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Thanks to Google Earth, We're All Big Brother Now
Who needs spy satellites when you've got the Internet? Tech Crunch reports on an entrprenuerial blogger who recently used Google Earth to pinpoint the exact location of a CIA missile strike in Pakistan:
The leader of Pakistan's Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, may or may not be dead after a CIA missile hits his father-in-law's home in the remote "Zangarha area" of the country. But now we can see exactly where that missile hit, and we don't even need access to a spy satellite. Thanks to Google Earth, we get the image above.
Stefan Geens pinpointed the location on his blog Ogle Earth using location information gathered from news accounts. He also figured out where the supposed burial ground was. A decade ago, only a handful of people would have had access to such satellite imagery. Today, anyone can download it for free. CIA and military satellites are still higher resolution, but it makes you wonder how fast the geo-information gap between governments and citizens is closing.
The last question is important: As Google Earth (or some other
web-based satellite-viewing technology) evolves into a sort of
Internet-powered version of Sauron's All
Seeing Eye, it's going to make it much more difficult for
governments to conceal large-scale action, military or otherwise.
Of course, it's also going to cause privacy complications for
individuals too. Still, I'm inclined to see it as a good thing: It
seems far more likely that it will prove a lot more useful at
tracking large-scale government actions than actions by
individuals.
In 2004, Reason put aerial shots of its subscribers' homes on the cover, and Declan McCullagh wrote about the way online databases are changing the way we live.
Xeones|8.10.09 @ 12:06PM|#
a sort of Internet-powered version of Sauron's All Seeing
Eye
Suderman, Suderman, Suderman. You would have been so much cooler if
you'd referenced
Snow Crash instead of LOTR.
|8.10.09 @ 12:11PM|#
With 6 Billion people having access to this technology, I can't understand why Osama Bin Laden hasn't been found. I am starting to think that his existence has been faked on a bollywood soundstage.
Warty|8.10.09 @ 12:11PM|#
Xeoenes, he probably wasn't born when Snow Crash came out. Go easy on the child.
|8.10.09 @ 12:16PM|#
'In 2004, Reason put aerial shots of its subscribers' homes on
the cover, and Declan McCullagh wrote about the way online
databases are changing the way we live."
No wonder the revenuers found my combo whiskey still / nudist camp!
Fortunately, they fled in disgust, retching at the sight of fat
naked drunk people.
Xeones|8.10.09 @ 12:26PM|#
No wonder the revenuers found my combo whiskey still /
nudist camp! Fortunately, they fled in disgust, retching at the
sight of fat naked drunk people.
Man, that was a crazy weekend.
|8.10.09 @ 12:27PM|#
Xeones, he probably wasn't born when Snow Crash came
out.
Meghan fiancee is under 17? Dirty girl.
|8.10.09 @ 12:33PM|#
The last question is important: As Google Earth (or some
other web-based satellite-viewing technology) evolves into a sort
of Internet-powered version of Sauron's All Seeing Eye, it's going
to make it much more difficult for governments to conceal
large-scale action, military or otherwise.
That will require web-accessible satellite imagery that is
real-time, or at least more recent than years ago. None of the
houses in my neighborhood, which is three years old, show on Google
Earth.
Still a very, very long way off. Hell, even the government can't
get real-time satellite info most of the time; they have to task
satellites to do it.
Xeones|8.10.09 @ 12:37PM|#
If i recall correctly, the military has an understanding with Google whereby all of the satellite images used by Google cannot be less than 6 months old. Yet you can still look at, say, Bagram AFB in Afghanistan and count the choppers that were there some time in the past.
Rhywun|8.10.09 @ 12:39PM|#
In 2004, Reason put aerial shots of its subscribers' homes on the cover
My cover was incorrect, because in my then-current borough of NYC
(Queens), people insert a stupid hyphen between the hundreds and
the tens digit of their house number, and it stumped mapping
software for years. Maybe OBL lives in Queens.
|8.10.09 @ 12:50PM|#
They got my apartment dead on--I think my car was even out front. After that issue and until I moved, some guy in a leather jacket started hanging out in the woods behind the apartment. Probably just a coincidence.
|8.10.09 @ 12:52PM|#
Someone either doesn't understand Google Earth or Sauron's
eye.
Sauron's eye watched in real-time. Google Earth doesn't. It's
updated how often?
Frodo's task might have been easier if Sauron only received yearly
updates of what was happening.
hmm|8.10.09 @ 12:54PM|#
Still, I'm inclined to see it as a good thing: It seems far
more likely that it will prove a lot more useful at tracking
large-scale government actions than actions by
individuals.
I'm a tinfoil hat wearer in this department. I think the Key Hole
and whatever other programs they have running are probably the same
distance away from current tech as it has been in the past. The
move to unmaned aerial technology is pretty interesting as well. I
wonder how far unmaned bottom of the LEO scale aircraft are used
for surveillance.
|8.10.09 @ 12:56PM|#
some guy in a leather jacket started hanging out in the
woods behind the apartment. Probably just a coincidence.
Winner.
RC Dean
The bandwidth issues are still beyond the capability of even
governments. Steering satellites is expensive too. hard to refuel
on orbit... Plus the orbital mechanics issues mean that long dwell
UAV's are much better at streaming video - the bird is only
overhead for a few minutes.
|8.10.09 @ 1:02PM|#
"""Still a very, very long way off. Hell, even the government
can't get real-time satellite info most of the time; they have to
task satellites to do it."""
Yeah. But they can task a sat to fly over a given location
frequently and use time lapse photography to view events over time.
I suppose they could have, or could get enough sats to cover the
globe once a day. But that's not real-time surveilance.
They are also working on space based radar to have a more realtime
radar view of the world. Not the same as real time photo
surveilance of the globe though.
|8.10.09 @ 1:03PM|#
The cover story for the latest Popular Science is on
drone aircraft. As SugarFree, I believe, pointed out last week, is
there any doubt that drone aircraft are going to be our undoing?
Sure, they're piloted remotely now.
Anyway, the Predator can fly over a target for 24 hours, the Reaper
for 16. Given that the military probably holds back on actual
capabilities, I imagine they can hold positions for even longer, or
other drones can if they can't. One thought about remotely piloting
drones--can't the drone, in theory, be hacked?
Private sector versions of the same thing could be used for traffic
control, weather. . .screw it, who am I kidding? They would be used
to track celebrity movements, day in, day out.
|8.10.09 @ 1:11PM|#
Yeah. But they can task a sat to fly over a given location
frequently and use time lapse photography to view events over time.
I suppose they could have, or could get enough sats to cover the
globe once a day. But that's not real-time surveilance.
There is usually a possibility of time coincident coverage - but
the difficulty in scheduling it is enormous. It's used for very
high priority events, and usually not more than a few targets at a
time can be covered this way. The whole globe would take years and
years to cover at any meaningful resolution - and most of it would
be junk pictures with no value. they just don't task the birds that
way.
Pro Lib
The drones cant be hacked, at least not feasibly - the links are
encrypted by the best in the business, and the hardware is itself
beyond the capabilities of all but a few governments.
|8.10.09 @ 1:13PM|#
I just watched Eagle Eye (thanks a lot insomnia) and it features a Predator drone gone rogue. Still remote controlled, but not by a human.
|8.10.09 @ 1:15PM|#
domo,
The drones cant be hacked, at least not feasibly
The joke was about them becoming sentient and controlling
themselves. Like that shitty Jessica Beil movie.
|8.10.09 @ 1:16PM|#
The drones cant be hacked, at least not feasibly
Hah! There is nothing that can't be hacked by a geeky yet muscular
guy and his flirty yet demure yet busty sidekick, peering at
computer screens and furiously typing. Hollywood wouldn't lie!
Anonymous|8.10.09 @ 1:26PM|#
One thought about remotely piloting drones--can't the drone,
in theory, be hacked?
In Grisham's The Broker a couple of Pakis find a
high-resolution sat camera network and figure out how to aim it,
but they don't know who created it. I'm guessing he's going for the
plausible deniability angle. (I'm not sure how that's related to
the main story arc yet -- I've been reading it for a few weeks, but
I'm only to page 60 or so because I read it in the can.)
|8.10.09 @ 1:27PM|#
"""The whole globe would take years and years to cover at any
meaningful resolution """
How long did it take Google? Meaningful resolution is not
determined by how fast the sat flys, but by the quality of the
camera. Even if the gov has enough sats to cover the earth in a
day, a daily photo is of limited intel use.
The example I saw was the location of an Iranian nuclear facility,
which goes to your point of being high priorty. It was a time lapse
of the construction, it was pretty damn amazing. This was from
Wired TV a few years ago, some guy was demostrating the PC Table
using what he called a more fancy government version of Google
Earth. It looked like Google Earth, but not sure it really was.
|8.10.09 @ 1:27PM|#
Others have already said this more-or-less, but Google Earth is NOT real-time. Google Earth is mosaic-based software that uses long-lat coordinates and satellite images (which are 2-3 years old) to mesh them together. Images in one part of the Earth can be taken in a different year. The military/government will not allow newer images to be used for this purpose.
|8.10.09 @ 1:28PM|#
domoarrigato,
The drones are human controlled for the time being, but I'm sure
AI-controlled drones will come. Along with Armageddon. [Screams
silently.]
I'm sure the communications between Nevada and the drones are
heavily encrypted, but encryption is a constant battle, and
mistakes get made, anyway.
|8.10.09 @ 1:39PM|#
"In 2004, Reason put aerial shots of its subscribers' homes on
the cover..."
That still stands, in my mind, as the most daring magazine cover of
all time. Once I recognized my own neighborhood in the picture, it
just completely freaked me out.
Dello|8.10.09 @ 2:38PM|#
"In 2004, Reason put aerial shots of its subscribers' homes on
the cover"
Agreed, dugonearth. It actually missed my house by to lots, but
since there are no physical structures around me, I was still
impressed.
The Angry Optimist|8.10.09 @ 2:52PM|#
Idea: Once Google's Street Imaging gets to 90% of America or so, reason should put your housefront on the magazine cover.
|8.10.09 @ 3:56PM|#
Reason had a picture of my old house on it, but I had moved fairly recently. And wasn't the point of the covers more a tribute to variable printing than a surveylance warning?
|8.10.09 @ 4:00PM|#
Google van caught my boy walking home from school. It is fun "driving" around and trying to figure out when the van came by.
deja moo|8.10.09 @ 10:30PM|#
Not real time; too right. Both the satellite and street view of
my house were at least two years old. When we had big pine trees
(we miss them but the place actually looks better now).
A year or two ago, somebody was taking pictures of the entire
California coast and putting them on the internet. Barbara
Striesand sued because her house was in one photo. Here's the link:
http://www.californiacoastline.org/
</|8.10.09 @ 11:10PM|#
Barbara Striesand sued because her nose was in one
photo.
Don't laugh at me, but I honestly read it that way the first time
through. I thought it was a South Park joke.
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