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Satellite Images Used to Document International Atrocities
wikkedwoman wrote with a link to a Washington Post story about the use of satellite imagery to detect atrocities around the world. The story details Amnesty International's efforts to identify areas in the world that may have been subject to man-made disasters. By comparing and contrasting imagery captured over time, researchers can produce hard evidence to present to a hard-to-please international community. "Tonight, [Amnesty Researcher Jeremy] Nelson begins his work by making a copy of the [older] shot in the right-hand screen and pasting it directly over the [newer] one on the left. Then he makes the top one nearly transparent. A river that cuts through the scene becomes a marker to help him line up the two. Now he can easily flip back and forth to look for changes. Sudanese huts tend to follow a similar pattern: a solid base ring with a steep, thatched roof. In the earlier image, they show up as small circles, with a slight shading to the dome, depending on the direction of the sun. Nelson draws a small, green circle slightly larger than the area of the average hut and makes several dozen copies of it ... When he finishes, he moves the 2007 shot to the top and begins the analysis again ... parts of this region were burned so thoroughly that there's nothing left but a large black scar. If you didn't know that huts were there before, you'd have no idea they were now gone. 'Whoever did this did a good job,' he says quietly. 'Thorough, at least.'"
Can they see through the roofs at Gittmo?
Google Maps. Street View! Explore secret CIA prisons at the cell level, Virtually from your desktop.
I guess it would be more convincing if there is a pattern - e.g. 10 villages entirely burned in a 100 mile radius. Obviously, there were not 10 individual fires, but some underlying cause.
Also, I would guess whoever is burning down the villages is not burning down much of the surrounding trees and shrubs, which would indicate man-made causes
That's only proof if you actually know there's been a massacre there. Otherwise it can mean anything, including a forest fire.
That's quite a gross oversimplification for any intelligent person looking at images. Sure, a village with a few burned huts is one thing. Could be a back yard fire that took hold.
But a village with every single house burned, in a desert area where there's little vegetation that hasn't already been taken up for food or housing? That's suspicious. When it's a few miles away from another village where every single house is burned, that's suspicious too - when it's surrounded by five, ten, twenty more villages where every single house is burned... it all builds up.
This isn't a case of two variables like some piece of simple code comparing the differences in two photos, some kind of "If x_then != x_now then atrocity = true", there is a phenomenal amount more information in satellite photos.
While I'll freely admit that I didn't RTFA, the summary has a quote saying "parts of this region were burned so thoroughly that there's nothing left but a large black scar". He's talking about whole parts of the region, not about only the villages being targetted. That's a freakin' huge difference.
That said, the same could be said about New Orleans. Suspiciously the devastation doesn't expand that much further than the city, so it must have been man-made, eh?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Your point is valid but your argumentation is flawed beyond use.
The areas they are looking into are areas with reported atrocities.
Apart from that, if you look at the summary, you'll see a description of the architecture that in no way resembles the 17th centure British capital. The reason that the fire was wide spread was the proximity of the buildings and the ineptitude of the civil servants. Apart from that, there is no documentation to support or point to a massacre (except that of the Dutch and other immigrants)
The reason for New Orleans' destruction is also heavily documented as being anything but a massacre.
The point of the technology would be to act as supporting evidence instead of conclusive. If taken alone, yeah, it could be an accident or a natural occurrence. When taken in the context of a country with millions of refugees and numerous reports of pogroms, ethnic cleansing and massacres... Well, it's less likely that the explanation is accidental/natural (but of course, not impossible)
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Its great to be able to see exactly whats taken place in Sudan, but it was well know that genocide was taking place. This is just more confirmation. Im not sure what value this has. What is really needed is some concrete proof to bring someone to trial for crimes against humanity. The higher up the better.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
I don't think there is really much debate that there are massacres taking place in Sudan at the moment. However is it very easy for the Government to control the flow of information out of the country. Doctors without Borders, who are often the organization on the front line of these crisis, who are willing to speak up about atrocities, got kicked out in 2005. A UN diplomat (http://www.janpronk.nl/index288.html#290) was also expelled for blogging about the Sudanese government.
NGOs have a hard time bringing in any sort of communication equipment (satellites for internet etc etc) and I'm pretty sure that you need to have a permit to take photos in Sudan, and the government controls where people can go. This is the same for many conflict zones, especially those with dubious treatment of human rights.
What this article shows is that there are now ways of documenting what is going on in Sudan, which is beyond the direct control of the Sudanese government. However it is very expensive (the images are costing about $1600 each) and there was an issue, when they couldn't book satellite time over Sudan. Whether this was because the government booked it out to prevent them from taking photos is unsure - but it does show the limitation.
Part of the reason that the international community is dragging their feet (or can drag their feet) is probably the lack of reliable concrete information - and this is what this project provides.
That and the fact that Sudan has oil, which the Chinese are heavily invested in.
That said, the same could be said about New Orleans. Suspiciously the devastation doesn't expand that much further than the city, so it must have been man-made, eh?
No, 'cos a person with a brain in their head would go "shit, it's right near the ocean, and there's what looks like sediment covering stuff, and one kind of damage follows land contours, and the satellite pic was taken right after this other satellite pic of a fuckass huge hurricane"
And the smart person would figure it's probably flood & storm damage.
"That's only proof if you actually know there's been a massacre there. Otherwise it can mean anything, including a forest fire."
Why a troll such as you got modded "interesting" befuddles me, but I'll bite.
No, it couldn't have been "anything." "Anything" includes meteorite strikes, Acts of Gawd, and other such unlikelihoods.
Systematic burning of _disconnected_ villages over hundreds of miles over long stretches of time is not a "forest fire" especially when there is no forest.
"E.g., take the Great Fire Of London"
No, you take it. Part of the reason that the Great Fire spread so quickly was the density of flammable wooden structures. What we actually see in the satellite photographs is not dense urban construction.
I don't know what you're trying to prove in your message, but being so disconnected from reality is never a good thing. Maybe you can't wrap your brain around the fact that the long tradition of killing your fellow man has gone on for millennia and isn't all that uncommon. I don't know. I do find your twisted logic, if you can call it that, disturbing.
--
BMO
These before-and-after satellite images aren't being used as ironclad proof, in isolation; they're being used as supporting evidence. RTFA—but really now, shouldn't this have been obvious?
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
Actually, thanks for bringing that up. 'Cause, see, that's the whole flippin' point I was trying to make.
No, I don't know enough about that conflict to have an informed opinion. And I'm not going to suddenly jump to a spoon-fed conclusion based on some emotional images and wording. When I have enough other data there, I might make a judgment. But I refuse to jump to one of the sides and wave a banner, just because the media spoon fed me some images.
That's all I'm preaching: exercise some healthy skepticism, get your information from more than one source. That's all.
If you already know enough about that conflict, by all means, go ahead and have an opinion about it. But so far I only have someone's word that some pictures mean what he says they mean. And that's just not enough data to base an opinion on.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Because the whole point I was making _is_ "a photo can mean anything". And I still see nothing wrong with that judgment.
There are entirely too many drawn in taking sides and waving banners just because the nice man on TV told them which side to join, and how loud to shout. I'm thinking the world as a whole would be a much better place if more people stopped and thought, "wait a minute, that can mean anything whatsoever." We probably would have less atrocities to worry about in the first place, if those comitting them in the first place didn't take the media's/imam's/shaman's/whatever word for it unthinkingly.
Again, I'm _not_ making any judgment about the conflict in Sudan or about AI. I _am_ however making a point that an image can mean anything, and it can be manipulated into seeming to mean something completely different than it really does.
I may not have enough data about the conflict in Sudan, but I think I do have enough data to make a judgment about how an image can be manipulated or used as "proof" of whatever you want it to prove. You just need to watch TV these days, really.
So, basically, it's really simple and there's no contradiction there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You don't think the international community knows about Dafur - or knew about Rawanda? They don't care. This may strip plausible deniabilty (eg "we had no idea that was happening"), but it won't mean there will be action taken.
I'm surprised TFA does not mention the newly announced by Amnesty International "Eyes on Darfur" website. Oh, Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.
Here's a few stories in the same vein:
Documenting Humanitarian Crisis with Google Earth
New Google Earth Layers: Darfur and more
The Israel-Lebanon Conflict in Google Earth
Beirut Destruction Through Remote Sensing
Israel - Lebanon Conflict and Geospatial Data Access
Animoog.org
It doesn't take a satellite picture to see that the parent poster is a moron, troll, or both. Manipulation at its finest, indeed.
Evidence is evidence; no one bases anything on a single piece of information. Our military has the most sophisticated satellite imagery in the world, do you think they plan entire missions over a single photo?
You know the image in that article more likely than not is a village murdered. It's more than enough evidence to go look for the bodies.
Why do I suspect the parent poster supported the Iraq war based on its "evidence"?
Let's hope the rest of the world will finally do something - we've seen Khartoum and Omar al-Bashir flaunt sanctions and other restrictions. I think dealing with the Sudanese government will involve a lot of "hard evidence" (sadly, eyewitness accounts are still being questioned by Sudan). Plus a stronger standing army not fighting other battles would be helpful too.
OK, so I'm pretty sure that this is flamebait, but you did it on my comment, so I took it...
Sudan is already in the top 30 oil exporters in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chart_of_exports_and _production_of_oil_by_nation), so rubbish about what you're saying about it taking decades to get the oil out of there. Admitted I don't think that it's coming out of Darfur, but it's still the same government.
I actually believe that the biggest problem comes as much from people with close minded views such as your. When people think like that it becomes a "war of civilizations", instead of just an peacekeeping-operation to end genocide, of course the Sudanese government is going to object. Your views of Islam and Muslims are incredibly narrow-minded, and I can only guess, very uneducated. By thinking like that you prevent peaceful dialog from happening.
I have personally spent the last 18 months living mostly in Pakistan and Indonesia - the worlds two largest Muslim countries. Despite standing out as a tall westerner, I didn't have any trouble at all, no terrorists, no jihads. Actually I found most of the people much friendlier than the people back home.
So please take some time to think about the situation, and what will make it better, before spreading such narrow minded rubbish.
How many people out here just troll google maps for fun sometimes? I know I know, only when a new version is released. But you know what would really be a good tool? If a dual screen or dual map version of a program like google maps was made. One w/ pics that were released on a yearly schedule. With this a community of people could be developed in tracking more then one kind of atrocity. The evidence of any kind ofglobal change could be seen and reported by any one. This would be a great tool for bloggers, reporters, and really any one who want to help gather evidence for a cause of global effect. Wow before and after pics, never looked so relevant to me.
"I don't know what you're trying to prove in your message, but being so disconnected from reality is never a good thing. Maybe you can't wrap your brain around the fact that the long tradition of killing your fellow man has gone on for millennia and isn't all that uncommon. I don't know. I do find your twisted logic, if you can call it that, disturbing."
I'll bite.
Perhaps you can set down the Red Bull for a second and read the OP again.
His point was (clearly enough to me anyway) NOT that massacres didn't happen in Sudan. His point was that the original article's analysis (you did RTA, yes?) was that this was some sort of panacea, proving genocidal massacres etc BY ITSELF. That's *patently* untrue, and I thought his point was a bit obvious, really.
Apparently not.
There is no question that there is genocide going on in Sudan. But simply overlaying pictures of areas from year to year, and even the subsequent recognition that a village that WAS there has been entirely eradicated, is not ipso facto proof that the village was "massacred". In fact (his point continues) there are SO many possible explanations that the utility of the photos without contextual ground investigation is essentially nil.
I don't think his point is that complicated, nor does it deny the horrific realities of this specific case in any way.
-Styopa
Since the flood was caused by man-made levees bursting, the notion that the disaster wasn't at least in part 'man-made' seems flawed.
Your point about the viability of photographs as evidence for other things is well-taken. But I did RTFA - before it was on /.'s front page - and there are important other goals in this process. Forgive my long-windedness here, but hopefully it will clarify some of those.
You say you're not familiar with the Sudanese conflict, but you're right that there is more to the story. In particular, the conflict in Darfur is just the latest episode in a long, sad story of civil war and political stupidity, to put it nicely. The net result there is that the Sudanese government is acting largely with impunity in Darfur, as the African Union has a mere 7,000 troops in the region and the EU and UN are sitting on their thumbs.
One thing Nelson and the Amnesty/AAAS program in general are trying to do by releasing these photographs is let the Sudanese militias and government know that they are being watched. They're coupling the technological aspect with info from the ground.
Independent researchers, Amnesty workers, and refugees provide stories to go with the pictures, which helps corroborate the theory that it was violence that caused the fires. But they're also providing tips to the Amnesty/AAAS people that certain villages in Sudan might be next in advance. From my reading of TFA, I think they have two goals with these pictures: the first is that they want to let the Sudanese government know that they have their eye on those sites that appear to be at risk, and the second is that they want to be able to immediately commission new photos of those regions when word comes down that it has been attacked. Then their before/after photos are fresher, more reliable.
Second, these guys are not shy about saying they want to drum up support for the "Save Darfur" movement. They figure, probably correctly, that attaching photographs of villages burnt to a crisp to stories from refugees and survivors will strike a chord in the general population. So some of your comments are on-target, but they're already admitted.
Third, these photos provide information about regions the Sudanese government and militias have blocked off. TFA talks about one region no one has gotten into in years, not even Oxfam or the Red Cross. If the militias won't let them in, there's a good chance things are really bad there. These photos could provide meaningful intelligence about the situation on the ground.
Finally, let me reiterate what someone else said, though not so nicely: go find out more about Darfur. It's really a terrible story, but you're right that the media's depiction is one-sided. It really ignores the larger historical context and the political machinations that have made the situation what it is today. Harper's had a good write-up on it a year ago or so, and I'm sure there are myriad other resources. Cheers.
So you can laugh all you want to...
Actually, that's sorta the whole point: context is _everything_. And the context you're given can be misleading (deliberately let you connect the dots in the wrong direction), or outright a lie.
Yes, if you also have the right context, you can make an informed judgment. But do you? That's the question I'm asking.
Since you mention Nazis and mass graves, there is already at least one case where that was a lie. There are mass graves in Poland which the Soviets blamed the Nazis for. Turns out that it was the _Soviets_ themselves who were responsible for that. Stalin's NKVD had rounded up what they thought would be potential problem elements there, such as the Polish army officers, and summarily executed them.
Atrocity? Yes. But the context was an outright lie. Now I'm not saying the Nazis were nice guys, far from it, but in this case they had just provided a convenient scapegoat for NKVD's own atrocities.
And before someone says that's revisionism: no, it's not. The USSR finally owned up in the end. It's as official a confession as it gets.
Also, since you mention Nazis, those guys pioneered another thing: whole "war documentaries" that were entirely produced in a movie studio. Yay for first-hand front-line footage. You can believe that, can't you? I mean, the images surely speak for themselves, right? Well, too bad it came from a studio in Berlin instead of from France.
That's the whole point: if I show you a small pile of corpses in a mass grave, it's emotional and all, but you're entirely dependent on the context provided. How do you just know from that image alone whether that's Jews massacred by the Nazis, or "kulaks" (rich peasants, i.e., any peasant who wasn't starving) massacred by Stalin's NKVD, or maybe some the victims of the post-WWI flu epidemic (think like the bird flu, but it could be transmitted from human to human), or whatever else? The context is _everything_. And by just giving you the proper lie as a context, that image can be made to mean almost anything.
The point isn't to grow complacent or "post-modernist" but to start realizing when you don't have enough reliable context to make an informed judgment.
E.g., in this case, sure, burned villages is an emotional thought and all, but who burned whose houses?
One context particularly used as a battle-banner by a lot is that the Darfur conflict is some muslims-massacring-christians case. That's actually false, as both sides involved are muslims. It's an ethnic/racial war, not a religious war. There you go, an outright false context that's been used a lot lately.
Or how do you know which of the two sides burned the villages down? There are at least two sides in any conflict. And even the arab militias were funded in response to the insurgent forces of the other side. Are all the burned houses on the rebels side, or did the rebels do some burning of their own? In the absence of some first-hand information from down there, how _do_ you draw the right conclusions from just a satellite photo?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
...Not harder! Are these guys seriously messing around with transparency layers and hand-drawing circles? Just subtract one image from the other. Their way is a waste of time, and time is money; money that could be used to help fight these problems instead of inefficiently-identifying them. (No, I didn't RTFA.)
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
The Saudi Arabian ambassador is a troll! US Ambassador is flamebait! The British Ambassador is redundant!
And then, someone puts the goatse.cx guy on the main screen.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
I don't sit in front of a fscking TV other than to watch the occassional DVD. I don't know what kind of humanitarian you consider yourself to be if you don't find homelessness an atrocity. How dare you compare the suffering of one human to another, you pretentious b@st@rd. You don't know a thing about where I've been or what I've been through. So please, spare me your advice. While you're at it learn to some reading comprehension, you missed the point of my article.
Just because technology is there doesn't mean its progress. Oh boy! We can document atrocities. When I see people jumping on the bandwagon to stop them then I'll be impressed.
You're the one who needs to wake up and pull all that harsh reality you call "unfortunate" and stuff to the back of your brain so you can sleep better at night back up front and start taking a good look at whats going on around you. I think you're the one living in a superficial world.
Have you personally done anything about the atrocities you could see before the technology? If so, then bravo for you. Otherwise, get off my back, because at least I'm out there trying to make a difference.
I'm done playing who can be the bigger karma whore and start the biggest flame war here. Modding my OP as a Troll was assinine, even for
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos