Google Earth: Does the pictures really possess a security threat?
Posted by Ashish on October 20th, 2005
I was really glad the first time I saw Google Earth - this software has the “WOW” factor that can make any software guy proud. Google, indeed, ‘gets’ the user interface and has my respect for that. The other big company who understands user interface is, undoubtedly, Microsoft - and it has paid off quite well to them.
Lately there has been a lot of controversy around Google Earth’s pictures where many countries have raised security concerns. India is the latest entry to that and apparently these countries have asked Google to censor images of certain locations / buildings.
This is a classical example of security by obscurity - something that is a perfect way to waste time in the context of computer softwares. I actually consider that to be a sin for the software development - I will rather not spend a minute implementing security if the only solution I can think of is by obscurity. If I may - I will like to extend the same logic to the other things also including Google Earth’s example.
It’s not that the satellite pictures of the strategic locations were not available earlier. It was only that it was not so easily accessible to the general public. But does that really make a difference - the guys who will want to attack these strategic locations do not belong to the ‘general public’. They would have access to those pictures anyways. And, as one anonymous official said, these pictures do not pose a threat as long as it is not real-time.
Reminds me when Dr. Manindra Agarwal, IIT-K CSE Prof who invented the ‘Primes is in P’ algorithm, mentioned to us onece that any cryptography / cipher algorithm should be released wide open to the general public before it gets implemented and deployed. This was in reference to some of the work / consultancy he provided to the Indian Defence services that the Defence didn’t want to make public.
But, yeah, just read today that Google has offered to talk to India regarding these security concerns. I will say - whatever works for them!
October 20th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
On my weblog I also talked about how this “security risk” is nothing. Aerial photos and satellite images have been available for a long time and terrorists ahve better ways of getting data. I highly doubt they’ll use Google Earth to plan something, they would definately need more accurate data and with the money they have, they’ll find it.
October 21st, 2005 at 1:00 am
Serioulsy all this talk about censoring Google earth is a bunch of crap. The indian government wants to censor every damn thing in the country, sometimes I wonder if they have the right to decide what’s good and bad for us.
Anyways google earth isn’t the only software providing this, but it’s defintely one of the best in this area
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Ashish, the mentality in Indian policy circles is to keep the citizens in the dark as far as possible. It is part of that paternalistic attitude that the Congress Party inherited from the British and continue because it gives them control and power.
Best wishes.
Atanu
October 24th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
aha… everybody is of the same opinion. Great!
November 28th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Hi All Experts,
Does anyone use google earth images as ground image planes for use in aerial scenes. I know how to stitch them together but are there any tools or tricks to make sure that the images are at the same height, angle and such to make sure they stitch well. I know in the pro version you can get bigger images but im not going to pay for the pro version when i could stitch multiple images together…