Pakistan Used Google Earth For Military Targeting

NeoBeans writes "According to this article in the New York Times about the recent 'improvements' in military strikes by the Pakistani military it is revealed that they have dropped Google Earth as part of their target planning for a more precise technology. From the article, '... the air force has shifted from using Google Earth to more sophisticated images from spy planes and other surveillance aircraft, and has increased its use of laser-guided bombs. And no, you can't really find Osama Bin Laden using Google Maps either."

Comments

everyone's doing it.

[gandhi_2]

When I was in Ramadi (mid 05 to mid 06), all the local insurgent groups and out-of-town AQI used google earth for rocket and mortar attacks. Crazy, when "poor man's sat imagery" is almost as good as the rich man's. Luckily, GE images are often out of date....and insurgents fire rockets with an Insha'Allah kind-of mentality.

Its only a matter of time.

[hombrejava]

Satellites are becoming smaller and cheaper because of advances in miniature high-performance computers, solar panels, batteries, and increased launch capabilities due to standardization. CubeSats are one example. People can put small, but high-resolution cameras into space, and if you can launch 100 pico-satellites with cameras then your going to get near real-time imagery of many places on the earth. Its only a matter of time until even the poorest third-world country gets its own fleet of spy satellites.

Re:Pakistani citizen

[ryzvonusef]

1-Um, you are the ones who gave us the money to create the god-damned idiots in the first place, and they were created to bug the soviets as you well know, not the Afghanis and the Indians... and now when we are asking your help to get rid of them, you are ignoring us, come on, don't you want these guys gone or not? they attacked you because you stopped the gravy-train, and now they are attacking us because we did too.

2-We do get get aid, but we don't get "billions". Trust me, the finance minister is crying our budget is shot because we didn't even get the last-dole out of the international aid or whatever.

3-Also, its not the money problem only, we want the tech to find the the bad guys in the first place.The bottom line is, the bad guys are out there (literally in my case) and since you guys are so pressurizing us to get rid of them, then help us. The recent govt. seems to be genuinely interested in getting rid of the menace.

4-No we don't cheer in glee, because we have more attacks then them. We get even more paranoid.