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

"Also revealed are MI6's London offices"

[EWAdams]

Oooh... like that huge bottle-green and cream building with all the satellite dishes on top was invisible to the tens of thousands of commuters who pass by it on the railroad every day.

Everybody knows where these things are anyway. The newspapers are just having a slow day, so let's take another whack at technology/Google/the Internet.

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

[Z00L00K]

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?

Some bribes or joint ventures later and information exceeding the information available at Google Earth is widespread.

Blurring a satellite or air photo today is just a giveaway since two different distributions never have the same blurring and that tells others that this is a site of interest.

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

[tomhudson]

What the gov't is pissed off about is that you can see 2 nuclear subs docked ... scroll up to the top of the bay, zoom in.

Sure, foreign governments probably already have assets on the ground keeping watch of the ebb and flow of traffic, but it's nice to have visible confirmation (you can confirm the date of the pictures by using shadows - every day, the shadows will be slightly different as the sun appears to trace a slightly different arc in the sky).

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

[tomhudson]

Afghanistan is currently in no danger of a strategic nuclear attack, which is obviously the main reason countries which have them go to some lengths to make sure their nuclear sub fleet is concealed

Wrong. The day you have to actually launch a strategic nuclear attack is the day that your nuclear submarine fleets' actual purpose - which is to be enough of a threat to retaliate in the event of such an attack (see Mutually Assured Destruction) - is over. The submarine fleet will have failed in its' primary goal, which is to be a credible enough threat to PREVENT a nuclear attack.

The nuclear submarine fleet's second purpose is to protect the rest of the naval fleet, allies, and shipping, both by being the "joker in the hole" against other forces, and against other subs.

The third purpose is, as I've mentioned elsewhere, to do stand-off attacks via cruise missiles, which they (UK submarines) HAVE launched against targets in Afghanistan.