Internet Giving Rise To "Citizen Spies"

reporter writes "According to a startling report by the Wall Street Journal, the Internet has empowered ordinary people to be part-time intelligence officers, uncovering secrets like military facilities and prison camps across the landscape of North Korea. The report states, '[Curtis] Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world's most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches. "It's democratized intelligence," says Mr. Melvin. More than 35,000 people have downloaded Mr. Melvin's file, North Korea Uncovered. It has grown to include thousands of tags in categories such as "nuclear issues" (alleged reactors, missile storage), dams (more than 1,200 countrywide) and restaurants (47). Its Wikipedia approach to spying shows how Soviet-style secrecy is facing a new challenge from the Internet's power to unite a disparate community of busybodies.'"

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[nametaken]

Yeah, my initial thought was, aren't there LOTS of people who work for our intelligence agencies doing this with much better imagery and expertise, augmented by feet on the ground?

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[ickleberry]

True. You're not a real spy unless you build a UAV and fly it over North Korea, or a MAV if you have the balls (or a death wish).

It would be a fun project, launch it from Russia or South Korea - not China because NK & China are good communist brothers. You can have it connect to the interwebs using Thuraya, Inmarsat and maybe use an Orbcomm transceiver as backup. I suppose ideally you'd want a dirigible or something that can stay in the air for extended periods without producing much heat that missiles would pick up on. Once in the country's interior you could lower its altitude and get some nice detailed shots. You could control it directly by radio but this makes you far too easy to trace - internet connectivity allows you to GTFO once the thing is launched.

The problem would be getting something to power the thing - microjets pump out too much heat, solar power alone probably won't give you the required amount of oomph to fly the thing. You could go unpowered, launch when there is a good breeze blowing into North Korea and deflate once it reaches another country. There was a slashdot story about a bunch of students who made something similar but I don't think they ever flew it over North Korea

The death of newspapers

[MillionthMonkey]

Every time I hear about the death of newspapers, I wonder how the efforts of a small number of full time reporters would match up to the lackadaisical efforts of a million maternal basement dwellers with Internet connections.

Re:In Soviet Internet

[Whiternoise]

Or, like most top secret installations these days, you dig and avoid the problem entirely. Facilities like NORAD, for instance (and you think if anything has ever existed at Area 51 it's above ground?).

The UK (and no doubt the US and similar) government employs researchers with the sole task of poring over satellite pictures to determine the capacity of power plants, populations of regions and in general "what things are and what they can do". They also have far more high resolution satellite images than Google is allowed to produce.

We've been doing this kind of thing for years and still are. The only difference now is that the public can give it a go.

Reminds me of the famous incident concerning one of the first Nuclear tests when a university professor used dimensional analysis to calculate what the detonation payload was (a classified figure at the time) based on a photo that was published in the papers (that was the last time the US Military put scales on their photos :P).

Re:And what of other "open" countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Head on over to Google Maps and start looking up things like Bangor, WA, which is a major Trident Nuclear Sub base. Feel free to explore both the street map and the satellite view to compare.

Having spent a lot of time at Bangor, I can say with confidence that being able to see the base, and knowing in any kind of detail what goes on there are two very different things.
 
 

The U.S. and the rest of the world, especially the major powers, have dealt with satellite overviews since the 1960s. Anything real interesting is underground and out of view.

 
Nah. The real interesting stuff takes place in banal looking buildings that don't appear any different from the ones around them. The most interesting building at Bangor looks like a warehouse - one of several in the complex.

Wikileaks

[HalAtWork]

Wikileaks has also played an important role in revealing secrets. In addition, Wikipedia also helps people disseminate information that is direct and to the point, in plain language, with references and with links to articles containing more specific information. It's an invaluable tool for knowledge. I hope it never disappears, and I am glad that they offer burnt-to-DVD versions of articles.

Plus, every time I visit a web site for information, I save it, because I never know if that information will disappear or change. When I go back, I save another copy so I can compare, and also so I can retain information in previous copies should I need to reference it.