Google to Blur Sensitive India Sites 194
theodp writes "Citing unnamed officials, the Times of India is reporting that Google Earth has agreed to blur and distort Indian locations identified by the government after security concerns were voiced by the country's president. This includes total blurring of locations like government buildings, as well as the outlines/building plans of key facilities. This came about after a recent meeting between Google technicians and Indian officials."
Pointless (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about individuals? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Duh (Score:3, Informative)
Quoting from the article
" Official sources said Google Earth would distort building plans by adding structures where none existed or masking certain aspects of a facility. This could be done without attracting attention to such establishments, which range from laboratories, mines, military sites, space and atomic centres and residences of high-profile VVIPs. "
The main reason why this was done was because India's President (a highly respected man and very intelligent) was worried that such high resolution imagery could pose security implications.
I personally think that this will help reduce access to terrorists that may be planning attacks. It is nothing against major governments that already have all the satellite information that they need. A bit too much info actually.. as the US found out when India blasted their nuclear device right under everyone's noses
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OK, crazy (Score:3, Informative)
Even without censorship, not all locations on Google Earth have the same amount of resolution. Urban areas in 'non-third-world nations', in general, have the highest resolution. So blurring (or obscuring) per se isn't an issue, unless there are complete blanks for certain areas. Which is not the case here, presumably.
Locating key establishments (Score:2, Informative)
Key establishment is a blurred spot!
Who knows how complete is the list of key establishments provided to google?
Also, there are techniques to get information about the real image out of blurred images. This link http://dheera.net/projects/blur.php [dheera.net] is only about numbers but I'm sure there are other ways to get more information out of blurred images.