Google Blurring Sensitive Map Information

Cyphoid writes "While viewing my school (the University of Massachusetts Lowell) with Google Maps, I noticed that a select portion of the campus was pixelated: the operational nuclear research facility on campus. Curious, I attempted to view the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It too was pixelated. What or who is compelling Google to smudge out these images selectively? Will all satellite images of facilities that the government deems 'sensitive' soon be subject to censoring?" Not surprisingly, the same areas are blurred in Google Earth. But how about images from satellites operated by other nations, such as SPOT or Sovinformsputnik?

Great

[Colin Smith]

Now it's even easier to pick out nice fat targets.
 

A blur is almost as good as a bullseye

[erroneus]

C'mon! Now if you didn't know what you were looking at before, now you know there's a target of interest there.

Re:Simcurity

[owlnation]

Yeah, cos the unabomber had his own lear jet and imaging equipment. Don't discount the threats from the general public. There's a lot more of them. And some of them are more crazy than the average terrorist.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Simcurity

[s20451]

Yeah, because the security threats to facilities come from the general public which gets its aerial imagery free from these years-old databases, not from corporate, governement or international orgs with budgets for the plentiful (even cheap) aerial/satellite products with recent updates, higher resolution, GIS overlays, even realtime observations. Or their own aircraft/satellites to generate their own custom data.

So you're saying we should pay no attention to the simplest and easiest of security measures because a potential adversary could take more agressive action. That's like saying it's okay to have a sticky note with the root password on a critical server as long as you keep the firewall updated.

"Years-old databases"? It's not like the design of a nuclear power plant changes on a day-to-day basis.

Re:Great

[Yvanhoe]

With the maximum resolution you can find enough information to plan escape routes, locate access stairs, maintenance hatches, and maybe in the case of a nuclear facility (I only speculate, I am no expert on this) locate the storage facilities of crucial and/or dangerous materials. So yes, it can help. Of course this shouldn't be the only measure taken and the blurring should only be a temporary measure taken to give time to correct any flaw that may become apparent on what used to be military-grade satellite imagery.

Re:Dumb

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's like a terrorist's shopping list. Grab Google and zoom around the map. Mark blurred areas on map. Bomb area.

So they know that there is 'something' under that blur that might be vulnerable. How to attack? No idea. The thing is.."terrorists" are not much good at bombing at any distance. Even a couple hundred yards is problematic. That requires more equipment than can be hidden under a coat.

So...deny them easily accessible photo intel (Google Earth), and force them to actually come to the location to recon. Where they might be noticed and hopefully stopped.

Re:Great

[csimicah]

Assuming just for a second that 'the terrorists' have no better way to find the location of nuke plants than by scrolling google maps looking for pixels; what exactly are we worried they're going to do with this information, that they couldn't do without it? Drive to the plant and give it a threatening look? Jump in their bomber fleet and drop daisy cutters?

Re:Great

[HomelessInLaJolla]

> Now it's even easier to pick out nice fat targets

Who gets to pixelate the images and what ensures that they aren't mailing the originals to South American freedom fighters?

I'm sure the person who gets to pixelate the images has a security clearance. That doesn't guarantee anything except that a particular social circle has access to information that the rest of us don't. What they do with that information is, well, best left to the imagination.

I for one know first-hand how easy it is for those with security clearances to abuse their privelege and get away with it.

Re:Old news, really! They did this when Kodak sold

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I have found it to be a bit annoying as I use features around the airport for identification for my work, and it was always nice to have an outside 'reference' which might or might not agree with the GPS solution.

For every "terrorist use" there are thousands or more productive uses like yours. Blurring it out only serves to make people's jobs harder and is thus a drag on the economy.

That's terrorism. Miminal threats that cause out of proportion reactions that themselves cause more damage than than any direct terrorist action.

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[account_deleted]

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They are not all blacked out

[Anonymous Coward]

The Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Waterford, CT - my hometown - is not blurred at all. See it here. [google.com]

Re:Dumb

[misanthrope101]

Another problem is that terrorists tend to attack people, not assets. At most they'll attack symbols like the WTC, but even then it was calculated to kill the most people they could. This map blurring would be better spent on the Mall of American and sports stadiums, but if you follow that logic you'd eventually blur the entire map and burn all paper maps, because all of the maps could be used to help a terrorist. I'm not saying that anyone would explicitly advocate blurring the entire map (or burning the paper ones) but that isn't how it transpires. When someone comes to you and says "I want to blur X, so I don't help the terrorists," which ones do you deny? Because the way they've structured the question, to deny any request is to implicitly help the terrorists. That's the way the Bush administration got everything they wanted--they just appended "so we don't help the terrorists" to the end of every request, and it went like butter. And we end up with warrantless surveillance, torture, and watered-down habeus corpus. When the slope really is slippery, then the "slippery slope" fallacy doesn't apply all that much.

Re:MassGIS

[cheater512]

Yeah its like saying, "Look here guys! There must be something really neat here"

Re:Simcurity

[bigpat]

I don't really agree that the ordinary citizen has the right to all information out there. I don't understand why American citizens get butt hurt every time information is not open to them. There is classified information, and information that is available on a need to know basis all over the government. Being in the military there have been several times when I have done things without knowing why I am doing them, or why they are happening. It sucks, but you know what, I have come to accept that sometimes it is necessary.

I think a perfect example of going too far is that the old Soviet Union era street maps of Moscow were purposefully made inaccurate to foil spies. Stands to reason, a warped reason, that the people who need to get someplace already know where they are going and that only spies, invaders or other "outsiders" would actually need a map.

That kind of paranoid thinking leads to real problems. A simple rule should be, that if it is visible from a public space, such as the publics' airspace, then it shouldn't be censored. Simple, direct and legal. Otherwise, what you often get is a population of citizens that is more ignorant than your enemy is.

Classified and need to know are very important when it comes to operational details of the military, such as tactics and capabilities, but when it comes to fixed buildings and locations, it is a good rule that if it is visible from an unprotected especially a public area then you shouldn't assume that you are fooling your enemy simply by censoring public discourse. In fact, it is a dangerous assumption to make.

As for whether it is a violation of my rights to keep this information away from me, no it wouldn't, but it would be a violation of freedom of expression to prevent someone from taking a picture in public. Such as from a bridge in New York or any number of other public places that supposedly do not allow pictures to be taken. I understand walking into a secure facility the need to leave your camera phone at the door, but on a public right of way (land or air) or from a public park preventing people from recording something that is visible (without any penetrating radar or otherwise intrusive detection) is a clear violation of the first amendment of the US Constitution.