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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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Google Maps and National Security 3 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • I can't speak for the Capital offices, but the old executive offices (either side of the White House) are covered in fancy communications hardware. Commercial spy satellites are licensed by the NOAA. I wouldn't be surprised if the pixelating was done before 9/11 by whichever company took the pics.
    • No doubt that this data is scrubbed before it is cleared for civilian use. Best as I can tell, it's ~1m/pixel at the highest resolution, which is plenty good to identify one building from another, but not so good that you can read the newspapers littering the street to see when the photos were taken. (Military satellites supposedly has this capability, oh, 20 years ago.)

      I'm not pointing the finger at Google for anything (aside from the watermarking, which has their fingerprints all over it; besides, that's cool and tastefully done). When I said "...no reason why Google should make it easier...", s/Google/any sat map provider/g as appropriate.

      There are some things that need to be scrubbed. Surely all military artifacts are blurred from these maps. (Hmmm...I wonder how bland Ft. Meade and Andrews look...) And the White House and EOB's were both reasonably scrubbed.

      But the Capitol dome? Is it really a matter of the utmost national security that NOAA does not disclose that it's a big round thingy on top of a hill?

      • No doubt that this data is scrubbed before it is cleared for civilian use.

        That implies the source is the U.S. government. While American sources might artificially limit the resolution, the French have been selling commercial satellite imagery for years, and have no such scruples.

        I'm not pointing the finger at Google for anything (aside from the watermarking, which has their fingerprints all over it; besides, that's cool and tastefully done).

        Interesting thing about the watermarking. The copyrigh

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