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Google Street View Gets Israeli Government's Nod
hypnosec writes "Israel's Justice Ministry has decided to give its approval to Google's Street View services to feature 360 degree images of the country's streets, according to a new, confirmed report. The ministry also assured that Tel Aviv's Law, Information and Technology Authority will cause no worries for Google from now on when it comes to deploying its sophisticated photography equipment in the streets, as well as in posting the photographs taken on its map service."
I'm having a hard time figuring out how this improves security in Israel. I can't imagine this being allowed unless there was some security benefit.
I wonder how many drivers will get kidnapped driving through Muslim areas. Google would look like a good potential ransom payer
Was it some big deal that google was not allowed to map streets via this method in Israel?
Does Google still sniff all the wireless networks and collect all emails they can catch while they drive around, like they did in Finland?
and what is written on the confident/top-secret agreements. ;-)
Was there something specific about Tel-Aviv municipality's permission to take the images?
(I guess that they meant to refer to Israel's capital, it's Jerusalem not Tel-Aviv).
There are some real bizarre laws out there. For instance, United States companies are restricted in the resolution of satellite imagery of Israel.
This is truly bizarre, albeit true. With the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act in 1997, private companies in United States aren't allowed to provide high resolution satellite/aerial imagery of Israel. This restriction boggles my mind for a free country. Not that it matters much longer as other countries such as Turkey are going to provide high-resolution imagery of Israel in 2013.
It could be possible to construct a rudimentary "aerial" view by warping street view imagery (of course several areas and building roofs would not get into that picture) however. So yeah, there are some pretty weird restrictions out there.
- Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
Israel's capital is Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv - why do you phrase it as "Tel Aviv's Law"?
I believe political issues should be not part of a slashdot tech report.
Moti.
Given the amount of disputed territory claimed by Israel, is this a political hot potato for Google? Will the Google-cars be driving round streets that the local authorities then help with identifying? I can imagine situations where the Google image makers come back with maps and a local authority says "yes, this is called so-and-so Street, this is called this-and-that Street" and six months later when the images are published there's a big outcry because these streets have been known locally by Palestinian names, or the Google-vans have been driving round new settlement areas and map them as being Israeli land while other communities claim that this has been illegally acquired land.
Given the outcry when Google has innocently and accidently attributed a border feature / street to the wrong country in other places, I can imagine this is a very hot potato to be dealing with...
Most of the ministry offices are in Jerusalem. Google's offices are in Tel Aviv.
If I wanted to make some sort of logic device, how many transistors would I get per vacuum tube? Those are valves to some out there.
Google v the Israeli government. Is there some way they can both lose?
I'd be more interested if they could expose either the criminal non-crimes or the non-criminal crimes. Tautology is fun to see.
my fellow AC means probably to say that israel came in to existence by removing indigenous people from their territory.
ashkenazi (pronounced with a soft "z") are jews. the pun is not intended because of the substring "nazi" (pronounced with a hard "z" like "ts"). hence the smiley.
think of it as a near-east version of native americans (indians) vs. settlers (cowboys), but happening currently instead of settlers already been settled for hundreds of years.
his reference to semantics was probably something like "occupation is like some form of terrorism", or something.
another example of shifted semantic when dealing with israel would be the term "anti-semitic". originally it meant "against someone of semite culture or language". the indigenous arabs (and some christians who live there) are semites, but in todays meaning they are not meant when talking about "anti-semitism".
you gonna criticize now that i don't capitalize my words properly?
and other 'enemies of the state', conscientious objectors, etc.
obviously that will improve security.
Hell, they might as well put Google street-view cars in Tripoli or Iraq while they're at it; perfect targets for western homogenization hating RPG practice.
I'm all about like, pioneering the way forward, but this seems a little brazen for Google given the political climate and constant, you know...rocket fire between Israel and Palestine...but, what do I know...I'm just a humble developer.
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They don't make tubes anymore.
Please take your zomg_jews_rule_teh_world!!!! conspiracy theories elsewhere. It's not helping, and frankly, it's really old and repetitive.
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This is kinda cool. It could help with peace efforts. Israeli's have been so vilified by arab governments that they don't' even imagine them as human beings. Seeing them in their daily lives walking about chatting, with kids and friends...should help to convey that we're all just people and we should get along. Also Arabs will see how well Israeli's who are Arab live within the country and may see that coexistence is possible.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
For civillian applications, tubes are still manufactured by the truckload for audio amplifiers. I think there are a few military applications that are still best served with tubes.
inefficient in terms of casualties.
total number of Israelis killed by such rockets (all types combined - short range Qassam's, mid-range Grad's, etc etc) in the last decade has been less than 10.
so the danger to Google's drivers from rocket fire is probably around 0.2% the danger coming from traffic accidents (400 killed on the roads in an average year in Israel)
the streets of Tel-Aviv (and mostly everywhere else within the state of Israel) are perfectly safe these days if you take a rational point of view and refuse to let fear control your life.
disclaimer: I live in Tel-Aviv.
Do you want to keep track of all those people who might walk down your street using overt and covert cameras to take a look at a potential target or do you want to sit back and collect the IP addresses of those who view them online. I know which is easier.The Google servers are the greatest single intelligence resource the world has ever seen.
Do no evil. Very funny.