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."
Google News (Score:5, Interesting)
Time for physiological warfare (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is an article on the art of deception. I would love them to waste ammo and troups attacking the empty tents in the compound where all those inflatable tanks are.
http://www.psywarrior.com/DeceptionH.html [psywarrior.com]
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:1, Interesting)
Then anyone within their jurisdiction who wishes to distribute these photos will not be likley to cause harm. But more importantly, those who still wish to distribute areal photo's of a base, including the layout, and actualy do so without getting the appropriate waviors, would likley be someoen working against you. Try them for spying or shoot them as an enemy. It doesn't matter. It isn't like the military cannot start shooting down aircraft flying over bases and taking pictures. Especialy in a war zone.
Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read this: (Score:3, Interesting)
As one sniper put it, "we're being use as cardboard cutouts on rooftops, any insurgent, or housewife with a gun is going to count her lucky stars and take a potshot at the *grunt* patrolling with a bolt action scoped rifle, this isn't how snipers are to be used in war".
At one point they lost 2 snipers because they were made to patrol town, with "protection", which means that he was surrounded by "support" personnel (some dozen guys or so). The guy said it too. "Snipers don't have firepower, we're being used like in the movies, and that is not what snipers are for, we're slow, deliberate and precise. But we do not have *firepower*, no sir, we deliver precise, surgical kills against crucial targets. We're not being employed to the best of our abilities, we're being employed as if we were in some hollywood movie set."
Many of them are quitting everyday and going "professional" or "contractor". Everyone here blames them, I frankly, cannot. Where would you rather be, fighting for the government under their inept, incompetent and totally demented leadership, or fighting for yourself, and choosing your contracts/battles. You're still spilling blood for money, or, if civilian and pro war, you're a coward asking others to spill blood in your stead. At the very least, mercs have some liberty and choice, and they aren't wasted like our military types are.
My personal opinion is that they're being flung to the wind and allowed to be killed so they can make room for the mexican "army amnesty program"
So don't worry about google earth, its not the culprit, IDIOTS IN THE LEADERSHIP POSITIONS ARE THE CULPRIT! I hear it from less ignorant grunts and former marines all the time. They don't go back anymore, they quit and out they stay. One took my advice as did several buddies, and they've been looking at Blackwater USA. Personally, I don't care if they go there or not, but fighting for the government just is not SANE anymore, not as a profession. The commanding officers are largely movie watcher types, and the snipers are just the first to notice this (being as to how people of remarkable talent, such as snipers and sharpshooters are being wasted on patrol and overwatch duties).
The first casualty of war.... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the "bad guys" belive the maps are up to date then they are the maps they will use. I think this is an attempt by the "good guys" to direct enemy mortar fire into an empty padock. Now since the proffesional bad guys aren't stupid, any doubt about the currency of the images reduces Google Earth to the informational status of an old street map.
Disappointed journalist? (Score:4, Interesting)
Google is obviously in talks with the involved parties here.
It's just that they don't want to go public with all the details.
That honestly sounds good enough to me. The important part is that they're aware of the problem, not that they inform grumpy Google journalists of every little thing they're discussing internally. I think they don't deserve the negative spin on this in that article.
Re:Two points (Score:5, Interesting)
However, buildings don't move, and the insurgency in iraq, while predominatly made of Iraqi nationals, is most certainly far more mobile than any previous insurgency in recent memory. Simply put the iraqi's have cars. If you're an insurgent in one town, you can look at google earth, plot out where you want to go, set up, position, coordinate based on GPS locations etc.. with other people in another. I was thinking loosely about this problem where I live. I live in one city (~70K people), but really I don't know my way around any of the smaller towns that surround us, nor do I know my way around the biggest city near me (which is toronto nearly 150Km away). But, moving from place A to B is fairly easy, at least when I'm not crawling through the jungles of borneo or riding my camel through the middle of the desert. The resistance in Iraq can use GE just the same as any of us can use google earth to figure out where we're going.
With respect to the article specifically. The parking lots of Iraq's military installations, now in use by the British, probably haven't moved too far, nor have the suitable places for housing since those photos were taken. Given how long the occupation has been going on, those bases haven't moved and I somehow doubt the british army has been able to magically conjure up new places within the bases to put their tents, and even if google pictures are a year or two old those things are likely not all that much different.
With Google Earth a resistance fighter can see their way around rooftops, so long as the buildings are still standing, target things that don't move, or things that are consistently moved to and from the same place (like vehicles), and generally get a feel for what the terrain they are going to operate in looks like, and the layout. The fact that google earth might be somewhat out of date is less of a problem, if your information is wrong, you get killed, but it was better than nothing. Whereas the US/UK/FR/PRC/RUS would demand up the day satellite info to ensure maximum survivability of their soldiers, resistance movements tend to be more willing to make sacrificies.
In a broader sense, I think militaries and goverments will have to adapt their organization around satellite imagery. Right now they're all used to thinking only other people with spy satellites can see these things. Sure everyone has maps, but maps are no where near as useful as a satellite photo, even a crappy one. This probably means a lot more things in semi portable or easy to construct bunkers like they use for jet fighters.
Re:Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read thi (Score:1, Interesting)
I want to see how many "needless" or "unexplained/for someone's freedom" wars we would have then.
I'm not a leftist/socialist by any measure, but I find that drafts should be "voluntary" since a draft is slavery, and the worst form of it (its a socialist term for CONSCRIPTION!) so you should volunteer for it the moment you vote for any war or reduction in liberty. Or, if you don't support it (by not wanting to be the one to catch a bullet or trip wire bomb on the front lines) then don't join up by wanting war, and others to fight it.
This would be a most libertarian solution, since the only ones sent to the front lines in an invasion would be the idiots that voted for it. Be they NeoCon Dick Cheney, or anyone else.
Oh and a special treat would be to also autodraft the families of said politicians!
Aggression wars are aok... they should be committed ONLY by those who voted for them. The regular army should guard borders, and national guard should stay at home. They were meant to "protect from enemies foreign". And that is what they should do.
NOTE: Yes they do let you out, if your service is up. Many do not reenlist, but go merc. Good for them.
Typical /. insight--no mention of "fake" (Score:3, Interesting)
At least nothing came up in a search for "fake"--but I'm ignoring the anonymous cowards, so maybe they have the insights?
Anyway, it's obvious that if this is really a war (pretending that America was seriously threatened by the late Saddam and that a war was called for), and if you know how your enemy is acting, then this is an obvious case for seeding Google with fake intelligence to find out if the insurgents take the bait. It's called counterintelligence, even if you take "military intelligence" as an oxymoron. Actually, by doing it cleverly in narrow time windows and tracing the IPs for specific fake images, they could even get very specific data on the people who are supporting the insurgents.
On the other hand, pretending that Dubya's politically filtered appointees are more competent than the insurgents, then we could also out-think them to figure out where the true images will encourage the insurgents to attack, and plan for counterattacks at those targets. Of course the problems there are that the insurgents are rather cunning, quite determined, have wide popular support, and are quick to change their tactics.
The *REAL* problems of our situation in Iraq are *NOT* related to Google. The real problems are that Dubya's handlers regard themselves as being safe from paying any legal penalties for their perpetual and fanatical determination to ignore reality, while Dubya's incompetence compounds every mistake. If you haven't read The One Percent Doctrine , then you should read it just to see what happens when someone who is not as qualified as a college intern is frequently intervening at the highest levels of the decision-making processes.
Heh, we had that in Soviet Union (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, I read that map companies sometimes make non-existing dead-end streets in their maps as a way to fingerprint them and to know it's their map if some other company steals and reprints it.
--Coder
Re:Irony at its best? Since we're on Iraq read thi (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, if you are pro-life, you have to take care of a single mother's child. For the twenty years or so it takes to raise a child through college.
We have a volunteer army, and pretty much everyone signing up knows that in doing so, there is a chance they will be sent to war (possibly even a war they don't agree with). It's their choice to join, and they do so knowing that it's civilians that decide whether they'll be sent to war or not.
In this case, where people are using Google maps information to attack military installations, it seems that being a good soldier isn't what it used to be. It's not enough to be a good fighter, you need to be a good planner. The information Google gives out is available to everyone. Why don't the soldiers use it to plan their defense? They have a big advantage in that Google maps isn't updated that often, they could look at the images and plan how to booby trap the weak spots.
The military have had aerial reconnaissance at their disposal since the first balloons were invented. They have much better aerial imaging than Google gives out, they can see from which points their barracks may be attacked, where are the houses and alleys that can be used by eventual attackers.
No, this whole affair is a straw man, it's another convenient excuse being invented to create one more way to restrict information in the internet.
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yes Let's shut down the internet (Score:4, Interesting)
How do these terrorists communicate with each other? With SPEECH? OH FUCK! LET'S SHUT DOWN ALL THE SCHOOLS! LEARNING TO TALK MIGHT HELP THE TERRORISTS!
or
How do these terrorists get to their targets? By *WALKING*?!!?! Headline: Teaching children to walk may have terror implications.
The media should be PROSECUTED for even speculating on crap like this. Everyone is so stupid and ignorant that they can just pull up any thing unfamiliar and scary sounding and link it to terrorism. OH MY GOD, INCREDIBLY USEFUL TOOLS BENEFIT TERRORISTS TOO! Retards. CAMP STOVE FUEL "WHITE GAS" CAN MAKE A POWERFUL BOMB! *Camp stoves banned*
If I didn't love freedom of speech so much I'd say to take away their rights thereof. Instead we need to fight back with the correct information, because the public needs to know. But every time I do, I get put down, like Fox News knows more than I do. I try to explain that my IQ is higher than the ENTIRE Fox News ANCHOR TEAM *MULTIPLIED* TOGETHER, but they say, "Why aren't you on TV." *sigh* Which is why I'm filing a patent for a discreet, handheld device that can be used to sterlize and render barren any person in 10 seconds or less without their knowledge. Simply wave the device near their gonads and *click* press the red "Easy" button. In seconds you've assured a better future for the world.