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Debunking the Google Earth Censorship Myth
waderoush writes "There's a persistent Web meme to the effect that Google obscures sensitive or top-secret locations in Google Maps and Google Earth at the insistence of national governments. A July IT Security article promoted on Digg, 'Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren't Allowed to See on Google Maps,' revived this notion. But the article has been widely criticized, and I did some fact-checking this week on the six Boston-area locations mentioned in the IT Security list. As it turns out, not one of the allegedly blurred locations has degraded imagery in Google Maps, as my screen shots demonstrate. My post looks into the sources of the misleading IT Security piece, and of other mistaken rumors about Google Maps."
Who should I believe? You, or my lying eyes?
Error establishing a database connection
They sure blurred him out fast.
You mean an article that was inaccurate or just flat out wrong was massively promoted on DIGG? No, I simply can't believe it.
Digg: It's like Slashdot if concussed monkeys took over.
Check out the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. Definitely pixelated -- but the cars just outside the circle are quite visible.
...Not that Mr. Cheney is the secretive sort. Perish the thought!
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Playland, the amusement park in Rye, New York, also shows up as blurred compared to the surrounding suburbs:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=52.248722,4.43965&spn=0.3,0.3&t=k&q=52.248722,4.43965
Cannot imagine why!
... now back to the bit mines.
Did this guy really not look at these locations? Those were in the top five, and there are links to the Google Maps locations in question, for crying out loud.
so you think Google spent twice the amount of money to use 2 separate satellite imaging services? or that they use two disparate censorship policies, so that if the government asks them to obfuscate the VP's residence they would only comply for one service but not the other?
i don't know if the summary is correct or not, but logic would suggest that Google would use the same satellite images for both sets of aerial maps, and if they were going to blur out a location in one service it would be done to the other as well.
Did this guy really not look at these locations?
Maybe google knows his IP address.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Post removed for being in violation of Patriot Act
Maybe it is still blanked by something more plausible?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Google Street View steers clear of Obama's neighborhood
All the higher-res images are airplane shots, not satellite. Why does this need constant reminding?
I discovered today that Ramstein airbase in Germany (hugely important to US) is "whited out". At first I just thought it was a really big building, then I thought white concrete surfacing. Finally I realized that it was blacked out, but they tried to make it look like it wasn't. They even threw in a a few fake aircraft and shadows, but didn't quite make it past the uncanny valley. It's just a matter of time until they perfect the fabrication of imagery for those locations.
See for yourself; that ain't real.
One simple rule for its versus it's
I tried reading the Google cache of your post, but it was blurry.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I work at one of those facilities and know damn well that LAST YEAR a coarse resample was laid over the campus where I work. Google has recently [last two or 3 weeks i think] updated the imagery for eastern massachusetts. I know because my new neighbors house suddenly appeared in google satellite view and it went from winter imagery to summer...which is a huge drop in information, btw because of tree canopy. The newer images do not blur the facility I work at but then neither did the old ones when they first came out. Just give 'em time.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Has anyone checked to see if all the good pubs are blurry? Maybe with a touch of double-vision and a few pink elephants? Also, if blurry images are proof of national security concerns, the sheep in New Zealand must be Above Top Secret to produce some of the limitations there.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
chemical weapons factory. I hope that the hidden area on the map doesn't drawn anyone's attention. And therein lies the problem with obscuring secret locations on maps. The mere act of obscuring it announces it.
This article is BS. As anyone how bothers to see there are places on google earth that are blurred or cut out and replaced with green fields.
Here are two examples.
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&q=52.109911,4.326597&ie=UTF8&ll=52.109912,4.326596&spn=0.00456,0.009549&z=17&iwloc=addr
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&q=53.2232,5.754861&ie=UTF8&ll=53.223199,5.754862&spn=0.01778,0.038195&z=15&iwloc=addr
It's a well known fact that the imagery providers have to obscure certain things. Just because a few of the images mentioned in the story turned out to be unobscured later doesn't mean they weren't at the time of the writing. The images are updated quite regularly, and once Google's satalites start working it'll be even more freqent.
Yes, it's censorship to obscure the imagery, but it's a tough balance to strike. Yes, information wants to be free. And as a taxpayer, it could be argued that you have a right to see whatever your government has been spending your money on. But people in other countries do not. Furthermore, the plans and everything for most of these buildings are located in the bottom of a filing cabinet in a dark basement room with a sign on the door that says "Beware of Leopard". That said, it sure is cool to look at government stuff, and the imagery being available makes it real easy.
For me, it's fun to find black helicopers and such, but that's basically it. It's just fun to look at stuff. I like those 'eyeball' things over at cryptome.org also. The risk is pretty low that someone would be able to plan an operation or something with just the image data. So they take away the fun to hopefully mitigate a small amount of risk.
On the flip side (again), there seems to be so many secrets these days. Too many, if you ask me. But, hopefully they know what they're doing.
Soon people will be able to upload their own photos to the view, like in that Microsoft thing, but on a 3d globe like Google Earth. People taking photos from passenger airplanes and such. More private aerial photos and satellites with small resolution and lower latency. It will happen. Google is on the right track with GIS, I think it'll be the killer app of the 2010's. Google has the power to pull everything together, it might take a while but soon there will be a nice parallel universe inside their datacentres. Unfortunately in that world, it makes extreme paranoia as actionable as extreme information gathering.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Excellent points all. Further consideration: Regardless of what is produced by the application (Google Earth)there is no easy way to determine its legitimacy or accuracy. Just because an area isn't blurred doesn't mean what you're seeing is accurate. Oh, and I just checked the Chernobyl (Chornobyl) NPP, and the actual power plant and surrounding Zone of Alienation is still blurred.
russians have many low altitudes geosynchronous satellites
Damn Reds and their lack of respect for physics!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
> I wonder how many russian satellites have good coverage of the United States.
Since 1992 it has been possible to purchase Resurs and Kometa imagery of the US through the state company Soyuzkarta. This required the declassification of the military Kometa's cameras - a 10-metre resolution topo and a 2-metre resolution mapping camera.
One of the first customers, and one which has been a reliable repeat customer, was the USAF. They used imagery of Washington to plan General Dolittle's cortege.