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."
Call me crazy... (Score:2, Insightful)
What about individuals? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying I am afraid of it happening (I'm not that hysterically moronic, yet.) but it seems to me that the premise of "Google must blur this building because terrorists could somehow benefit from already slightly blurred photos of the outline of the building." applies equally to my house - "Google must blur this area because burglars could use the pictures to plan an escape route along the back of the garden which is hidden from normal view."
The last thing I want to have to do is put an opaque roof over my greenhouse shrine to Peter Krause.
A thumb in the hole won't hold back the (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to be sure that nobody steals your identity, don't give it to anyone for any reason, or better yet, always pretend to be someone else. Same applies to sensitive infrastructure. The problem with trying to hide information is that you tell people where to look more intensely. This simply puts a big target on those areas for local spy work. It doesn't take much to find out what you want to know about most places, if they aren't hidden or protected with the same efforts as is Area 51. Even if Google blurs the pictures, China won't, nor will any other government with a space presence.
I think the whole thing is either a ruse, or just another example of people thinking they can regulate the Internet or its uses.
Govnmt. wants to feel that they're still in charge (Score:5, Insightful)
I somehow think that this situation is analogous to other governments trying coerce Google into providing their user's personal details or removing content that is legal under US law, despite being illegal in other countries (e.g. hate speech).
Governments are losing their power and they're not liking it. This time Google decided they could drop them a cookie or something, you know, just to show some good faith. I'd prefer if they didn't blur anything, though - would make me respect Google a little bit more (but I don't think this will make them automatically evil or anything like that).
Re:What about individuals? (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense, but millions of people probably won't suffer if a burglar plans an escape route from your house. Successful takedown of a seat of government on the other hand...
Not only that, but any burglar savvy enough to consult Google Maps is probably savvy enough to escape from something as simple as a basic residence without needing Google Maps. This is partly because information about the floorplan of your house is already freely available through a variety of information sources--all of which have already been purged of information about sensitive locations (assuming such sensitive information even made it into those repositories in the first place).
You weren't complaining last year when your housing development's floorplans were on file at city hall, available to all citizens for a small archiving fee, while the floor plans to the White House were classified and restricted. Why complain this year that your house is on Google Maps, but Indian government facilities are not?
Nothing to see here... but look at me! (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case something very important about security. This is what politicians do to profile them self. It really doesn't matter what they do and what they do it to, but at the moment "security" is the cheap way to do something. Mostly because it's so damn hard to prove that the measures are ineffective. It's impossible to prove that blurring some images *didn't* foil some terrorists plans.
Being able to say that you got google to do something that you wanted them to do, is just an added bonus in the "look how important I am" hat.
Re:OK, crazy (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, though, people who want to do a government harm don't have to discover targets. Real estate is slow, and governments are slower still. If a building was used by a government 20 years ago, it's likely still used by that government today. That puts the ownership of the building into the "common knowledge" category.
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a bunch of totalitarian scum like their neighbours I guess.
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. "freedom fighters" become terrorists when they target civilians rather than military targets. If the Kashmiris were fighting the Indian Army, one might or might not agree with the their goal, but they would be soldiers. When they set off bombs in public places, they become criminals.
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:trail of tears (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:5, Insightful)
A government can indeed engage in terrorism, which is a good point since some governments try to play semantic games and either deny that they are terrorists on the grounds that government forces cannot be terrorists or call people soldiers engaged in legitimate military action terrorists simply because they are non-governmental. Collateral damage is not, in and of itself, terrorism or a war crime. The test in international law is whether the legitimate military objective justifies the collateral damage. One is required to use the approach that minimizes collateral damage. In cases in which one side uses civilians as shields, if the military objective is sufficiently important the other side may have no choice but to kill civilians. In this case, it is the side that uses civilians as a shield that has committed a war crime.
Training another country's personnel in torture is certainly evil but is borderline as terrorism because torture isn't usually considered a sort of military activity. Insofar as the torture is publicized and so used to terrorize the population, it arguably should be considered a kind of terrorism.
No, it doesn't make sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like playing whack-a-mole against every source including blogs and online photo album sites.
And besides, it's just security through obscurity, and we all know very well how much that strategy works well.
You can keep secret a small password, you can't keep secret the outside structure of a whole building, that any plane / sattelite / hot-air balloon / small probe / home made autonomous mini-glider with a webcame stuck on it / etc... could see. Google is listening to a government that is controlling most of the (outsourced) IT infrastructure of Google's home country.
I think it's wise not to disturb the sleeping Tiger in those circumstances.
Enough of these (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wrong point. (Score:1, Insightful)
Personally, I wish the boundaries between India and Paksitan and Bangaldesh were made irrelevant - somewhat like EU. I mean, if France and Germany, or Engand and France can be friendly after centuries of war-fare, surely, India and Pakistan can too? And in an irrelevant boundary situation, just like Germany doesn't seem to care about Alsace anymore, maybe India and Pakistan will stop worrying about who controls Kashmir, but instead start worrying about how to enhance the overall welfare of kashmiri people, sindhi people, punjabi people, baluch people, rajasthanis, gujaratis, and everyone else.
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Call me crazy... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it was not an act of terrorism. It was an aweful thing to do, but it was not done in order to scare other natives into submission.
If we keep throwing around the word "terrorism" as if it could mean anything, it will come to mean nothing at all.