Internet Giving Rise To "Citizen Spies"

reporter writes "According to a startling report by the Wall Street Journal, the Internet has empowered ordinary people to be part-time intelligence officers, uncovering secrets like military facilities and prison camps across the landscape of North Korea. The report states, '[Curtis] Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world's most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches. "It's democratized intelligence," says Mr. Melvin. More than 35,000 people have downloaded Mr. Melvin's file, North Korea Uncovered. It has grown to include thousands of tags in categories such as "nuclear issues" (alleged reactors, missile storage), dams (more than 1,200 countrywide) and restaurants (47). Its Wikipedia approach to spying shows how Soviet-style secrecy is facing a new challenge from the Internet's power to unite a disparate community of busybodies.'"

Comments

In Soviet Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Citizens spy on you?

*ducks*

Re:In Soviet Internet

[asdfx]

does it not sound problematic that if we can do this, so can they...?

Re:In Soviet Internet

[gnick]

So what? Security through obscurity has pretty well been written off. We used to identify Russian special-nuclear-material sites by looking for the buildings with 3-layer fences and sniper towers. Our sites are identifiable the same way. Solution? 3-layer fences, sniper towers, and undisclosed underground protection. You can no longer hide your facilities, you just protect them and keep anything super-sensitive under a closed roof in a building with no open windows.

Re:In Soviet Internet

[Jurily]

Citizens spy on you?

Ah, just like old times. Since there's absolutely no way to stop the phenomenon, why don't we balance things out? Let the citizens spy on the government as well.

Re:In Soviet Internet

[Psyborgue]

Bah. The government has nothing to hide. There is plenty of oversight. Trust them!

Re:In Soviet Internet

[Philip K Dickhead]

Of course, when these are located in the UK or US?

You are a paranoid tin-foil hatter.

Re:In Soviet Internet

[Whiternoise]

Or, like most top secret installations these days, you dig and avoid the problem entirely. Facilities like NORAD, for instance (and you think if anything has ever existed at Area 51 it's above ground?).

The UK (and no doubt the US and similar) government employs researchers with the sole task of poring over satellite pictures to determine the capacity of power plants, populations of regions and in general "what things are and what they can do". They also have far more high resolution satellite images than Google is allowed to produce.

We've been doing this kind of thing for years and still are. The only difference now is that the public can give it a go.

Reminds me of the famous incident concerning one of the first Nuclear tests when a university professor used dimensional analysis to calculate what the detonation payload was (a classified figure at the time) based on a photo that was published in the papers (that was the last time the US Military put scales on their photos :P).

Re:In Soviet Internet

[fishbowl]

>So what? Security through obscurity has pretty well been written off.

Just when I started to believe that, I had three different system administrators tell me to put SSH on a nonstandard port in response to dictionary attacks. Of course that buys you a few seconds maybe, but the bots are smart enough to nmap and find sshd running wherever you put it. My plan was to (hardware) firewall the host so that it only allowed specific source addresses and to disable passwords entirely. One of those admins, a service provider, was too lazy to use key authentication and whined about it. I wasn't impressed.

Re:In Soviet Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

> You are a paranoid tin-foil hatter.

You say that like its a bad thing....

Re:In Soviet Internet

[ImaLamer]

They don't have agents in Google faking the maps (or launching the spy satellites).

Or do they?

Oh Boy

[cbs4385]

Does this mean I get to act out my favorite moments from 24 on that creepily suspicious neighbor of mine, the one who speaks that foreigner lingo in with his so call family? I can't wait. Now where'd I put my home waterboarding kit...

Re:Oh Boy

[Hurricane78]

the one who speaks that foreigner lingo in with his so call family?

Depends on it being more or less foreign than your "lingo". :P

Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[redelm]

There's a _huge_ difference between people on the ground who go look at things and talk to people, and people who analyse the photos people on the ground or in the sky/space have taken.

For one thing, analysts aren't in hostile territory and subject to arrest.

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[nametaken]

Yeah, my initial thought was, aren't there LOTS of people who work for our intelligence agencies doing this with much better imagery and expertise, augmented by feet on the ground?

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[ickleberry]

True. You're not a real spy unless you build a UAV and fly it over North Korea, or a MAV if you have the balls (or a death wish).

It would be a fun project, launch it from Russia or South Korea - not China because NK & China are good communist brothers. You can have it connect to the interwebs using Thuraya, Inmarsat and maybe use an Orbcomm transceiver as backup. I suppose ideally you'd want a dirigible or something that can stay in the air for extended periods without producing much heat that missiles would pick up on. Once in the country's interior you could lower its altitude and get some nice detailed shots. You could control it directly by radio but this makes you far too easy to trace - internet connectivity allows you to GTFO once the thing is launched.

The problem would be getting something to power the thing - microjets pump out too much heat, solar power alone probably won't give you the required amount of oomph to fly the thing. You could go unpowered, launch when there is a good breeze blowing into North Korea and deflate once it reaches another country. There was a slashdot story about a bunch of students who made something similar but I don't think they ever flew it over North Korea

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[j. andrew rogers]

I suppose ideally you'd want a dirigible or something that can stay in the air for extended periods without producing much heat that missiles would pick up on.

Modern missiles use imaging-based terminal guidance, not heat seeking. The imagers often work into the infrared spectrum, but that is primarily to give better all-weather performance. If they can pick up your dirigible on radar, they can put a missile in your area that can find you.

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[Omnifarious]

No, you're not a real spy until you actually become a part of the North Korean military in order to report on what it's up to and what kind of orders you're getting.

Our intelligence agencies have lost their edge precisely because they don't want to do that kind of thing. But that's what real spies do and where useful intelligence comes from.

And citizens could get involved in this if there were people who lived in North Korea wanted to do something horribly risky because they wanted to make their government look bad. I actually hope the Internet does spawn this kind of spying.

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[SEWilco]

Still not a spy. The intelligence community has lots of members with different roles. Spies are the ones who go in and talk to the people. Unless you shake the hand of the enemy (or whatever their culture does), you're not a spy.

Does it count if the enemy recoils in fear after feeling your metallic handshake?

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[CAIMLAS]

A helium balloon with control valves and maybe directional sails, or some such thing would do the job nicely. IE, a 'weather balloon'. Depending on air currents you could launch it quite a far ways off.

You too can be James Bond

[Drakkenmensch]

The miniturization and degree of complexity in today's modern electronics, combined with price drops from affordable generic knock-offs of premium items makes it now possible to equip yourself like James Bond after a Q-Branch sequence with little more than a shoestring budget and a Best Buy online account.

Re:You too can be James Bond

[CRCulver]

I would think this newfounding spying power would be mainly limited to Google Earth. Walking around in an oppressive regime with ultra-miniaturized electronics can often draw great suspicion.

best definition yet

[owlnation]

Its Wikipedia approach to spying shows how Soviet-style secrecy is facing a new challenge from the Internet's power to unite a disparate community of busybodies

Wikipedia: a disparate community of busybodies. Yep, pretty much the best definition I've heard.

But lets hope the quality of these citizen intelligence officers is vastly superior to the average wikipedian. Using wikipedia-based information might get you a fail mark, a libel suit, minor injuries, or a variety of other personal problems. However, using poor intelligence information might get us all nuked, or start a major war. (citation: see Iran, Weapons of Mass destruction, intelligence failure thereof)

Re:best definition yet

[jabithew]

I think Iraq rather than Iran.

We still don't really know what Iran are up to. Or is that what you meant?

Re:best definition yet

[Inverted Intellect]

The problem with Wikipedia isn't badly edited content. It's poorly informed readers.

A Wikipedia article is only as good as the sources it cites, and anyone intending to do anything important according to information in a Wikipedia article should be aware of that.

Re:best definition yet

[jabithew]

Way to stereotype me into two extreme ends of the US political spectrum when I'm not even a Yank. I am a liberal (classical/European), I also believe in the necessity of nuclear power. There is nothing contradictory about this at all. Note that France is something like 80% nuclear powered, hardly your flag-bearing conservative nation (though not liberal in the sense that I am). So I don't believe there's anything wrong with Iran wanting to build nuke power plants. I can also understand their worries about sovereignty, given the way the world has treated Iran in the past. And the fact that you think Iran is a major threat to Europe at the moment is touching but at least demonstrates that you must be American, with that kind of grasp of geography.

Finally, you may think that Europe is inept and complaisant, but that's rich coming from a power which still won't even talk to Iran out of a prolonged ideological hissy-fit. We even came damn close to a solution until your Bush regime blocked it.

Incidentally, if you think there's still time to prevent the Iranians getting the brainpower, education and the research together then you obviously don't know how many have trained in top European and American universities.

For a better idea of Iran than you'll get from the Fox channel I suggest the Economist, the BBC's excellent series on Iran and the West of the same name and, god forbid, some Iranians.

further proof that the open source model works

[n0tquitesane]

With a million eyeballs, no restaurant can remain hidden

Re:further proof that the open source model works

[n0tquitesane]

Have you noticed they are starving there?

Some books on the subject

[hughperkins]

Some books on the subject:

• "The Transparent Society", by David Brin
• "I See You", by Damon Knight
• "Total Surveillance, by Hugh Perkins

Re:Some books on the subject

[MoonBuggy]

The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter would make a good addition to that list. It's a worthwhile read; the summary on Wikipedia really doesn't do it justice, IMO (and I'm too lazy to change it right now).

Re:Some books on the subject

[Eil]

I see what you did there.

And what of other "open" countries?

[MartinSchou]

I wonder what kind of trouble you'd get in if you made a similarly detailed map of all military installations (secret or otherwise) in the US or the UK.

Considering the oproar over showing where schools, churches and Cheney's residence are, I wouldn't be surprised if it was more difficult to get it done for the US than for North Korea ...

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[chill]

None? At least in the U.S.

Head on over to Google Maps and start looking up things like Bangor, WA, which is a major Trident Nuclear Sub base. Feel free to explore both the street map and the satellite view to compare.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=bangor,+wa&sll=44.662793,-68.720169&sspn=0.363355,0.892639&ie=UTF8&ll=47.715537,-122.739601&spn=0.085929,0.22316&t=h&z=13

Notice what Microsoft's mapping gathered from there? Oopsie!
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/09/04/microsofts-mapping-service-uncovers-top-secret-us-submarine/

Maybe browse a website dedicated to secret U.S. military bases?
http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Bases.html

The U.S. and the rest of the world, especially the major powers, have dealt with satellite overviews since the 1960s. Anything real interesting is underground and out of view.

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[zm]

You'd get a prize from El Reg? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/14/google_earth_competition_results/

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Head on over to Google Maps and start looking up things like Bangor, WA, which is a major Trident Nuclear Sub base. Feel free to explore both the street map and the satellite view to compare.

Having spent a lot of time at Bangor, I can say with confidence that being able to see the base, and knowing in any kind of detail what goes on there are two very different things.
 
 

The U.S. and the rest of the world, especially the major powers, have dealt with satellite overviews since the 1960s. Anything real interesting is underground and out of view.

 
Nah. The real interesting stuff takes place in banal looking buildings that don't appear any different from the ones around them. The most interesting building at Bangor looks like a warehouse - one of several in the complex.

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[MartinSchou]

Granted, but it's not like we've never heard or seen Bangor naval base before. Or Area 51. Or any of the other major military installations.

But what exactly is being hidden here?

A ~25 x 3 mile black strip in Canada and Alaska ...

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[TheLink]

Could be just a glitch when the camera responsible was gathering stuff.

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[chill]

Nothing. It was a camera glitch. Notice, because Alaska isn't high priority, that all levels of zoom are from the same photo set? Watch the clouds, they never move.

Then check other sources like Microsoft's Virtual Earth and see what is "hidden".

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=62.244908~-141.222382&style=h&lvl=12&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[ilyag]

Try zooming in - you see a swamp. So, if something is hidden there,
it must have been very temporary...

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[PPH]

Nah. The real interesting stuff takes place in banal looking buildings that don't appear any different from the ones around them. The most interesting building at Bangor looks like a warehouse - one of several in the complex.

But the same thing holds true for other countries as well. And in a closed country like N. Korea, it'll be much more difficult to separate sensitive facilities from the others. Everything is 'sensitive'. Nobody can get in on the ground to take a look around easily.

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[DerekLyons]

Nothing. Here and here are two different areas in the black rectangle at highers levels of zoom, plainly showing the terrain.
 
Nothing to see, move along, just another of Google Map's many glitches.

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[cffrost]

That's the Exxon petroleum ditch, created during the cleanup of the Valdez oil spill.

Cool but mildly creepy.

[Phizzle]

On one side it is cool how proliferation of information is creating transparency in areas previously shrouded with secrecy, on the other side it is somewhat creepy to see how it is becoming increasingly more acceptable to out things without the involved party's consent. Are we evolving into info junkies, who under the guise of "The Public Has The Right To Know" are simply feeding our addiction to sticking our noses into everyone's business? I admit that I am addicted to information (duh I am on /.), but I do not like to think of myself as a Peeping Tom. Sorry, its early in the morning and the caffeine is slowly working through my system, I must ponder this some more....

AI glider?

[mangu]

You could go unpowered, launch when there is a good breeze blowing into North Korea and deflate once it reaches another country

Or you could make a glider with AI or remote control. Perhaps an infrared camera on a glider would help it find thermal columns? Gliders piloted by humans have flown over 3000 km, I wonder how much a remote control glider could do.

Keep this story in mind

[timeOday]

Keep this story in mind the next time you hear about "China" hacking DoD computers - we don't know whether or not the govt. is behind hacks from a given country, assuming the attacks even originate from there, it could just be bored geeks in their mom's basements.

And keep this story in mind the next time an "American" (they always turn out to be dual citizens) is arrested for spying in Iran or China - we don't know whether a US citizen has been doing some un-sanctioned spying on another country. Even if they're not on the CIA payroll, it could be business interests, it could be family ties, it could be a grudge, and after reading this story I realize it could just be flat out idle curiosity?

Re:Keep this story in mind

[BobTheLawyer]

Or they could just be an innocent citizen arrested by the secret police of a totalitarian state that denies freedom to its own people?

Just a thought.

Re:James Bond? More like Stefan Urquelle

[Drakkenmensch]

I'm pretty sure that Best Buy offers the genetic transmutation thingamajigger that turned Steve Urkel into Stephane Urquelle in their recommended purchases section. Either that, or surf eBay for the used original.

The death of newspapers

[MillionthMonkey]

Every time I hear about the death of newspapers, I wonder how the efforts of a small number of full time reporters would match up to the lackadaisical efforts of a million maternal basement dwellers with Internet connections.

Re:The death of newspapers

[Lord Lode]

I don't think there'd be that much difference, it might even be better. Reporters are after sensation, basement dwellers might actually be more realistic.

A missed chance to effectively use the tubes ...

[foobsr]

was probably operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), which would have given each and every US-citizen the chance to effectively spy on his neighbours. But sadly, only a few are lucky now, quote (loc. cit.): "On June 30, 2008, the Denver Post reported that 181 individuals, including police officers, paramedics, firefighters, utility workers, and railroad employees had been trained as Terrorism Liaison Officers to report suspicious information which could be signs of terrorist activity. The article also stated that TLOs were already active in six other states and the District of Columbia". </sarcasm>

CC.

I'm not sure...

[Nakoruru]

I'm not sure that I want the same pool of people that believe in faces on Mars, and other hoaxes, interpreting photos of North Korea.

Wikileaks

[HalAtWork]

Wikileaks has also played an important role in revealing secrets. In addition, Wikipedia also helps people disseminate information that is direct and to the point, in plain language, with references and with links to articles containing more specific information. It's an invaluable tool for knowledge. I hope it never disappears, and I am glad that they offer burnt-to-DVD versions of articles.

Plus, every time I visit a web site for information, I save it, because I never know if that information will disappear or change. When I go back, I save another copy so I can compare, and also so I can retain information in previous copies should I need to reference it.

Re:North Korea

[gyrogeerloose]

every time the American news discusses North Korea, they show a North Korean military parade with pictures of tanks rolling by

I get the point you're trying to make here and more or less agree with it. But I think the fact that news outlets in the west always show footage of military parades when discussing North Korea has less to do with conspiracy than it does with that country being so tightly controlled that there really isn't anything else for them to show.

It's case of not attributing to malice that with can adequately explained by laziness (on the part of western TV networks).

Re:North Korea

[dbIII]

I suggest asking someone from the north of China (which is where the North Korean refugees run to) about this and you'll get a bit more understanding of the situation. North Korea is an incredibly nasty place to live unless you are one of the elite. While things in the south have not been ideal the north is an entirely different world of horror.

Re:North Korea

[dbIII]

The worst case I saw of this was on 9/11 when a leading US News network (not sure which) showed file footage of celebrating Palestinian soccer fans and said they were celebrating the attack. There is often malice or an agenda in the choice of footage to show with an emotive story.
However - it's true as said above there's not really much film of things happening in North Korea anyway. Not even the Chinese just over the border know much about what is going on apart from what they hear from refugees - and that even includes the Chinese with relatives in North Korea which they may not hear from in decades.

FEMA Camps

[droidsURlooking4]

Uh, ever tried searching google earth for FEMA Camps in the USA?

Re:North Korea

[gyrogeerloose]

The worst case I saw of this was on 9/11 when a leading US News network (not sure which) showed file footage of celebrating Palestinian soccer fans and said they were celebrating the attack.

I agree, that was a pretty egregious case of manipulation on the part of the network involved (Fox, probably, but I could be wrong). But I don't think the same situation exists with television news organizations re: the PRK. That's due more to a lack of creativity than bias.

Roxana Saberi possessed secret military documents.

[reporter]

timeOday wrote, "And keep this story in mind the next time an "American" (they always turn out to be dual citizens) is arrested for spying in Iran or China".

timeOday is referring to Roxana Saberi. The Iranian government rarely acts appropriately, but in her case, it was 100% in the right in sentencing her to imprisonment.

The American media understandably presented her as an innocent victim. American journalists simply did not know that Roxana Saberi had taken -- without authorization -- top-secret military documents authored and owned by the Iranian government. Those documents assessed the Iraq War.

If a dual national had done the same thing in the USA, then Washington would have sent her to prison.

In the case of Roxana Saberi, Tehran was right to act. Washington was wrong to complain.

The American people were wrong to support Saberi. She made no attempt to rescind her Iranian citizenship while simultaneously holding American citizenship. Indeed, she used her Iranian citizenship to her advantage to get a job with the Iranian government.

Americans should not waste resources -- time, money, or lives -- in supporting a person who willfully exhibits divided loyalties.

When everyone is a suspected spy

[nurb432]

You might as well be in Nazi Germany, or old school Russia.

Time to put that tinfoil on the windows too.

Citizen spying == Neighborhood Watch?

[macraig]

We had this before the Internet: it's called Neighborhood Watch programs. My extension of it, and a solution to the fears of emergence of Big Brother with the advent of cameras on every street corner, is to wire those cameras up to either the global 'Net or a local WAN and let anyone monitor those cameras and report suspicious activity. The police would merely act on reports from citizens; police would not monitor the cameras directly except perhaps with the express request and consent of a citizen. If the camera system is "open sourced" and available to anyone, then it's not Big Brother, it's democracy in action.

yeahhh, how that'd go down for you...

[CAIMLAS]

Setting: front lawn. Neighbor is watering his lawn and CBS is coming home from work.

Neighbor: Hello CBS, good evening!
*cbs jumps over fence and grabs Neighbor, dragging him to the closed garage door, and and slams him against it
cbs: Where are the weapons?! WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS?!
Neighbor (flabbergasted): weapons? What are you talking about?
*neighbor starts to fall down the garage door as Bauer^Wcbs pulls him back up and slams him against it, pulling a USP and pressing it into Neighbor's nose
CBS: The weapons, god damn it, the WEAPONS! It's over, my partner found your collaborators. They were here twenty minutes ago!
Neighbor: Twenty minutes? There were girl scouts here selling us some Ginger Snaps about 20 minutes ago.
CBS: Yes, the cookies! Terrorists are using them to disperse dangerous nerve
Neighbor: They're just cookies, you crazy fuck!
* Neighbor kicks cbs in the nuts takes the gun off the ground, and uses his cell phone to call 911

35,000 idiots, eh?

[vandan]

Got nothing better to do? Of all the threats to the world order, I think North Korea sits pretty close to the bottom. How about we uncover some of the hundreds of secret & illegal US & Israeli prisons, nuclear sites, etc? Sure, I know the answer already ... because these are 35,000 idiots we're talking about, and they all believe that North Korea is out to get them, and that the US and Israel are bastions of peace and democracy. Of course, in our secret prisons, no-one is tortured to death. And our secret nuclear bases would never actually launch an attack on another country ... in fact these are better thought of as peace bases, and are only secret because our enemies want to attack our peace!

Re:Friend, you have no idea

[vandan]

This is how it works: in school or at work, day after day, they make you repeat what the newspapers say. Originality is bad for you, thinking is bad for you, reasoning is bad for you. Parroting it back with every show of enthusiasm is good for you.

I hate to break it to you, but this applies to us as much as it does them. The difference is that in the West, we've perfected it to such an extent that our population are almost completely unaware.

Re:North Korea

[DavidShor]

Several thousand people a year have visited North Korea. It really is a terrible place, don't delusion yourself.

Apologists

[thedudethedude]

I never thought a story like this would uncover so many N. Korea apologists. I love the busybody remark -- no bias there. "Nothing to see, move along."