Russia's Military Is Now On Full Display In Google Maps Satellite View (arstechnica.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, the Internet got a much better look at military facilities across Russia. Google Maps stopped obscuring the sensitive locations due to Russia's ongoing invasion of its neighbor Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces announced the end of Google's censorship of Russia's bases on Twitter. Thanks to former US President Donald Trump, we know that the 0.5 m per pixel resolution available on Google Maps' satellite view is a far cry from the images available to the US government. But it will be invaluable to the growing mass of open source intelligence analysts. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began in late February, the OSINT community on Twitter has been cataloging Russian losses by geolocating images of destroyed tanks, fighting vehicles, aircraft, and cruise missile attacks.
Twitter users have already identified some interesting sights. Images taken of a Russian airbase at Lipetsk show partially disassembled MiG-31s (or perhaps MiG-25s). Another shows several Sukhoi fighter jets painted in patriotic colors, at least one of which is also missing its wings. Zhukovsky Airport near Moscow shows some oddities parked outside thanks to its role as a test flight center, including a Buran shuttle and a Sukhoi Su-47 technology demonstrator. UPDATE: A Google spokesperson told Ars that the company hasn't changed anything with regard to blurring out sensitive sites in Russia, so perhaps none of us were looking closely until now.
Twitter users have already identified some interesting sights. Images taken of a Russian airbase at Lipetsk show partially disassembled MiG-31s (or perhaps MiG-25s). Another shows several Sukhoi fighter jets painted in patriotic colors, at least one of which is also missing its wings. Zhukovsky Airport near Moscow shows some oddities parked outside thanks to its role as a test flight center, including a Buran shuttle and a Sukhoi Su-47 technology demonstrator. UPDATE: A Google spokesperson told Ars that the company hasn't changed anything with regard to blurring out sensitive sites in Russia, so perhaps none of us were looking closely until now.
Re:Slashdot just plagiarises stories (Score:5, Funny)
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You're an idiot. FTFY. Punctuation, capitalization and correct spelling really are not your enemies.
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how come there is not a -1 retarded, its a news aggregator always has been, and since you are too fucking dumb to understand this very basic and simple concept here's the definition
aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podcasts, and video blogs in one location for easy viewing.
now kindly go fuck off and never return
Future (Score:3, Insightful)
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Can't help but wonder how we will feel when this is done to us.
Perhaps we should refrain from invading other countries.
Re: Future (Score:5, Funny)
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Exactly.
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lol
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Then we should develop electric cars. Then we won't need the oil.
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Yeah. We still shouldn't have invaded them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Future (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, the Iraqi military collapsed almost instantly. There isn't really a need for a humanitarian corridor when there isn't a war. Most of the fighting took place well after the initial US invasion, arguably because the US disbanded the Iraqi military and that breakdown of local civil control bred a religious insurgency.
There was also genuine civilian uprising to assist the US initially, as Sadam really was a sadist who committed genocide and was hated by the majority of his population. The real quagmire for the US came later from the complete lack of understanding of the sociopolitical landscape of that country. And as it turns out inserting yourself squarely in the middle of a sectarian conflict you don't understand is poor policy (shocker).
Not trying to justify the Iraq war or downplay the terrible humanitarian nightmare it became, but seriously it isn't even remotely comparable to the war in Ukraine. The attempts at whataboutism are either ignorance or Russian propoganda at this point.
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Don't ignore that before the second battle of Fallujah, there was a massive civilian corridor. Anyone who wanted to leave the city was able to.
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The religious insurgency started well-before the Iraq War. Saddam's government was already infiltrated and al Qaeda had Iraq in their sights as a stepping stone to the Fat Boys in Robes next door. And al Qaeda merely changed stickers and called themselves Daesh. . .actually ISIS, but Daesh is more descriptive. If they had succeeded and there was no U.S. invasion, they'd have had an entire country from which to cause mayhem throughout the Mid-East. They would then have turned on Iran and we'd have had anothe
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The religious insurgency started well-before the Iraq War. Saddam's government was already infiltrated and al Qaeda had Iraq in their sights as a stepping stone to the Fat Boys in Robes next door. And al Qaeda merely changed stickers and called themselves Daesh. . .actually ISIS, but Daesh is more descriptive. If they had succeeded and there was no U.S. invasion, they'd have had an entire country from which to cause mayhem throughout the Mid-East. They would then have turned on Iran and we'd have had another gonzo-whopping war.
Religion isn't the root of all evil, but it is right there vying for contention. The American Taliban invoke Christ to sanction the U.S. wars. They also set up straw men and proceed to claim victory knocking them down, i.e., the "woke" wars, the CRT wars (which isn't even taught in American grade and high schools), the "abortion" wars. . .the list is infinite because they need to keep their followers incensed so those financial contributions continue.
The Russian Orthodox church is doing the same thing. They have learned from the American Taliban to cloak their bullshit in the culture war language. They are not invading Ukraine, they are protecting "Christian" values, which merely happen to include them keeping their fingers in the Russian kleptocracy so they get their cut. The Great Putini wraps himself in saintly robes whenever he feels the need to buck up support at home.
I don't know what to think of your post. You have many valid points, but then throw in terms like "American Taliban". Religion becomes a problem when the religion in question adopts a "convert or die" mentality. Most Christians I know aren't the "American Taliban" type. I don't know if it's a real widespread problem or a straw man of your own creation.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know that "intervening" means getting into a shooting war against Russia, right?
Do you know where that ends? Because nobody else does either, but we have a pretty good idea what some of the possibilities are, including ending civilization.
Why would you advocate for that risk, even if it's on the margins? It's a tragedy what is happening in Ukraine right now, but let's not create a situation where literally hundreds of millions could be dead at the end.
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We have seen something as brutal as the Ukraine invasion since Rwanda - Russia's brutal leveling of cities in Syria, including Aleppo. This is a refined strategy on their part - this is what Russia does in wars. They did it in Chechnya. They did it in Georgia. They did it in Syria. Now they are doing it in Ukraine.
They pound cities into rubble, and then pound the rubble into dust. They fight wars like it's still 1944, using justifications right out of the same time period. Unfortunately for the avera
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The grandparent said,
"The US also court martialed its own soldiers when evidence of wrong doing was uncovered... the Russian soldiers at Bucha were given a honorary title of "guard" despite the evidence of war crimes occuring there
You responded by saying, "There were no civilian corridors in Iraq." You are trying to change the topic in an obviously bad-faith attempt to use rhetoric.
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despite mountains of evidence of it being staged
Oh, this is a lie. You've been deceived.
Good one Luckyo (Score:1)
I mean you can argue that one side is making these corridors fail or whatever
Russian 'humanitarian corridor' (n) - a place where you know civilians will congregate for easy kills.
Synonyms - killzone, trap
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so that Iraq would end up as a stable country.
Yeah, that went well.
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They already have [goo.gl]. In a free country you can just look at things that are state secrets in a dictatorship.
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They have and they used our satellites [c4isrnet.com]. Fortunately, no one was killed despite the most devastating bombing of a US airforce base in decades.
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I assume that Google has reasonably deep pockets when it comes to buying commercial imagery(they could certainly afford it; I don't know how tightly their bean counters demand business justification for frequent, premium-tier refreshes of places that don't move much adsense revenue); but they don't have anything fundamentally different from anyone else willing to pay professional amounts of money and not sanctioned to hell and back(and, one assumes, people who are sanctioned to hell an
Update (Score:1, Troll)
Update: The entire basis for the headline turns out to be invalid, but we got a subtle dig at Trump in so victory!
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Do sell what you are smoking or do you keep it all for yourself?
Photos from when? (Score:5, Informative)
The pictures of my house are >5 years old. Maybe you can figure out the typical role of a facility from old satellite photos but you aren't gathering current intel.
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no one else on the planet cares about your house outside of your family, so there's less benefit from updating it
Re: Photos from when? (Score:2)
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Um, not sure what the big deal is? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not like a) Google were ever blurring Russian sites in Google Maps, at all, or b) this was super top secret information to begin with.
Google buys satellite imagery from private companies so, rest assured, any country on Earth with a semi-decent intelligence office already has them as well.
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It's happened [c4isrnet.com].
No changes to policy (Score:3)
Google is saying they haven't changed any of their policies regarding blurring satellite imagery and those images of military have always been visible.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
Looks like the information war going on in a major way, and hard to confirm either way.
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Google is saying they haven't changed any of their policies regarding blurring satellite imagery and those images of military have always been visible.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/... [theverge.com]
Looks like the information war going on in a major way, and hard to confirm either way.
Ah, so it's "misinformation". I look forward to it being disappeared from all social media.
Clickbait (Score:2)
That's impossible... (Score:1)
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I don't know where you are getting your information, but it's definitely not from the MSM/CIA. No one said they ran out of ammo on day 4 of the war.
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Sorry, that is after a month of fighting, not on day 4. And it's not implausible, since they left around Kiev shortly after that was published.
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To reiterate. It says right in the headline that it is according to the information of Ukraine military. The article even writes:
And it's been almost a month after the invasion started. That
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It's not about day 4 of the war, it's about 4 days before the end of the first month of the war.
It's not about MSM, it's about what the Ukraine military claimed, and that is stated right in the headline.
It's also not about the CIA, it even says that western officials say they were unable to confirm it based on their own data.
Now I was giving you the benefit of a doubt, assuming
Security through inanity (Score:4, Insightful)
AFAIK, the US doesn't bother with requiring obfuscation of public satellite imagery because it's a waste of effort. Our enemies have satellite imagery capability, so public obfuscation gets you nothing. Same with the childish practice of closed, or postal box, cities as practiced in the former USSR and Russia. Not that I haven't seen stupidity in our security practices, just not to the same degree.
Spending those resources on personnel and actual physical security is a better use.
Why spread nonsense? (Score:1)