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Google Earth and "Collateral Damage"
netbuzz writes "British news reports say insurgents are using Google Earth to pinpoint vulnerable targets within bases in Iraq. Could Google be doing more to prevent this? Should they be doing more? They certainly could explain more."
This story reminds me of the reporter who was kidnapped in Iraq and convinced his captors that his articles were critical of the war. They Googled him and let him go.
Depends on how you define 'useful'. Governments spent billions of dollars, risked many dozens if not millions (as in all of our) lives, to get information of lower quality than google earth in the 50s, 60's and 70's. Most military installations are built/used with this in mind now. Something you want other satellite holders to see you put out there, stuff you don't you spend oodles of time effort and money to hide, and anything you don't care about (like where the US army parks its old aircraft), you put wherever is convenient or cheap. In that regard I doubt the occupation forces in Iraq are so braindead as to have anything particularly useful of theirs show up on google earth now.
However, buildings don't move, and the insurgency in iraq, while predominatly made of Iraqi nationals, is most certainly far more mobile than any previous insurgency in recent memory. Simply put the iraqi's have cars. If you're an insurgent in one town, you can look at google earth, plot out where you want to go, set up, position, coordinate based on GPS locations etc.. with other people in another. I was thinking loosely about this problem where I live. I live in one city (~70K people), but really I don't know my way around any of the smaller towns that surround us, nor do I know my way around the biggest city near me (which is toronto nearly 150Km away). But, moving from place A to B is fairly easy, at least when I'm not crawling through the jungles of borneo or riding my camel through the middle of the desert. The resistance in Iraq can use GE just the same as any of us can use google earth to figure out where we're going.
With respect to the article specifically. The parking lots of Iraq's military installations, now in use by the British, probably haven't moved too far, nor have the suitable places for housing since those photos were taken. Given how long the occupation has been going on, those bases haven't moved and I somehow doubt the british army has been able to magically conjure up new places within the bases to put their tents, and even if google pictures are a year or two old those things are likely not all that much different.
With Google Earth a resistance fighter can see their way around rooftops, so long as the buildings are still standing, target things that don't move, or things that are consistently moved to and from the same place (like vehicles), and generally get a feel for what the terrain they are going to operate in looks like, and the layout. The fact that google earth might be somewhat out of date is less of a problem, if your information is wrong, you get killed, but it was better than nothing. Whereas the US/UK/FR/PRC/RUS would demand up the day satellite info to ensure maximum survivability of their soldiers, resistance movements tend to be more willing to make sacrificies.
In a broader sense, I think militaries and goverments will have to adapt their organization around satellite imagery. Right now they're all used to thinking only other people with spy satellites can see these things. Sure everyone has maps, but maps are no where near as useful as a satellite photo, even a crappy one. This probably means a lot more things in semi portable or easy to construct bunkers like they use for jet fighters.
Or, if you are pro-life, you have to take care of a single mother's child. For the twenty years or so it takes to raise a child through college.
We have a volunteer army, and pretty much everyone signing up knows that in doing so, there is a chance they will be sent to war (possibly even a war they don't agree with). It's their choice to join, and they do so knowing that it's civilians that decide whether they'll be sent to war or not.
In this case, where people are using Google maps information to attack military installations, it seems that being a good soldier isn't what it used to be. It's not enough to be a good fighter, you need to be a good planner. The information Google gives out is available to everyone. Why don't the soldiers use it to plan their defense? They have a big advantage in that Google maps isn't updated that often, they could look at the images and plan how to booby trap the weak spots.
The military have had aerial reconnaissance at their disposal since the first balloons were invented. They have much better aerial imaging than Google gives out, they can see from which points their barracks may be attacked, where are the houses and alleys that can be used by eventual attackers.
No, this whole affair is a straw man, it's another convenient excuse being invented to create one more way to restrict information in the internet.