Security through obscurity always work... :)
Google Maps community competition falls foul of Indian regulations
Google has found itself in hot water in India, with the country's Central Bureau of Investigation launching a formal investigation into Google Maps for allegedly publishing the location of sensitive military bases. The problem arose because of a community competition held last year - Google's Mapathon 2013 - in which the …
COMMENTS
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 03:21 GMT Mark 85
Falling foul perhaps to a US-centric mindset, Mountain View neglected to obtain the necessary approval from the official mapping agency, Survey of India.
I think it's more of the Google MindSet. Slurp whatever they want everyone be damned.
To carry out mapping independently of the national agency, Google would have required permission from India's defence ministry and home ministry as well as the SoI.
Aha.... the SoI people took umbrage as a few toes got stomped on. I wonder if this would have been an issue if they had gotten approval? Or would it take 10 years to get approval?
Since this was a neighborhood competition, are the community folks who gave Google the coordinates in hot water also? Or maybe that "hospital" was secret base?
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 09:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Bureaucracy at its best
As well as bureaucratic, there's a cultural element too. They're the domain of outsiders, so much so that you find you'll generate a fair bit of suspicion just by banding one about in a public place. Much better to be guided to where you want to go by a local. You won't generally find maps in book shops either, other than antique maps maybe.
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 09:04 GMT Cipher
Re: Secret?
Good point. If the community at large knows the locations of these bases, wouldn't it be safe to assume that any interested party knows them as well. Did the Five Eyes, Russia, China, Pakistan, hell did any major player NOT know these locations before Google asked the locals to put them on the map?
No doubt that there are roads leading up to these bases, where one encounters a gate with armed guards. Big tipoff to anyone with more than a few working brain cells...
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 10:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Secret?
I did my compulsory military service in Hungary under communism. (yes I am that old!) Around any "sensitive" installation there were "Photography forbidden" signs, helping spies to find their targets :-). When we did guard duty we had to record the registration numbers of any foreign, diplomatic and rental cars.
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 12:25 GMT Colin Wilson 2
Re: Secret?
It's not just former communist countries either.
I used to live near Heathrow when they were building Terminal 5. Lots of Photography Forbidden signs aruond the construction there too.
Including, rather bizzarely, on a green field the other side of the M25 from the rest of the airport. Only the sturdy fence and the signs gave any clue that there was Something There!.
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 08:31 GMT Vatsan
This is not the first time Google is guilty of this crime. Years ago, the then President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam also raised concern of seeing our Nuclear Installations on Google Map. 26/11 Mumbai attacks were largely aided by Google Maps - especially the attack on Jewish House. This repeat callousness only reaffirms the typical American mindset of "we-don't-care-about-others".
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 09:05 GMT rh587
Because without Google Maps it would have been totally impossible for a member of the public to go to a public location, such as an Opera House, Bazaar or neighbourhood and scope it out for themselves. The absence of Google Maps would have totally scuppered their ability to plan such an attack...
As for Nuclear Installations... those would be totally impossible to know about.
I mean, it's not like there aren't thousands of people employed at those locations, at least some of whom will spill details when plied with alcohol. Not to mention news articles about them, multiple online sources of information like the IAEA, etc where details could be gleaned...
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 11:19 GMT kmac499
Re: Crime? What crime?
Well I think the FAA isn't too keen. That is if the camera in question is hanging off a remote controlled toy helicopter..
And No I don't agree with their view, Personal Privacy should be respected\covered; tho' if anyone would be dumb enough to want to hover outside my bathroom window just make sure the mic\sound is turned down..
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 09:39 GMT Otto is a bear.
Satellite Mapping
India's stand point is pointless, the existence of companies that can map your country from satellite photographs renders such monopolies pointless, for anything other than the domestic market.
It's also pointless to have secret military bases, every local knows they are there, just not what they do, and any satellite photograph again renders such useless.
Google Maps just make it easier to find things for good or ill, the genie is out of the box. People who have ideas, especially innovative ideas that change the world, tend to focus on their beneficial view of the outcome, and not the negative or unintended consequences. Google is not the only company, government, political party, religion, Reg Reader, etc. etc. guilty of this, and it isn't a purely American trait. We should remember as well, we made Google what it is today, they provided the service, we loved it and used it.
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 13:24 GMT Don Jefe
Re: Satellite Mapping
India's stand on mapping isn't just about protecting a monopoly. A major part of their strategic defensive military doctrine is based on an invading force having limited knowledge of what is actually on the ground. Not just military installations, but geographic features as well.
The idea is sound, if the invading force doesn't have aircraft... India has plenty of modern materiel, but not a lot of modern strategy or tactics to go along with all the shiny helicopters and missiles. It's really a very odd situation. If you discount the antennas and rifles Kashmir looks more like a Persian advance occupation force than the military of a nuclear armed country. I'm not saying their military is weak, it is not, it just has some rather quaint ideas about modern war.
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 15:41 GMT bigtimehustler
Re: Satellite Mapping
Yes, this may well be the case. But what we are saying is that it is complete nonsense. Any country wanting to invade would have satellite photos and intelligence information telling them where all the bases are and what they do. Most organised terrorist organisations would have the same.
They need to stop living in the 1940's.
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 10:14 GMT Bartholomew
map out, money in
OS maps of U.S..- paid for by the tax payers, raw data downloadable from .gov websites.
OS maps of U.K. - paid for by the tax payers, sold to the public in small sections ideally on paper.
Most colonies/ex-colonies of the U.K. do what the U.K. does it is easy money to hold onto that monopoly.
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Tuesday 29th July 2014 10:37 GMT JaitcH
Given there are a plethora of 50-centimetre definiton pix available ...
from all parts of the international political spectrum why don't they complain to their friends in Russia? The Indians seem to be getting as dumb as the Greeks used to be over mapping. It won't work, on fact it is likely to increase the scrutiny of India.
Google doesn't show all the pop-up missiles (hidden in box-like roof ornaments) on the White House roof, at the request of the USA government, but the Russians do. Google goes fuzzy over Area 51 whereas Russia has high definition pix.
Indian resources would be better spent eliminating rape, and men's attitudes towards it, developing it's sad infrastructure and feeding the starving millions instead of wasting money on phallic symbols such as nuclear bombs and space shots.
But the USA and the UK have to be 'nice' to India as it houses massive cable tapping facilities.
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Friday 1st March 2019 15:15 GMT ankitsingh_09
As far as the secrecy to keep the private locations out of sight Google maps and Google Earth does fail the tests, it is clear that you can see the private locations of the Government through Google Earth, the Terrorists Organizations does benefit from these services. During 26/11 the terrorists organizations attacking certain places where they could not be without using these services and https://sarkarijob.ind.in/kpsc-fda-sda-recruitment/ is so important to clear out these days.
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Wednesday 8th May 2019 05:54 GMT kanika789
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