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Google to Blur Sensitive India Sites
theodp writes "Citing unnamed officials, the Times of India is reporting that Google Earth has agreed to blur and distort Indian locations identified by the government after security concerns were voiced by the country's president. This includes total blurring of locations like government buildings, as well as the outlines/building plans of key facilities. This came about after a recent meeting between Google technicians and Indian officials."
Google Earth has agreed to blur and distort Indian locations
I thought the US government took care of that already, around 1838?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I'm not saying I am afraid of it happening (I'm not that hysterically moronic, yet.) but it seems to me that the premise of "Google must blur this building because terrorists could somehow benefit from already slightly blurred photos of the outline of the building." applies equally to my house - "Google must blur this area because burglars could use the pictures to plan an escape route along the back of the garden which is hidden from normal view."
The last thing I want to have to do is put an opaque roof over my greenhouse shrine to Peter Krause.
I saw him heading towards your house with a ten pound sledge hammer, a bottle of ketchup and a food processor. He had a funny look on his face. I'm sure you'll be fine.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think this is the truth behind all this histery coming from governments directed at internet companies which try to make information freely available (or available in a less-restrictive way).
I somehow think that this situation is analogous to other governments trying coerce Google into providing their user's personal details or removing content that is legal under US law, despite being illegal in other countries (e.g. hate speech).
Governments are losing their power and they're not liking it. This time Google decided they could drop them a cookie or something, you know, just to show some good faith. I'd prefer if they didn't blur anything, though - would make me respect Google a little bit more (but I don't think this will make them automatically evil or anything like that).
Terrorists will just ask their computer to "enhance"
A government can indeed engage in terrorism, which is a good point since some governments try to play semantic games and either deny that they are terrorists on the grounds that government forces cannot be terrorists or call people soldiers engaged in legitimate military action terrorists simply because they are non-governmental. Collateral damage is not, in and of itself, terrorism or a war crime. The test in international law is whether the legitimate military objective justifies the collateral damage. One is required to use the approach that minimizes collateral damage. In cases in which one side uses civilians as shields, if the military objective is sufficiently important the other side may have no choice but to kill civilians. In this case, it is the side that uses civilians as a shield that has committed a war crime.
Training another country's personnel in torture is certainly evil but is borderline as terrorism because torture isn't usually considered a sort of military activity. Insofar as the torture is publicized and so used to terrorize the population, it arguably should be considered a kind of terrorism.