Google Earth and "Collateral Damage" 541
netbuzz writes "British news reports say insurgents are using Google Earth to pinpoint vulnerable targets within bases in Iraq. Could Google be doing more to prevent this? Should they be doing more? They certainly could explain more."
Re:Two points (Score:2, Informative)
Now, There are people (especialy at targets of concern) who's only job is to monitor people scoping out places. Remeber all those stories about people walking thier dogs down raods with power plants on them and getting hassled. God forbid you have a cell phone with a camera on it or that you might have taken a picture of the area. Now, you probably could find the layout of a military base, CIA headquarters, whatever. But you also are more likley to draw attention to yourself and when they find plans to make a rocket perpelled grenade or mortors on your computer, I doubt you'll be spending christman with mom. Same in a dessert. If you pacing the distance from the fence to make sure your in ranges without beeing close enough for snipers to shoot you or be easily targeted by something else, your likley to get caught. With an arial photo, I can find the distance between the fence and the mess hall. Look at how far the fence goes out, find some natural osbstruction so i have plenty of time to set up and aim, then launch a few and leave. Less chance of getting caught.
Probably not. But we have GPS guided cannon shells and such. It might not be fathomable for them to use morters in this way. Especialy is Iran is backing them like everyoen thinks.
Re:Google News (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh ya (Score:2, Informative)
Program: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
Community: http://www.worldwindcentral.com/ [worldwindcentral.com]
WorldWind was available before Google Earth was born, but it was not marketed into news headlines. WorldWind does not limit your local cache size the way Google Earth does, so you can download the whole multi-terabyte Landsat and SRTM datasets if you are so inclined. It is also extendable by user add-ons, of which many exist. WorldWind links to cartographic and placename databases, and also provided alternate planets before Google Earth, and now includes the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter (via NASA mission data), as well as the night sky (via SDSS imagery).
Google Earth adds commercial non-US aerial images to the freely-available data used by WorldWind, and links to various commercial directories and maps, but is otherwise a follower of WorldWind rather than a leader.
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:3, Informative)
Re:*Insurgents* (Score:1, Informative)
And the US has built 4 (or 5) 'enduring' bases, some the size of small towns. The US isn't leaving Iraq until it is forced out like it was in Vietnam.
Re:Two points (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to break it to you but they were not iraqis.
"And when they blew up two of our embassies in Africa"
They were not iraqis either.
"And they hit the USS Cole with a missile named Studied Indifference?"
Still not the iraqis. Oh and it wasn't a missile either, it was a boat.
I know facts are kind of annoying but you should still try to place one or two in your post.
Google doesn't produce, only buys pictures (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well stated. (Score:4, Informative)
You've set out the case for the war in Afghanistan, which was a retaliation against a government which harboured and financed Al Qaeda. Motives for the (entirely separate) Iraq war range from non-existent WMD to freeing the people to daddy's unfinished business, but there was no link between terrorism and Iraq until after the fall of Saddam's government.
Re:Well stated. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:5, Informative)
This works great in the Netherlands. Here's [google.nl] our Ministry of Defense and this [google.nl] is the air force headquarters. If you can't see it on Google Maps, you can't bomb it. </sarcasm>
There's more of this nonsense, but these two are close to home for me.
Re:Well stated. (Score:1, Informative)
So what about all the US (and other western countries) meddling in the middle east over the last 50 years. In 1953 the US and UK helped to overthrow the democratically elected governemnt of Iran http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax [wikipedia.org] which was threatening their oil interests.
Then you have the US arming insurgents in Afghanistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_
Then the US sold Iraq a load of chemical weapons that they used on their own people and on the Iranian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_
hmmm, I wonder why people in the middle east hate the west so much. If it had happened the other way round we'd feel justified in declarinig war.
Re:Well stated. (Score:4, Informative)
On Jan 29th, 2002, Bush named 3 countries as the "Axis of Evil" [wikipedia.org] - Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Of those three countries:
Who'd we invade again?
Re:Google News (Score:4, Informative)
I tend to agree that on a tactical and strategic level the war in Vietnam was successfully fought (not wisely fought, mind you, but even if we did manage to kill thousands of our own soldiers with dumb policies we still managed to get the job done on the battlefield in spite of ourselves). Now, the whole notion of limited war was dumb, and prevented the US from just cleaning up. Korea is a better example of what could have been achieved, but I'd hardly consider North Korea a great success story. And that brings up the bigger issue - if you want to get involved in foreign civil wars you're going to find that social change is a lot messier than just winning battles.
So, yes, in Vietnam the US probably didn't lose a single engagement, unless you count the decision to send troops in at all...
Old maps anyway (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Could Google be doing more? (Score:3, Informative)
Note: the above so-so photo link can't be reached directly from Slashdot (they checking that referring page is from their own site to block Google image search), so....
1) Copy the following to the clipboard " http://www.beautifulbritain.co.uk/images/OutAndAbo ut/sign_language/secret_bunker.jpg [beautifulbritain.co.uk] "
2) Click the URL of their main webpage http://www.beautifulbritain.co.uk/ [beautifulbritain.co.uk] then paste the clipboard into the URL filed of your browser (Note: if your current browser is IE, dock yourself 150 geek points).
Voila! The referring page is now their own site and the link is allowed.
Extra credit can be achieved by manually controlling your browser's refer page field to achieve the same effect, 2x extra credit if you can hand emulate (from telnet to port 80) a browser actually making this request. 3x extra credit if you do this from shell scripts. 4x if written in C++, 5x if done in assembly code, 8x if done in machine code without using a compiler.
Wow, I guess SOF IS for uninformed guys (Score:3, Informative)
The "Assault Rifle" concept wasn't invented in Vietnam, it was invented in WW2 over here in Germany. The existing doctrine was that, yes, you need big real-man's rifles and machineguns most of the time, or pistols and SMGs for when it gets close and personal. Then someone noticed that most fighting, yes, happens under 300m. A place where pistols and SMGs are too short ranged, and those powerful real-man's weapons are too unwieldy. The world's first assault rifle was the Sturmgewehr 44 [wikipedia.org]. "Sturmgewehr" means _literally_ "Assault Rifle."
It was originally called "MP-43" to disguise it from Hitler who officially forbade researching anything except SMGs and big real-man's rifles. So they gave it a SMG designation instead.
The higher party officials got wind of it only when a test batch found its way to an SS unit, and troops started _begging_ and using political favours to try to get the new weapon. That already says something that the average big guns nut doesn't seem to understand: actual frontline troops _liked_ them, and preferred them to those good ol' real-man's weapons.
It has _nothing_ to do with political correctness. Nazi Germany was the least politically correct place on Earth. And soldiers on the brutal East Front didn't give a fuck about political correctness by now. They just wanted a weapon which would keep them alive.
Or have you ever heard of the AK-47? You must have. Well, that was an almost shameless copy of the StG-44. It's also useless beyond 300m, because of the low muzzle velocity. And it wasn't for lack of bigger, more macho weapons to copy, since they could have copied the much more powerful Fallschirmjägergewehr 42 [wikipedia.org] instead. And you know what the USSR replaced it with? With the AK-74 in 5.45mm caliber.
And again, if you're trying to tell me that the Kremlin leaders were the US kind of "politically correct", then that's _major_ revisionism. Even as women in the army goes, the Soviets used a lot in WW2, but after the war they were mostly in a hurry to get rid of them and return to a more paternal army structure. Women were always exempted from draft, and post-war mostly used by the army as propaganda pieces, as in "hey, looky, we're so egalitarian, we even let a few dress in uniforms once a month and do some mock drills." They certainly _didn't_ design their main infantry weapons around attracting women in any form or shape.
I know that the average gun nut looks only at caliber, so the 7.92mm StG-44 and 7.62mm AK-47 look like a macho real-man's weapon. Guess what? They're short, low-velocity cartridges. The 7.62x39mm AK-47 round is a _lot_ weaker than the 7.62x51mm NATO round. In fact, the NATO round is closer to the Soviet 7.62x53mm round used in medium machineguns and sniper rifles. (E.g., the SVD, a.k.a., Dragunov sniper rifle.) So even the politically-incorrect Soviets, yes, used much less macho ammo in their main infantry weapon. (The original German StG-44 used an even shorter cartridge, at 7.92x33mm. That's right, a whole 33mm case.)
The problem with big cartridges in rifles, like the NATO 7.62mm round or the German Mauser round the Germans initially experimented with, is _not_ semi-auto fire. Yes, your grandma can shoot them one at a time. Very astute of you. The problem is _automatic_ fire. When you shoot 10 of them per second, with a powerful round and without a bipod, your accuracy goes straight to hell. Shot one by one, yes, you can aim them, but in salvoes it shakes your gun all around. And blimey, even that good ol' powerful M-14, it got a bipod for the models that were kept capable of automatic fire. _That's_ why everyone moved to less powerful cartridges in their assault rifles.
And again, the Soviets too moved to a 5.45mm round instead, because of the flatter trajectory and actually having more stopping power. Both the NATO 5.56mm round and
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:3, Informative)
Now with a map of the area, and the complex being attacked, you don't need to do the foot work and make your own maps. There is just a less chance of getting caught. Nobody is saying it cannot be done. Even the google maps would need a walk by to see if anything drastic has changed. But you wouldn't need to pace off the parimieter or measer the distance from the entrance to the nearest parking lot (unless that has changed too).
When you find someone trying to get a pilots license for comercial aircraft and all they want to know is howto fly the plane and nothing about take offs or landings, well the bells and whistles start going off. It wen off before 9/11 but certain government offices just weren't interested in them. Now they are interested and the same would be true for people trying to get maps of potential terrorist targets.
Now in Iraq or some other country, there will be guards and patrolls. They don't have to shoot anyone for walking to the border of a secure zone. But they will stop and ask the person questions to why they are there. And when they give a good enough reason, They get informed they need to get authorization form someone to be in that area. When they are there again without autorization and parts of maps are found on them, then a followup search detects elements uses to make explosives you can bet something isn't going as stated.
You see, all these images are, is a way to remian anoymouse in doing certain tasks that make the mission more succesful. If an airplane flys over a military base, It isn't going to go without being ordered down and the pilots talked too. When photo equiptment is found and picture of the base are on it, guess were that leads. If they run and don't land, you can bet it isn't friendly and they will probably shot down. My understanding is that after a certain amount of attemps to control the course of an aircraft in some restricted zones fail, the military can be ordered to shot it down now. (think washington). And lets be honest here, It isn't the maps they are worried about, it is the details of the facilities and surounding areas that are shown on the images that aid in the escaping detection and acuracy of the attacks. It is like giving someone a scope to aim with when they didn't even have fixed sights to begin with. It isn't that they cannot hit the target, it is that getting the details to hit the target is harder and your intention might be discover more redily.