Google Blurring Sensitive Map Information

Cyphoid writes "While viewing my school (the University of Massachusetts Lowell) with Google Maps, I noticed that a select portion of the campus was pixelated: the operational nuclear research facility on campus. Curious, I attempted to view the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It too was pixelated. What or who is compelling Google to smudge out these images selectively? Will all satellite images of facilities that the government deems 'sensitive' soon be subject to censoring?" Not surprisingly, the same areas are blurred in Google Earth. But how about images from satellites operated by other nations, such as SPOT or Sovinformsputnik?

Comments

Great

[Colin Smith]

Now it's even easier to pick out nice fat targets.

Re:Great

[Yvanhoe]

With the maximum resolution you can find enough information to plan escape routes, locate access stairs, maintenance hatches, and maybe in the case of a nuclear facility (I only speculate, I am no expert on this) locate the storage facilities of crucial and/or dangerous materials. So yes, it can help. Of course this shouldn't be the only measure taken and the blurring should only be a temporary measure taken to give time to correct any flaw that may become apparent on what used to be military-grade satellite imagery.

A blur is almost as good as a bullseye

[erroneus]

C'mon! Now if you didn't know what you were looking at before, now you know there's a target of interest there.

Re:Simcurity

[DrEldarion]

These blurred images are just Google caving into various narrow interests with either something negligent to hide from an enquiring public or its reporters [prisonplanet.com], or just pretending to secure facilities with meaningless handwaving, or both.

Or buying images from a third-party that has already blurred them out, which is very likely the actual case.

Re:Simcurity

[s20451]

Yeah, because the security threats to facilities come from the general public which gets its aerial imagery free from these years-old databases, not from corporate, governement or international orgs with budgets for the plentiful (even cheap) aerial/satellite products with recent updates, higher resolution, GIS overlays, even realtime observations. Or their own aircraft/satellites to generate their own custom data.

So you're saying we should pay no attention to the simplest and easiest of security measures because a potential adversary could take more agressive action. That's like saying it's okay to have a sticky note with the root password on a critical server as long as you keep the firewall updated.

"Years-old databases"? It's not like the design of a nuclear power plant changes on a day-to-day basis.

Re:Old news, really! They did this when Kodak sold

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I have found it to be a bit annoying as I use features around the airport for identification for my work, and it was always nice to have an outside 'reference' which might or might not agree with the GPS solution.

For every "terrorist use" there are thousands or more productive uses like yours. Blurring it out only serves to make people's jobs harder and is thus a drag on the economy.

That's terrorism. Miminal threats that cause out of proportion reactions that themselves cause more damage than than any direct terrorist action.

Re:Dumb

[houghi]

So...deny them easily accessible photo intel (Google Earth), and force them to actually come to the location to recon. Where they might be noticed and hopefully stopped.

So basicaly you say that security through obscurity is a good thing.

I am just curious how many terrorist attacs are done with the help of Google Earth. And even IF it would work as stated, it would only divert the attack to a different place. Just like a good lock on your door will prevent a burgelary in your house, yet is does not prevent the robber going to your neighbours house.

I wonder what will happen if somebody still blows up the place. Will it be obvious that blurring does not work, or will the blurring be extended to schools in general to protect the children because of terrorism? Well, not so much wonder as be afraid of the answer.