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."

Comments

mmm

[mallmall]

we can finally find their hidden birdie num-nums

Area 51

[k00110]

Time for Indians to use Area 51 techniques, put things under the ground, problem fixed.

Re:Area 51

[balster neb]

The building in questions aren't exactly the type that can be hidden underground. The buildings they want obscured include residences of the Prime Minister, the President, as well as various nuclear and military facilities. The concern is, among other things, that the satellite images will reveal the location and nature of the defences around these buildings.

Similar blocking is done for the White House and the Capitol building in the US (at least for Google Maps, I haven't checked Google Earth).

Re:Area 51

[ozmanjusri]

include residences of the Prime Minister

I'm an Australian, and I'd be very happy if our Prime Minister was under the ground.

Security Through Obscurity

[affliction]

When will they realize that just because it's blurred out in the picture, doesn't mean the building disappeared?

Re:Security Through Obscurity

[Decaff]

When will they realize that just because it's blurred out in the picture, doesn't mean the building disappeared?

It just means someone was taking it away real fast.

Re:Security Through Obscurity

[Guspaz]

But these are public photos. Google just bought them, and so can anybody else. I don't understand why Google Earth is considered a security risk when the source of the images isn't. Do they think that terrorists don't use money in exchange for goods and services?

Re:Security Through Obscurity

[node 3]

This is a flawed argument. It's, essentially, that if something isn't 100% secure, it's the same as being 100% insecure.

Google Earth makes it about a billion (well, some large amount) times easier to discover and access the data. It's also much harder to track down who is accessing the data (well, for India, I suppose it doesn't really apply, but if the satellite images are from an American company, at least in the US the government could subpoena who accessed them and maybe track down the fact that some known Bad Guy has been looking at some vulnerable Secret Place.

So the point being, the data is more readily available, which is not good for people who want to keep the data hidden. This sucks for those who want to keep the secrets, but I agree with the sentiment you are trying to defend, which is, "too bad for them".

Re:Security Through Obscurity

[Stiletto]

Do you think that a potential terrorist really cares how easy to use Google is, or that they make the information more readily available? In a world without Google Earth, would he fire up his browser, learn that the information is not readily available, and give up, saying, "Well, I couldn't possibly just go out and buy this stuff from the source, so I think I just won't bomb Parliament!"

Who's forming the group?

[mattyohe]

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."

"This just in"

[i41Overlord]

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.

Could Learn From Computer Security People

[Comatose51]

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?

Google should fix this

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I have an idea

[bitspotter]

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!

Hm...

[Ruff_ilb]

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.

Re:Hm...

[The Cydonian]

You know, it just occurred to me reading your post, but that's exactly what the Indian army did during the Pokhran II blasts! They studied sand dune patterns in the Thar desert and actually mimicked them during the 20 or so days they were testing nuclear weapons in 1998. Apparently, it was highly successful; unlike 1995, we caught American spy agencies completely unaware of what's going on.

In that context, it is indeed a historical irony that India has had to actively form a security group on this matter.

The only surprising thing...

[Max Threshold]

...is that other governments haven't expressed concern about this. A few months ago, I checked out the photos of my last duty station, NAS Atlanta. The resolution was good enough that you could make out rows of tiny green dots criscrossing the flight line -- Marines on their morning FOD walkdown.

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.

Re:Too dumb for words.

[Geno Z Heinlein]

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!

I tried to call the Ministry to complain, but I ended up talking to some chick with a thick Brooklyn accent and neither one of us could understand what the other was saying.

Re:Too dumb for words.

[WIAKywbfatw]

Really? And how is what India wants anything different from what the US has already got?

Go to Google Maps. Try to look at the White House and the surrounding area. You'll see that a great deal of detail has been obscured, precisely because of the security concerns.

Just like the US, India has suffered at the hands of internationally-sponsored terrorism. Unlike the US, its actually had the misfortune of having its parliament and parliamentary officials attacked. And Indians have far more first-hand experience of being the brunt of terrorism than the US has had too. Google for the facts if you don't believe me.

India has legitimate security concerns here. Discussing how those concerns are best dealt with in a cooperative manner, as India has chosen to do, rather than confrontational one, as others have opted for in the past, is to be commended rather than condemned.

I wonder what's next

[nnnneedles]

Imagine, if the terrists had access to....a MAP!

Re:Don't give them ideas!

[IAAP]

It happens all the time! Why, just the other day I was Googling for clams. And what did I get? Listings of vaginas! Go figure!

Misplaced attention

[Bogtha]

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.

stupid premise

[Xavier CMU]

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".

Israel?

[Quixote]

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.

So...

[Greyfox]

Rather than being able to see the super-secret installation, they'll see a big black box there? Indicating to them that there's either a super-secret installation there or a giant penis statue? So rather than seeing more buildings and having to decide if they're interesting or not, they'll know that there IS in fact something interesting at that site? And the guys who'd really be interested (Pakistan) don't need to know what's there, they can just lob a nuke in and level the whole area.

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.

Re:Too dumb for words.

[be-fan]

Exactly! Those terrorists have millions of dollars in funding, access to all sorts of cold war technology, have managed to orchastrate an intricate plot involving the simultanious hijacking of several American airliners, have managed to destroy the World Trade Center and damage the Pentagon, but they absolutely depend on Google *fricking* Earth for their maps! Please!