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Google's Bangalore Streetview Project Stalled
GillBates0 writes "The Bangalore Police have objected to the collection of data by Google's cars, which were criss-crossing Bangalore city taking high definition images to give users 360 degree views of streets. Talking about the security concerns in an earlier interview with CNN-IBN, Google India Product Head Vinay Goel said, 'We are only driving on public roads and taking publicly available imagery so what we are not doing is going into a specific installation and taking private pictures and obviously we are working with the authorities so if there are certain locations they don't want us to be there we won't go there, we are happy working with the authorities here.'"
if they've innocent, they've got nothing to hide
From TFA:
Bangalore has several top security installments like ISRO, DRDO and HAL and the fear could be that a 360 degree view of the roads leading to them could be used by a terrorist in the future.
So THAT is what their concern with Streetview is. Always terror and terrorism isn't it, when in reality, the real concern is that, public images or not, people might actually not like living in a f*ing worldwide Panopticon...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Their words, not mine
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/the_war_on_phot.html
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/115726/
http://www.google.com/search?q=war+against+photography
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
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I like this post http://tinyurl.com/4yn3fuq
"'We are only driving on public roads and taking publicly available imagery so what we are not doing is going into a specific installation and taking private pictures and obviously we are working with the authorities so if there are certain locations they don't want us to be there we won't go there, we are happy working with the authorities here."
61 words in a single sentence makes Google sound rather flustered by the accusation.
This manager would sound much more relaxed with a bit of punctuation:
"'We are only driving on public roads and taking publicly available imagery. So what we are not doing is going into a specific installation — and taking private pictures. And obviously we are working with the authorities. So if there are certain locations they don't want us to be there, we won't go there. We are happy working with the authorities here."
Insufficient greasing of palms so far - Google is rich, so....
Stupid Indian cops are afraid that a car will capture them taking bribe or sleeping instead of working.
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Although similar complaints have been heard for the last couple of years, Google keep pretending they do not understand it. Arguments like "but we only take pictures of public areas" are just silly and besides the point.
Google ignore the fact that there is a massive difference between a public place being public and a public place being available to everyone on the internet (including data gathering servers, and all kinds of face recognition technologies).
And anyway, they accidentally take lots of pictures of not-so-public places because open doors/windows offer a glimpse into private houses and companies.
Google also always place the responsibility for pointing out what cannot be put on the internet with other people/companies/authorities. It's like the checkbox saying 'no, I don't want advertisement', which if left unchecked will get you on some spam email list. Right now, other people/companies/authorities spend a lot of time (and time = money) to get pictures off the internet. I think that Google should be paying for that time spent.
Instead of bitching about the new reality make use of the tools it provides to help wipe out corruption.
Why do people say "I'll/We'll be happy to [__insert_pain_in_the_ass_here__] ".
They never really mean it. I mean, for example why would google be happy to inconvenience themselves .. seriously? Feel good corporate speak. /rant off
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His father was a farrier, a blacksmith paper storage box who shod the horses in the cavalry of the Kingâ(TM)s German Legion, which fought against Napoleon in 1815. My nieces offered me these treasures since I was the only one left of my family. I could tell they were reluctant to give them up. I left the Civil War Cavalry sword, since one of the girls thought it was âoereally cool,â and was engraved with the name of its owner, Captain Melancthon Quivrain Dannettell. She reads me regularly in The Citizen online and wrote me an evocative letter recently:The âoewalking stickâ reminded me of two things. A couple of years ago, we went climbing Mt. Whitney, 14,000-some feet. The oxygen beach towel supplier gets a little thin around 12,000 and climbing becomes reduced to a step or two and stop to catch your breath. Ollie sat down against a rock to rest and fell asleep.
Quit complaining, you get your city/country mapped out for free. If you're worried about having a photo taken of you while walking around your house naked, then close the damn curtain. As far as the police are concerned, I think they just want money... it seems all police in the third world just want money, it's like the perk of their job, they're like the fricken mafia.
The American Gov has much better pictures than google. They dont tell you or give a f*ck if they can see down your girlfriends top and count her freckles.
A record of all conversations and sounds audible from public places.
Record this - "Fsck you Brin and Page"
Google India Product Head Vinay Goel said, 'We are only driving on public roads and taking publicly available imagery so what we are not doing is going into a specific installation and taking private pictures and obviously we are working with the authorities so if there are certain locations they don't want us to be there we won't go there, we are happy working with the authorities here.'"
To which Microsoft Word replied, "Long sentence (no suggestions)"
Likely that Google forgot to bribe the relevant officials in Bangalore hence they are flexing their muscles now.
All you see are corrugated metal shacks, and a lot of bad driving. And the power goes out once an hour.
Google, I just saved you millions of dollars. I expect my check by next week.
They want a bribe!
Seriously, we need to redefine our terminology for classification before we go forward in the digital age.
"Private" used to mean things which only a select few with a reason to know could see.
"Public" used to mean things which were available to any interested party, with access partially limited by the opportunity cost of the human effort required for viewing.
The digital age has brought forth the ability for anyone on the planet to take interest in the most minute detail anywhere in the world, whether it be goofy kid photos digitized from your primary school yearbook, the inconsequential ramblings you post on Facebook, or what the outside of your dwelling looks like.
One camp says, "It should be private because it is intrusive, with possible detriment to certain parties."
Another camp says, "It should be public because anyone can see it from a public street."
Very few seem to be discussing shades of grey in the scope of access when the purpose is low-value mass consumption of minutiae.
Obviously, our bank account numbers should be private. Likewise, the proceedings of governance should be public.
What about a court trial? We need open courts for transparency, but should the access policy allow video cameras in every courtroom feeding an eternal online archive, letting the media and the public gawk at others, and turn justice into another pop culture mode of entertainment?
What about land records? We need open land records to prevent fraud, but should the access policy allow dozens of real estate aggragators to build a business model of making the personal property holdings of any person available with a couple of free clicks on the Internet, primarily available for marketing and the gawking public (the access policy used to stop this by requiring a mild amount of effort to access one specific record, done typically by people with some useful purpose for knowing)?
What about your tweets? They may be openly accessible, but should they be stored and archived for all eternity so a tabloid 20 years from now can dredge up things you said today for some purpose likely less-than-productive?
Until policymakers and the public at large adds the dimension of access policy to the false dichotomy of public/private then we will continue having these flawed discussions lacking sensible shades of grey. Consensus should be rational, and for it to be rational, it needs to incorporate all the salient facts.
If we let the flawed definition of "private" win then information is locked up behind layers of laws and remains unavailable for many productive uses.
If we let the flawed definition of "public" win then anyone who is not a hermit becomes an unfree participant in a worldwide, lifelong reality entertainment program.
...we are happy working with the authorities...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I think the opening sentence of the summary might be more accurately rephrased: "The Bangalore Police have sensed an opportunity for a jolly fat slice of baksheesh from Google, and have hence objected to the collection of data by Google's cars". A company that size ought to be able to pay a few million USD to help the Bangalore Police address these security concerns, neh?
>Scale makes all the difference in many things.
The argument against Google's streetview seems to be a variant of the "secretive government agency phone book problem", In that example, the entire phone book is classified but individual numbers are not.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-x18fG3G-ioJ:www.acsac.org/secshelf/book001/24.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us
Similarly, Google is right that it is taking pictures of public streets, which people are generally free to do (sensitive locations notwithstanding), but the objection is to the compendium of pictures as a whole. This seems to many to be a security problem, possibly because of how easy it makes it for someone to do reconnaissance without actually visiting and taking their own photos, the act of which, presumably, could be detected.