Top US Senator to Apple, Google: 'Curb your spy planes' One week after Apple announced it was booting Google Maps from iOS and photographing the world with its own aerial fleet, a top US Senator has written to both companies expressing concern over their "military-grade spy planes." "Barbequing or sunbathing in your backyard shouldn't be a public event," said Senator Charles …
"Detailed photographs could also provide criminals and terrorists with detailed views of sensitive utilities,"
What a fuckwit.
OK, let's keep everyone ignorant, let's cancel the biggest information revolution in the history of the human race...because a he thinks that information might help a "few" people do some bad things.
Let's get a sense of proportion guys, really.
Can we have a combined WTF/FAIL icon please?
Ah, but Schumer isn't just another grandstanding politician looking for some reason to get his name in the papers. Schumer truly WOULD like to cancel the "biggest information revolution in the history of the human race". He tried to strangle the internet at birth by his opposition to putting DARPAnet into the public domain, and lately he was a leading proponent of crippling it by DNS blocking (PIPA). His crocodile tears about the privacy of the public contrast strangely with his efforts to outlaw BitCoin and Tor on the grounds that privacy online is harmful.
In other news. Schumer supported the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act that permitted Wall Street to bring us to the depression we're in today, and also uses his influence on the Senate finance committees to block any attempt to tax unearned investment income at the same rate the rest of us have to pay. My fellow commentards will be unsurprised to learn that most of the money for his reelection campaign comes from the financial services industry. Truly, this Blue Dog serves his master faithfully.
I wonder if the infrastructure stuff is meant to give governments an excuse to act in a way which maintains privacy.
As far as some of this stuff goes, figuring out what the images mean can be tricky. It isn't something anyone can do. And it would need close to military levels of organisation to use the info. We're not talking about something like London or Madrid, or even 9/11. Mumbai is the only thing that comes close.
As for illicit garden sheds, Google Earth is a bit variable, but many areas are covered with more detail than is typical of the WW2 photo-recce. Just don't trust the dates assigned to the images. Local knowledge here, but sometimes they have caught a summer event in progress and the photo-date is mid-winter.
Is this a scare story? Maybe it is. Do people realise how much information is going to get put out there? Maybe they will now.
"As far as some of this stuff goes, figuring out what the images mean can be tricky. It isn't something anyone can do. And it would need close to military levels of organisation to use the info."
Nah, it's easy. Just write a program that goes through Google maps and picks out any locations that have been blurred. Voila - instant target list.
Well some sites are already blurred on Google Maps for security reasons, so we can presume there are already protocols in place for security officials to request locations be blurred. Apple may be different.
Sound to me this senator just wanted his day in the limelight, now go back to taking bribes and pork barrel politics and leave the internet and the information revolution alone.
Abdul: Ahmed, get your expendable hedge shears quickly,
Ahmed: It's about time you pruned that Apple tree.
Abdul: No Ahmed, now Google has told us where the power lines are we can cripple the capitalist dogs.
Ahmed: Sorry Abdul but bringing America to it's knees will have to wait until after the weekend, I lent Zarif my rubber gloves.
Abdul: Oh Allah, you can be so cruel.
Photographs are prohibited of people in what may reasonably considered as private places, like a back garden.
it must be because the back garden of Buckingham Palace is comfortably overlooked by Portland House and has been for about thirty years. No private long lens pictures have been published.
Here :
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Portland+House,+Bressenden+Place,+London,+United+Kingdom&hl=en&sll=51.512001,-0.11055&sspn=0.030821,0.084543&oq=Portland+House&t=h&hq=Portland+House,+Bressenden+Place,+London,+United+Kingdom&z=15
.. I'd call this an excellent argument to put up some serious 3D street art, drawing extra roads, houses and the occasional human who needs to be blotted out. You'll know when the images have gone live when drivers show up, desperately trying to find he supermarket car parks you converted..
There is no law that says we have to provide Google with real data, so we might as well have some fun with some creative data pollution..
No, Merkins won't. When I was a kid, all us kids on my street had junk strewn in the back garden, the front garden, and up and down the sidewalk ... Ah, the late 50s & early 60s. Was a completely different era. We didn't even lock the doors of houses back then ... If a kid was thirsty, he'd knock on a friends door. If there were no answer, he'd enter & get a drink of water. Sometimes I wonder where we went wrong.
Yes, I get your joke, but many words have many meanings, depending on context. In this context, it clearly means "toys & stuff".
Well, were the Senator to actually *use* some intelligence he'd probably realise that he might as well piss up a rope for all the good that it will do him.
His plan makes as much sense as all those Jobsworth "Community Support Officers" etc trying to stop tourists from taking pictures of London landmarks.
Excuse me, sir. I have discovered some pictures of you sunbathing naked with a woman who is clearly not your wife. In order for me not to bring this matter to the attention of your wife, please enclose a wire transfer or cash money order for $US 10,000.00 (TEN THOUSAND US DOLLARS) with your response to this communication...
Well you a rather crap investigator, one I do not have a wife, two I am not idiotic enough to get caught cheating with my girlfriend or future wives outside where any peeping tom/girl could catch us. Three I do not have 10K. An I consider Google and Apple catching cheats a public service, they should even help everyone out and provide proper facial recognition software, after all scouring Google Earth for one image which could be use for bribery or looking for the one photo of your husband cheating on you is time consuming. By the way that is bribery and I be straight to the police, I can live without my Girlfriend but can you live with a 10 year prison sentence.
I live in Schumer's state and I say "photograph away!"
The majestic Chateau Stevie is in all likelihood smaller than the resolution on both Apple and Google's spydrones. I live the Talking Heads dream. Blink, and you miss it. Step too aggressively through the front door and you are in my neighbour's back yard.
Besides, the rich gits can afford trees to screen their outdoor nude nakedness, or use parachute-sized patio umbrellas for modesty.
Seriously, Senator Chuck, get your priorities straight.
"We take the security of our voters very seriously, unlike our dark-skinned opponent who (let others) deploy a fleet of spy planes over our sacred homeland, to help his terrorist brethen's plans to destroy America. Oh and they are kiddie-fiddlers, too"
I guess "they may even catch moonshiners and KKK ceremonies" is somewhat implied...
You've got to love US elections.
Given how much he blathers on aviation issues he doesn't understand, I think he heard "plane" and thought he needed to say something.
Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quads (DOQQs) have been available from the US Geologic Survey (USGS) for years. Some states/counties allow you to download them for free. Otherwise they can be readily purchased on DVD. They have more than enough resolution for a slightly trained imagery analyst to pick out and target critical infrastructure.
My county, like Anonymous Bosch's (above), also does full aerial photogrammetry sweeps every five years. This is quite common though the frequency varies by state/county/city. Such sweeps are already used to locate structures built without permits. My county is going through the process now and sending out inspectors.
I find it much more likely that Google, Apple, and other would simply license the existing photogrammetry datasets rather than refly everywhere. In certain targeted areas not already covered by LIDAR or other 3D aerial mapping, they might do selective area coverage.
If they existed on the scale that the governments would like us to believe, then why are we not under constant daily attack??
They dont need accurate map data to disrupt our infrastructure, they just need to toss a scaffold pole into an electricity substation, or chuck a shopping trolly on a train line, or even simpler, park a truck in the middle of a motorway.. all of these things would cause serious disruption and be deemed terrorist attacks, but they are just not happening!!
Therefore i conclude that terrorists do not exist.
All very amusing - but I would rather they were not allowed to just go ahead and take these kind of images without prior legal authorisation at all. If there was some process they had to go through to apply for this access, they would likely be refused most of the time and the process would be long and drawn out even in cases where they did gain access. Instead this "act first and ask later" routine is absolutely incredible and has led us into the realm of a sci-fi style surveillance society without any choice or process on our part, virtually overnight - especially since at this rate it is surely not long before the satellite views become live or you can order your own drone flyby online!
If I take my ladder (first order of business would technically be to buy a ladder, but well) and start going around in my city, climbing above hedges and photographing gardens and houses in a systematic fashion, and then go home and upload it to "www.gardensnhomes.com" for all to see, then I am fairly certain that I've broken the law at some point.
Is this not similar - in relevant ways - to what Google/Apple is doing? If not, why not?
on aerial devices that fly around talking pictures, videos, whatever of people ; note this recent Wired article : http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/64-drone-bases-on-us-soil/. Alas, against these machine, Rik's advice «to close your drapes» is unlikely to prove effective....
Henri
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