Governments Tremble at Google's Bird's-Eye View

[du4l]

When Google introduced Google Earth, free software that marries satellite and aerial images with mapping capabilities, the company emphasized its usefulness as a teaching and navigation tool, while advertising the pure entertainment value of high-resolution flyover images of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the pyramids.

But since its debut last summer, Google Earth has received attention of an unexpected sort. Officials of several nations have expressed alarm over its detailed display of government buildings, military installations and other important sites within their borders.

http://www.writewing.org/2005/12/governments_tremble_at_googles.html

 

[du4l]

I use google earth and i seriously had a feeling this would happen

 

[Kandahar]

Yeah, it's inevitable that this kind of thing would arise. But there's not much that anyone can do about it; Google can't just block out images of military sites.

 

[Arch Enemy]

haha

Wouldn't that suck to learn, "Terrorists were able to successfully carry out their assualt by means of a Free Software developed by a bunch of nerds inside the Google corporation"

 

[scottyz]

Anyone can hire any one of numerous companies to get high rez satellite photos of military installations. It's nothing new. I suppose Governments are so behind the times that they didn't see this coming?

 

[shuamort]

The satellite view of the roof of the White House has been blurred out for quite some time on maps.google.com.