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The Internet The Military

Mapping Service Blurs Out Military Bases, But Accidentally Locates Secret Ones 129

Posted by BeauHD from the big-blurry-blocks dept.
schwit1 shares a report from Popular Mechanics: A Russian online mapping company was trying to obscure foreign military bases. But in doing so, it accidentally confirmed their locations -- many of which were secret. Yandex Maps, Russia's leading online map service, blurred the precise locations of Turkish and Israeli military bases, pinpointing their location. The bases host sensitive surface-to-air missile sites and facilities housing nuclear weapons. The Federation of American Scientists reports that Yandex Maps blurred out "over 300 distinct buildings, airfields, ports, bunkers, storage sites, bases, barracks, nuclear facilities, and random buildings" in the two countries. Some of these facilities were well known, but some of them were not. Not only has Yandex confirmed their locations, the scope of blurring reveals their exact size and shape.
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Mapping Service Blurs Out Military Bases, But Accidentally Locates Secret Ones More

Mapping Service Blurs Out Military Bases, But Accidentally Locates Secret Ones

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  • They were not secret (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mapkinase ( 958129 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @06:04AM (#57791306) Homepage Journal

    No military installation in the world of the size of the large university campus is secret.

    The secret could be details within that location, that's what map service provides by blurring.

    Stop posting idiotic articles.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No military installation in the world of the size of the large university campus is secret.

      The secret could be details within that location, that's what map service provides by blurring.

      Stop posting idiotic articles.

      It's BeauHD.

      It's a stupid article about RUSSIA.

      It's like chumming for sharks - and the sharks are smarter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      It's sometimes a gray area if a place is secret or not. But using the map would also be a good way to reveal what's supposed to be secret but isn't known that it's revealed.

      If you as a map provider want to play it nice then you just replace items that are specific for that location with generic vehicles or generic trees copied from another part of the same area. Just keep the roads and buildings as is and nobody would be wiser.

      • Re:They were not secret (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mrbester ( 200927 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @07:51AM (#57791482) Homepage

        Depends on the definition of "secret". If the location is classified as "secret" by US, there's no onus on a foreign entity abiding by that classification, if they are even aware of it.

        Google (US, and probably others) has to but Yandex (RU) doesn't unless there is some agreement in place. Even then, what's the blowback if they don't?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          Even then, what's the blowback if they don't?

          The US Air Force has a long history of "accidentally dropping a bomb" on someone who pissed them off. So sorry, tragic accident. While it's unlikely that either of the offended countries would ever by flying over Russian airspace, who knows where Yandex may have an office in the next 10 years.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Vanyle ( 5553318 )

          The funny thing is, Google is not blurring anything about this base, but Yandex is.

          Here is the base on google maps: https://www.google.com/maps/se... [google.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jrumney ( 197329 )
          Indeed they have no obligation, and by revealing which bases the Russians' know about (if they weren't public knowledge, then they must have got the list of locations from somewhere), they may have shown their hand, or perhaps this is a bluff to misdirect foreign intelligence agencies.

    • Re:They were not secret (Score:5, Informative)

      by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @07:47AM (#57791472)

      BTW, it is not only military installations that get blurred out. Critical infrastructure installations often also gets blurred out on maps. For example power grid stations, nuclear power plants and radar installations used by commercial air traffic.

    • There's a difference between "foreign intelligence services know where your military base is" and "every wahoo with an internet connection knows where your military base is." Secrecy comes in degrees.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        LOL @ your secrets. In a few years there'll be a constellation of powerful and small citizen satellites in orbit. Every "wahoo" will be able to watch full spectrum, high resolution imagery of everything, from radio to gamma, like they watch local aircraft, pollution and weather data today.

      • "There's a difference between "foreign intelligence services know where your military base is" and "every wahoo with an internet connection knows where your military base is."

        So if foreign secret service know it bit's OK but if Bubba from Idaho knows it it's a problem?

        "Secrecy comes in degrees."

        Stupidity too.

      • "every wahoo with an internet connection knows where your military base is."

        And the danger is?

    • Wait, you mean that gigantic and obvious airfield with military planes flying around it might be a military base? Who knew.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      LAWL.

      It's not like you pay to access this website. Until you do, you have no say nor do you have the right to demand to have any say in the day-to-day operations of slashdot.

      You egotistical shit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mi ( 197448 )

      And yet, they didn't reveal any of their own country's installations thus...

      While I don't disagree with you regarding the positions being known already anyway, this action may still have been part of Putin's desperate bullying: "We know, where you are, ha-ha, let us rape Ukraine if you want peace".

    • correct. How secret were they that somebody could be tasked with blurring them out? "here comrade - make these spots disappear from map"

      I remember that the US White House used to be blurred out (actually it was a white rectangle drawn over the roof). But Security Through Obscurity is a poor choice -- so they rebuilt the roof in order to hide their secrets from overhead cameras.

      Obvious those that live near the base know about it. But it was those who use the internet that they are hiding from. "gee wh

      • How difficult is actually to find these smudges?

        I have never found a single smudge myself, only by reference

        • In the case of the White House and GE Global Research -- they were obvious flat White rectangles that blotted out lawns and the building etc.. There were no features at all. While one couldn't see the rooftops it was obvious that something important was there.

          As for the smudges - I haven't seen the ones referred to in the article. But I have seen others through time and they are mildly obvious. In this case I'll bet they were little ripples that somebody with Software could find. To our eye it probabl

          • Another feature is the absence of 3D. Try White House on Google Maps in 3D. The background highrises will be 3D and the whole Mall area is flat. Even the tall Washington Monument and prominent Lincoln Memorial.

    • Secret from whom?

      Given that Russia is working hard on developing proxies in the Middle East, and given those proxies dislike both Israel and Turkey, it's possible that this was an easy (and deniable) way of publishing information to those proxies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The design of the fence lines and troops on guard duty are the usual hint to all other advanced nations looking down.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      The secret can also be that the location is used for natsec purposes. Blurring out such location gives that fact out.

    • No military installation in the world of the size of the large university campus is secret.

      This isn't really about installations the size of large university campuses. It's also about installations the size of a city block (sometimes even within urban areas). It's about installations that aren't really visible from the road, and which weren't (until now) easily identifiable from the air as to owner and function. Etc... etc...

      Stop posting idiotic articles.

      To me it makes more sense for the idiots t

  • I can't imagine any intelligence agency on the planet was ignorant of the same information that Yandex had to blur their maps.

  • Blurring Out is for the average people (Score:3)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @06:47AM (#57791380)
    Browser exercise:

    var a = ['US','Europe','Russia','China'];
    a.forEach(function(b) {
    a.forEach(function(c) {
    console.log( b+' knows well '+c+' secret locations');
    });
    });

  • Streisand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @06:53AM (#57791388)

    I suppose this is the Streisand effect of the cartography world.

  • Last week I was on a civilian international flight and there there were a bunch of American IT guys sitting behind me. They were on their way to work on a network in a US military base in a different country and chatting about their mission loudly enough that I could hear them clearly. They must have assumed that nobody on the plane spoke English, but by the end of the flight I knew all the details about their mission, the network infrastructure, their software software and even which types of ransomware t

    • They must have assumed that nobody on the plane spoke English.

      That's always a safe bet anywhere in the world nowadays. Especially on airliners. After all, English is just a hole-in-corner minority language of no interest to most people.

  • Use Walmart (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @07:32AM (#57791452) Journal

    Instead of blurring they should just stamp down a Walmart and its parking lot, plus maybe a Dollar Tree plaza along with it. They can just scale the whole thing as needed - it's not like most people have any idea what they are looking at anyway. :)

    • I saw one country's map where they copy/pasted parks over all the military institutions. You would see it and then think "Wait a second, if there's a park there why have I never seen or visited it?" and walk away a bit confused.

    • Re:Use Walmart (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @12:50PM (#57792858)

      Paste empty clearings in the forest with some logging equipment parked. Maybe a few piles of cut trees.

      They use this for some of the wealthy people's vacation homes and hunting lodges in closed (purportedly a watershed) public area near where I live. The area access is secured with CCTV and automated gates. These aren't unimproved logging/maintenance roads. They are very nicely maintained and, if you are nearby at the right time, you can see the occasional Mercedes or BMW coming or going. But Google maps shows nothing other than logging roads and large, stump-covered clearings in the woods.

      • They use this for some of the wealthy people's vacation homes and hunting lodges in closed (purportedly a watershed) public area near where I live.

        "closed" "public area". Wat? What's that? 'cause it sounds illegal.

        • Public as in not owned by any private individual (but rather by a government), closed as in set aside not to be used for anything. If it is a watershed, like he says it purportedly is, then it's a big open field somewhere meant to collect rainwater, that then goes into the municipal water supply, which is set aside from use for the sake of water quality. Aside from watersheds, there are also nature preserves and so on (e.g. a habitat for an endangered species) where the land is public (government owned) but

          • Aside from watersheds, there are also nature preserves and so on (e.g. a habitat for an endangered species) where the land is public (government owned) but closed to human use.

            Closed to human use except for those humans who drive Mercedes and BMWs?

            It's sounding like this purported watershed... isn't. The whole thing is a scam to hide rich people's houses, from the tampering in Google Maps to the alleged designation as a protected watershed.

            Is it just me, or are the assholes starting to realize they're fucking the general population over just a little bit TOO hard if they think they have to resort to measures like this to hide where they live?

            • If the shenanigans PPH describes are going on then yeah, that's bad and probably technically illegal (though obviously being done with government assistance, so...).

              I was just commenting that the concept of a closed public space is not in itself a weird thing to say.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wolfrider ( 856 )

      --Dude, you don't really want people showing up at the front door of your secret military facility looking for cheap goods and sales at the "new store"...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by flink ( 18449 )

        --Dude, you don't really want people showing up at the front door of your secret military facility looking for cheap goods and sales at the "new store"...

        I think the barbed wire, "Last Exit Before Checkpoint" signs, barricades, and the whir of an autocannon spinning up might clue them in.

  • Secret for whom? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aleksander suur ( 4765615 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @09:00AM (#57791652)
    If a mapping service knows that a site is of "secret" nature, then so does everyone who's actual job is to know such things in foreign countries. All this blurring does is prevent general public from peeking in, it does squat against state players.

  • Waze shortcut (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @09:58AM (#57791894)
    Since they are blurred out, Waze will now direct people through them as shortcuts around traffic jams.

  • If Israel has nuclear facilities and refuse to sign non-proliferation treaties, then it is a violation of federal law to send them foreign aid.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 was amended by the Symington Amendment (Section 669 of the FAA) in 1976. It banned U.S. economic, and military assistance, and export credits to countries that deliver or receive, acquire or transfer nuclear enrichment technology when they do not comply with IAEA regulations and inspections. This pro

  • From the big-blurry-blocks dept. (Score:5, Funny)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @11:21AM (#57792310)

    So they partnered with Japan for the blurring technology?

  • I remember buying the USGS 15-minute (that's distance, not time) series of maps around Durham, NH when I lived there in the 60s. Because Pease Airbase was a military base at that time, no buildings or elevation information was allowed to be plotted on the map. However, it apparently was ok to plot vegetation (green) vs. non-vegetation (off-white, applies to roads, buildings, etc) over the whole airbase. Didn't take a genius to find the airstrips, the main control buildings, the family housing development

  • If the mapping company blurred out secret bases, how did they know those bases were there if they were a secret???

    • Because all of them are belonged to, er, them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re "bases were there if they were a secret"
      Thats the easy part when trying to map and sell maps. Governments allow what was once "spy" maps to be created by anyone who can afford such collection methods from space.
      But for that global collection ability the gov/mil still has some power to regulate.

      The gov buys an image of a part of the world first and says its not be published. No extra/new copy of that data set/map/image can be sold.
      The media can ask to "buy" an image of a base but will be told t

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