under-the-table-cuts-and-whatnot), let them do it!
And forget about Google Earth, Terramaps and whatnot - those are just the free services. Commercial satellites could well be leased by certain people who own construction companies making billions in Saudi Arabia - even though they prefer to live in caves. Has anyone thought of putting restrictions on the *Satellites* or the companies which run them?
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...oh, wait a minute - he already does.
So now, governments want privacy, yet they take privacy away from their citizens.
Something is very, very wrong with this paradigm.
Terrorists, quick, copy all the secret places using Print Screen key. :0)
this is silly, if someone wants to blow you up they are going to actually look at your installation first, dur!
Yeah... cuz they couldn't use a frickin ROAD MAP to find the damn buildings just as easy.
Hell, I bet every tourist brochure for the capital has the locations of every government building on them. Not to mention most of the images are at least 3+ years old. WTF good are they now?
Bunch of hubbub over nothing.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Another idea: Cover lots of useless locations with giant "blur cover" tarps to make it look like Google is hiding something important.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Because, now tracking who is trying to obtain these images suddenly become exponentially difficult. It is no different from NSA scowling on exporting encryption algorithms ...
..and security by obsucrity.. what's wrong with that?
This is about the distribution channel and monitoring them and not about the source.
I checked out some of those pictures on Google Earth, and I went to look at my old residence in Wisconsin. You woulndn't believe it, but I saw the car I had four years ago sitting in the damn driveway. Now I know that car is gone, because it was totalled in an accident involving my girlfriend at that time. With the pictures being that out of date, why would anyone use them for a terrorist attack. Most terrorists use live agents to invetigate the target area, and this is how they've always operated, so I fail to see the logic behind this.
Yes, I said it.
You aren't that far off:
A while ago. some poilitician(s) in Germany made the useless suggestion to equip the German nuclear power plants with GPS jammers and fog machines, so that "terrsts" with a hijacked plane would have more difficulties to crash them into the reactors.
Who is to prevent someone from getting those images the 'usual' way, geocoding them and making them available on a decentralised P2P GIS?
NASA World Wind rigged to download its stuff from Freenet, anyone?
It is about time that people stop thinking like we're still living in the 19th century where books could be hidden, archives contained lots of paper documents that could be guarded etcetera.
Welcome to the 21st Century...
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Security through obscurity is not security at all.
Anyone here should know that...
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
A simple solution simple.
Ban Google in India till they mask the sensitive images.
gave you this address and what does it have to do with the article in question!!!?
i live on an alternate planet
"Google Earth has expressed its readiness to have discussions with the Government regarding the issue." My screensaver has volunteered to mediate if, you know, talking to computer programs would help resolve the issue.
Maybe you might want to head to the Rust Belt and talk to the thousands of people who just lost their jobs thanks to your interference with the economy. They would gladly give you something well deserved of you - and it's NOT money.
Until one can move from country to country with true practical choice with no obstacles to employment or education, I'll stick with having our citizens first, recent immigrants second, and H1B/L1's never. Sure, it's not exactly friendly for immigration, but the countries we deal with will not reciprocate - by eliminating that and any form of university selection policy, it will ensure we have the people in our own backyard that can do the job quite well.
Those people do matter, and to reinvest in them would be the least that must be done. The proper thing would be to ensure that our citizens are first with every regard to jobs and education. Offshoring their jobs just puts you further up the list when they do end up cleaning the US.
Obviously parent has no knowledge of what college students have as practical choices if not well-connected, or is obviously not in any serious tone. The grandparent at least has something serious as a policy that should be put in action either way they act.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
every new technology brings its strengths and those systems that are not able to adopt ot new technology will be self-destroyed. The sam thing happened with SSSR, when they could not control information flow any more.
:)
Every step toward democratization is right way to go. Google please do not stop, give us option to see ore, oil, minerals and other underground stuff
Going by your argument of who comes first. I guess Ameria belong to the native Indians and they should be getting preference in anything. Immigrant are immigrants and it does not change whether they are coming today or they came 100 years back. Why should US be any different today as a land of opportunity as it was for today's Citizens Forefathers.
As others have said, the information is available elsewhere, sometimes more detailed, but usually in a less convient form. The satellite companies are the obvious place to filter out sensitive areas. I believe Israel has or had deals limiting the satellite resolution of the entire country.
If the best resolution imagery comes from aerial photography anyway, that's much easier for a country to regulate. I mean, Dick Cheney just got a special 1-mile no-fly-zone created for his new home outside of DC--even when he's not there (because the FAA has nothing better to do than protect gov't officials personal property...).
More to the point, this sounds a lot like India has never considered that someone might fly a spy plane or UAV over a sensitive area. If you just blur or blue-dot the sensitive areas on Google Earth, that gives you a pretty good idea of which areas are most important and you can then go look directly. Better to hide in plain sight, or underground.
You would think that a nuclear power would have gained some sophistication in their defensive planning, but perhaps not.
I read some article posted by a man whose son is serving over in Iraq. The guy posted that the Iraq insurgents are using laptops with Google Earth and GPS to coordinate their attacks. He says that Google Earth is one of their main tools for doing this. Google Earth may be making money, but it could be at the cost of people's lives. The fact is that it facilitates this kind of activity, making it much more convenient than other methods.
Anyone that wants to find such a building doesn't have to resort to Google Maps. Google Maps will just print out a pretty online picuture.
I mean, the address of the White House was been well known for the past 100 years, and no city map of Washington D.C. fails to list it. It's been featured in song, the title of a film, and a trivial pursuit question for decades. I imagine that any Indian seat of power (residence or professional building) is equally as well known within the city's limits (and possibly nationwide).
Google Maps is only going to help the people that need a top-down photograph of the building and surrounding area. The only organizations which could easily profit from such information already have spy planes, satellite photography, survey maps, and other such tools. Other people just need a few dollars to buy the best street map of the city.
I don't see why Google should have to blur out the capitol.
After all if the politicians in D.C. are not doing anything wrong, they should have nothing to hide.
To: S.B.S. Shekhawat, Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Parliament House, New Delhi.
Re: Google Maps & Parliamentarly Security
We have received your message expressing concern over the possibility that on-line services such as Google Maps and Google Earth may facilitate planning for those seeking to bring harm to the institutions of the national government.
It is my misfortune to inform you that the cat is out of the bag, and the reasons for this are two:
1) Pakistan has already purchased the necessary imagery from France, the United States, Russia, and China, and provided it to those extremists which are or will be in it's employ.
2) Those installations which are not already closed to the public have been or will be toured ("cased", if you've been watching too much satellite tv) both by elements from those groups mentioned in point (1), as well as from groups with access to neither the internet nor Pakistani intelligence.
Nevertheless, we will send a strongly worded note to Google, Ltd in Bangalore and Google, Inc. in Mountain View, if it will allow you to rest easier. If France can "put the screws" to Yahoo! over a few swastikas, surely we can convince Google to airbrush a few aerial photos, particularly of your home at 72, Gaurav Nagar, Civil Lines, Jaipur-302006 (Rajasthan).
Regards,
Prithiviraj Chavan, minister of state, PMO, New Delhi
Luke, help me take this mask off
Why are they worried? It's not like it's that difficult to move a teepee (tepee). As for terrorists...shouldn't they worry about cowboys and pilgrims with smallpox infested blankets instead?
Oops...wrong Indians.
* Si hoc legere scis numium eruditionis habes *
Google are buying maps that are publicly available, and displaying them without alteration in a freely available web page.
If the providers of the maps were made to obscure their images, and Google were made to simply refresh their maps, then the Indian Government should be happy. Google aren't taking the satellite images after all, and anyone who really wanted the data could just go to the source if Google's images weren't good enough.
The genie is well out of the bottle here.
Google should be required to simply refresh their maps. It's the original providers (who still sell the maps to anyone with a credit card) who need to alter their data.
It's worth noting that the NSA isn't obscured in Google Maps. Why not? Because they have actual security, and understand that if a mere aerial photograph is enough to in any way increase a terrorist's chances of success, it means your security is completely inadequate.
Similarly, you'll note that there are nice high resolution maps of Area 51 available to anyone who's interested. Try using the map to get to anywhere it shows, and you'll find out why nobody has needed to try and ban the maps.
The way I see it, India has just telegraphed to the world "Hey, the security of our Parliament is completely inadequate!" They should be hoping no terrorist is reading the story.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You idiots! Google earth is the Matrix! By removing the Matrix you've killed us all!
A coworker who is on an L1 visa from India was trying to show me where he lives in Bangalore using Google Earth, which is right next to a military base. The whole area was covered with green, which I thought was a swamp. He said it didn't look right. Turned out the area was being censored already. I'm not sure why India needs a thinktank since they obviously have been successful in censor the imagery.
I am sure there other softwares avialbe,Solar earth is one of them,in which i guess you dont need to connect to web also.So any one who wants to do something big will always have better source, and all these guys are gunning against a free service which dishes out maps that are around 1-2 years old meant for common man felling good about havin access to any part of world.
All this terrorism paranoia brings to my mind an image of my brother in law, who had high cholesterol because he ate too much high cholesterol food. So he got himself on cholesterol medication, and now he feels free to eat all the steak and eggs and onion rings he wants. An alternative approach would have been to figure out what he was doing that was hurting his body and stop doing it. Changing his habits was too hard compared with simply shelling out some more money every month.
There have always been terrorists and there always will be, but it's not a constant thing, any more than famine is. For periods of time unrest dies down and then it flares up again. Trying to fix the root causes of the unrest is usually criticized as appeasment, or "coddling the terrorists." But that's like saying changing your diet is coddling the cholesterol. Unrest and terrorism are symptoms of other problems. Changing the system to fix the root problems isn't weakness, it's "intelligent design."
When will we stop pretending that there's nothing wrong with our way of life that can't be fixed by higher walls, bigger guns, more government power and fewer citizen liberties?
I just read this one: http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=95437 So if everybody else is getting the favors, then why can't India?
It seems that the person who started this does n't know enough to comment on it. Security is just one that Govt. of India is interested in discussing with Google. Actual part is India has protested to Google Inc. - the multi-billion dollar internet company that owns the world's most used search engine - against the depiction of the part of Kashmir which New Delhi claims as its own as part of Pakistan. You can read full news at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/131 3644.cms
And for those who think Indian Govt. is stupid slap yourself because you are wrong. Indian Govt. has set up an expert group to review such products(Like google earth) available in the market. They only mentioned google earth as an example. And as a part of their work, they will tackle with Google Earth as well.
Google shouldn't blur anything... or blur everything. Why would these Indian government buildings be more precious then my company's or my own home? What's next? Paying Google to blur areas as you see fit? Again, governments and companies are the only ones that can afford this. Ofcourse the intelligence community can buy these coordinates at a premium from their local Google store. Keeps them from spending time searching Google Earth from the blurs. PS: I never agreed someone to take pictures from my home, by sattelite or other means. Next time someone flies over, think twice when you notice the SA-15 Gauntlet SAM battery in the backyard! (You can buy everything in Russia, didn't you know?)
StarTrek.org Free Webmail
Well I am a couple of days late in commenting on this article but these concerns of India are nothing new. I work in Atmospheric Science. Back in the 1970's, there was an international field experiment studying the monsoon. The research aircraft had a military officer aboard to make certain when the aircraft was flying over land all data collection was turned off. Also when the first global composites of geosynchronous statellite images were produced, there was a band of missing data where the Indian meteorological satellite collected the data. Ridiculous as it was, in both cases security concerns were given for the lack of data. Thankfully today they are more sharing of data, but I think the mindset still exists there.
but wrong