Google Earth Uncovers Secret UK Nuke Base

thefickler writes "Gone are the days when governments could easily hide top secret bases. These days it's a weekend pastime to see who can find top secret facilities using Google Earth. Now it's the UK government's turn to be outraged after a secret facility was revealed by a British tabloid. The facility is said to be located in Faslane on the River Clyde in Scotland. This nuclear base was previously blurred out by the request of the British Government. However, with the latest update provided via Google Earth, many of the blurred out locations were accidentally revealed." Update: 3/08 at 14:24 by SS: Multiple readers have pointed out that the issue here is not the location of the base — it's simply that details of buildings and objects within the base (such as the location of a pair of nuclear submarines) are accidentally visible after the UK government specifically requested they be blurred out.

Comments

Bad summary

[Anonymous Coward]

SPOILER ALERT: Faslane is not a "secret" facility. It's the level and quality of imagery that's the problem. Good old /. editing at its finest, I had to actually check for a second that it wasn't actually another kdawson...in any case this "news" is at least a week old.

The actual article in The Sun

[while(true)]

The actual article: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2284752.ece

Re:The actual article in The Sun

[legirons]

As usual, El Reg has useful commentary

so secret they have their own public website!

[julian67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faslane "Her Majesty's Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde is one of three UK operating bases for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Devonport and HMNB Portsmouth). It is the service's headquarters in Scotland and is best known as the home of the United Kingdom's Trident-armed nuclear submarine force." This place has been notorious/famous for decades. Whoever wrote this "news" story is a fucking idiot and recycling on /. is fucking dumb too. Some of the other "top secret" places featured in the story feature regularly in documentaries, fiction, news reports and so on. Some of them are so secret that they have their own public website complete with pictures and a contact us button :-) http://www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html Well done Timothy, well up to your usual standard (rubbish).

WTF? Hidden?

[Lars T.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMNB_Clyde Everybody already knew where the base is, there are public roads surrounding it, the Wikipedia article even as an aerial photo of it. So unless they are worried that terrorists start using GPS guided "smart" weaponry (but of course conventionally armed, because for nuclear they knew enough already) instead of just flying a plane packed with explosives into it, why the hell are they outraged exactly?

Also from US military

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better pictures courtesy of the US military
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/~cannon/medports/Faslane/HMNB_picture.html

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[Cally]

Apparently there's some sort of big round building in Cheltenham, too. (Yes, El Reg had this story a week ago.) Everyone knew about that one even when Ordnance Survey maps showed blank white space there; nowadays, it's shown on the local road signs. Hey, it looks like an old-fashioned mainframe tape-drive! To be fair, everyone knows where the MI6 HQ in Vauxhall is, but the MI5 building is less well-known, mainly because it looks no different than many other buildings in the area.

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[JCWDenton]

Following your link I found they've posted pictures of their headquarters on their website http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/thames-house-image-gallery.html . You'd think any civilian taking pictures of the building would subsequently be subjected to a little chat with the law but there's no problem when they show it on their site in all it's glory from various angles...

Re:You think the submarines are still there?

[FTWinston]

Fastlane's where the UK's fleet lives. Its where they all come back to dock at - its our only nuclear sub base, afaik.

There's a permanent protest camp just outside it.
This is about an article from the Sun ... so by definition, its a non-story.

Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[jc42]

And who in their right mind thinks that a foreign nation doesn't already know the existence, location and layout of various bases around the world?

It reminds me of the story (reported in various tech journals but not so much in the MSM) back in the 1970s about the US DoD funding a study by some university people of what could be learned about US military sites and activity from public sources like newspapers, libraries, etc. The story was that a couple of profs (i.e., their grad students) spent a year perusing such public information sources, wrote up their report, sent it in - and with a few days, it was classified Top Secret.

When I read that, I did wonder how many offers of employment the profs (and their grad students) got from various foreign governments. It seemed to me that it could become a viable career path for a small number of people. But I never read any followups.

Now I wonder how much you could learn by just googling for the information. And if you sent your summary report to the DoD, how quickly would it get classified?