Google Blurring Sensitive Map Information

Cyphoid writes "While viewing my school (the University of Massachusetts Lowell) with Google Maps, I noticed that a select portion of the campus was pixelated: the operational nuclear research facility on campus. Curious, I attempted to view the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It too was pixelated. What or who is compelling Google to smudge out these images selectively? Will all satellite images of facilities that the government deems 'sensitive' soon be subject to censoring?" Not surprisingly, the same areas are blurred in Google Earth. But how about images from satellites operated by other nations, such as SPOT or Sovinformsputnik?

MassGIS

Google Maps gets the Massachusetts aerial photos from MassGIS http://www.mass.gov/mgis [mass.gov]

I believe you will find they are the blurring culprits if you download the latest aerial photos done by a 2005 fly by.

Re:MassGIS

You're right. I don't think Google is the one censoring the photos. For a counter example, check out the photos of the White House on Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth (http://local.live.com). Google's images (from a private source) do not appear to be censored, but Microsoft's (from the USGS, I believe) are heavily edited.

Re:

Not too long ago, it used to be that the White House and Capitol (and others) were blurred on Google too. I remember getting a kick out of search for those "special sites" on Google and see if they missed any. I guess they've switched their source of dat

Re:MassGIS

I think the blurring probably had to do more with what's on the roof of the white house (rather than where it's located, which everybody knows), and some level of paranoia that an attacker would benefit from being able to make that out. It's my understanding they have quite a bit of weaponry up there to defend from potential attacker both from the ground and from the air (that, or I watch too many movies).

Re:MassGIS

nope, it's not google... the millstone nuclear power plant [google.com] in CT is not pixelated.

Re:

Why does the smoke appear to be saturated?

A coal powered plant [google.com] in Cartersvile, Georgia is the same way.

Lewiston, ME: See for yourself.

Well, in the example I was talking about, you can look at Yahoo's and decide for yourself. It looks suspiciously intentional to me, because it's a blob right in the middle of a lot of high-rez imagery that's suddenly pixellated, centered right over the bri

Re:MassGIS

Google surely [telegraph.co.uk] wouldn't censor it's maps on request by an interested party.

Great

Now it's even easier to pick out nice fat targets.
 

Re:

What I don't understand is why they do this. They're blurring out the roof of the building. If terrorists want to do something with a building, like bomb it, being able to see a roof and being able to see a blurred roof isn't going to make any difference.

Re:Great

With the maximum resolution you can find enough information to plan escape routes, locate access stairs, maintenance hatches, and maybe in the case of a nuclear facility (I only speculate, I am no expert on this) locate the storage facilities of crucial and/or dangerous materials. So yes, it can help. Of course this shouldn't be the only measure taken and the blurring should only be a temporary measure taken to give time to correct any flaw that may become apparent on what used to be military-grade satellite imagery.

details for you

This thing probably got caught up in a general order to obscure ALL nuclear plants.

It's a really lame little plant, with barely any fuel. The white thing is a metal containment dome, attached to a 3-story or 4-story research building. It's about 4 stories tall. They give tours; you can look down into a pool of water to see the glowing blue core. It's called the Pinanski Energy Center.

Attacking this plant would do nothing of any real interest, though some idiots would surely freak out. The radiation source is deep below ground and really weak.

Most of the obscured area is just a parking lot. The research building extends to the northwest of the white reactor; they are attached. The area to the southwest is a parking lot for that building and the adjacent ones. The area to the northeast is a parking lot for the gym, which you can see with the white rectangle on the roof. The farthest west obscured area is a pedestrian overpass at the 3rd-floor level that runs between two unrelated buildings, the physics building (north) and engineering building (south). Most everything in the area is 4-story.

There are far more interesting things on campus that a person could attack, starting with the dorms!

You can find pictures on the web, including a lame attack by ABC news.

http://www.uml.edu/maps/pinanski.htm [uml.edu]
http://www.uml.edu/student-services/disability/ada services/north_campus/pinanski_hall.html [uml.edu]
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/LooseNukes/story?i d=988778 [go.com]

Re:

Assuming just for a second that 'the terrorists' have no better way to find the location of nuke plants than by scrolling google maps looking for pixels; what exactly are we worried they're going to do with this information, that they couldn't do without i

Re:Great

what exactly are we worried they're going to do with this information

Think man! If they blow up the buildings, it'll show up on google earth like a big ball of flame and smoke! What a way to ruin a map!

Re:Great

the difference between civil engineers and electronic engineers? the former built targets, the latter missiles.

A blur is almost as good as a bullseye

C'mon! Now if you didn't know what you were looking at before, now you know there's a target of interest there.

Re:A blur is almost as good as a bullseye

C'mon! Now if you didn't know what you were looking at before, now you know there's a target of interest there.

It brings up an interesting point. Now terrorists can use an algorithm to look for fuzzy areas, and will know they are of interest. If you want Al Quida to nail your enemy, then just put a fuzzy tarp on his/her roof.
       

Killer Blobs, Run!

It is *not* an editing artifact; Fuzzy Blob Bacteria (Fuziblobicia Bacterius) has been eating structures all over the world. I think it was even what ruined a banana and avacado that I had on the shelf. It even ate parts of my house. Termites, my ass.
       

dont blame Google.

Curious, I attempted to view the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It too was pixelated.

Have you ever been there? That's how it looks! I think they built it out of Lego.

Dunno these places seem fine

Taking a look at another nuclear power plant, the one in Byron, IL its nice and unblured according to Google http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=byron,+il& ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=42.073969,-89.280159&spn=0.012153, 0.029526&t=h&om=1&iwloc=addr [google.com] so I dunno whats with the guys out in Taxachusetts, err rather Massachusetts but Illinois seems just fine with having their power plants on display throughout the whole world. Heck even this little patch of desert is nice and unblurred http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=area+51&ie =UTF8&z=14&ll=37.228688,-115.804482&spn=0.052144,0 .118103&t=h&om=1 [google.com] so bugger all I dunno. Both are from Google and both are nicely unblurred. - XSS

Dumb

Doesn't this seem a little stupid? It's like a terrorist's shopping list. Grab Google and zoom around the map. Mark blurred areas on map. Bomb area. Presto!

Re:

Yeah I can see it now. Gitmo hopeful A is bored one night, starts armchair touring the world with Google Earth, sees a pixelated area and calls up Osama. All good plots start that way.

Re:Dumb

So...deny them easily accessible photo intel (Google Earth), and force them to actually come to the location to recon. Where they might be noticed and hopefully stopped.

So basicaly you say that security through obscurity is a good thing.

I am just curious how many terrorist attacs are done with the help of Google Earth. And even IF it would work as stated, it would only divert the attack to a different place. Just like a good lock on your door will prevent a burgelary in your house, yet is does not prevent the robber going to your neighbours house.

I wonder what will happen if somebody still blows up the place. Will it be obvious that blurring does not work, or will the blurring be extended to schools in general to protect the children because of terrorism? Well, not so much wonder as be afraid of the answer.

Re:

Another problem is that terrorists tend to attack people, not assets. At most they'll attack symbols like the WTC, but even then it was calculated to kill the most people they could. This map blurring would be better spent on the Mall of American and sp

You think the US is bad, try Japan.

In Japan, just about anything "sensitive" gets pixelated.

Re:You think the US is bad, try Japan.

"In Japan, just about anything "sensitive" gets pixelated."

No kidding. That's why I stopped browsing Japanese porn.

Old news, really! They did this when Kodak sold..

... the Maps.

The original maps were bought from Keyhole, a company that Kodak used to own. In the past they only offered LandSat imagery of all Kodak buildings (15 meter), but now they've just gone to the original 1 meter and simply kerneled it. It's EXTREMELY easy to see here- check out the parking lots.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=14616&ie=U TF8&z=17&ll=43.197081,-77.628826&spn=0.006695,0.01 6909&t=h&om=1 [google.com]

I have found it to be a bit annoying as I use features around the airport for identification for my work, and it was always nice to have an outside 'reference' which might or might not agree with the GPS solution.

And why would Kodak care about providing high resolution targetting information of their infrastructure to competitors, not including the 10,000 gallon tanks of various hydrocarbon solvents that are stored near the center of the complex so that, should an explosion occurr, the buildings themselves will buffer 80% of the immediate damage and pressure wave to prevent wanton death and destruction?

For 'sensitive' areas it's not much to ask.

Oh, and btw- No problem seeing 1m resolution here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&z=19&ll=38.889 897,-77.009375&spn=0.001787,0.003347&t=h&om=1 [google.com]

My point? It's not that tough to get high resolution CQQs from your local state bureau. The county mosaics are high resolution and flown 2x per year by the USDA.

Re:Old news, really! They did this when Kodak sold

I have found it to be a bit annoying as I use features around the airport for identification for my work, and it was always nice to have an outside 'reference' which might or might not agree with the GPS solution.

For every "terrorist use" there are thousands or more productive uses like yours. Blurring it out only serves to make people's jobs harder and is thus a drag on the economy.

That's terrorism. Miminal threats that cause out of proportion reactions that themselves cause more damage than than any direct terrorist action.

Opting out my house

Hey, can I drop a line to the Google Maps service asking them to fat-pixel my house? I have an epiphany toilet on the roof and I got to be sure I avoid awkward situations...

Sensitive areas

When I'm laying in my backyard I want to be sure Google well pixelate my sensitive areas too ;)

boston gas tanks blurred

I wanted to see the painting on the tanks.
pulled up google maps and there it is in its pixelated glory.
Gas tank art all pixelated [google.com]

Other nuclear plants unblurred...

Curiously enough, the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant near Minneapolis is unblurred.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=44.62 1647,-92.636139&spn=0.007361,0.014591&t=k [google.com]

To the lower left, you can even see the waste storage containers. If you look closely, you can even see the machine gun nests. Incidentally, I visited this facility as part of a physics trip back in my undergrad years, before 9-11. I don't know if they allow visitors anymore.

Also, the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant unblurred.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1899+CR-75 +(S),+Monticello,+MN+55362&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=45.3324 63,-93.847833&spn=0.007271,0.021629&t=h&om=1 [google.com]

Re:

Montecello MN is fine too: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=600+Rocky + Hill+Rd,+Plymouth,+Ma&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=41.9439 79,-70.577717&spn=0.009113,0.024934&t=h [google.com]

Somebody Knows What They're Doing

I just went to the Google map for the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge where I used to work many years ago. Beautiful close up photos of the several hundred buildings in the Complex, amazing detail of the parking lots and the roofs and the fences. At max zoom, I scrolled to the building housing my first office there...my second office there....the cafeteria...the security booth where I went into the Exclusion Area (the highest secured area where the bomb grade uranium is)...down the road...huh. When you get to the building where the enriched uranium is (was?) machined and the scrap uranium reprocessed, you get a notice saying no zoom data for this area. You've got to back up into the sky a few hundred feet. Somebody knows what they're doing. They're only blocking the zoom on SPECIFIC CRITICAL BUILDINGS at Y-12 instead of all of them.

Headless Chicken Homeland Security

> Not surprisingly, the same areas are blurred in Google Earth.
  > But how about images from satellites operated by other nations,
  > such as SPOT or Sovinformsputnik?

Don't worry! Everyone knows Osama only use Google Earth. He's still boycotting Sovinformsputnik over of the Soviet Invasion of Aghanistan (Go Taliban!), and said he wouldn't be caught dead using SPOT.

Sovinformsputnik?

The Sovinformsputnik link is intersting. But they seem rather out of date (not just from the "Sov" in the name).

For instance, their sample page World Trade Center [sovinformsputnik.com]. "These twin towers dominate the skyline by their height and the clearness of their lines. Currently it is the center for nearly every phase of international business...."

So not really a real-time database.

Let's launch our own recon satellite!

Seriously. HAM operators have already launched radio relay satellites in the past; and there's nothing preventing us from doing something similar as a grassroots movement. We may even be able to read some imagery in real-time. By licensing the image stream and database similarly to Wikipedia (cc-by-sa, gfdl, ...) we'd stay true to our open source credo and spirit. Much better than the crippleware commercial offerings of Google and others anyway! Competition and verifiability will keep them honest as well.

Let's just make sure to have the main satellite operation center and a few relays in countries that don't promote censorship; perhaps on a pacific island, in a desert etc... Oh, and a few reflecting surfaces and other defensive means to protect against chinese killer satellites would be a good idea too.

Financing this is would also be quite easy, I suppose. How about selling news agencies and TV networks priority slots to cover a regional crisis, wars and other events in near-real time; something they won't get from commercial operators even for big bucks?

Once Upon a Time....

....In the old Soviet Union, road maps (yeah, like the kind you get at the 7-11) were considered classified documents.

There is a difference in degree, but not much else.

Welcome to the Brave New World, kids, and the best part about it is that we did it all to ourselves.

Re:

Yeah, cos the unabomber had his own lear jet and imaging equipment. Don't discount the threats from the general public. There's a lot more of them. And some of them are more crazy than the average terrorist.

Re:Simcurity

These blurred images are just Google caving into various narrow interests with either something negligent to hide from an enquiring public or its reporters [prisonplanet.com], or just pretending to secure facilities with meaningless handwaving, or both.

Or buying images from a third-party that has already blurred them out, which is very likely the actual case.

Re:Simcurity

Yeah, because the security threats to facilities come from the general public which gets its aerial imagery free from these years-old databases, not from corporate, governement or international orgs with budgets for the plentiful (even cheap) aerial/satellite products with recent updates, higher resolution, GIS overlays, even realtime observations. Or their own aircraft/satellites to generate their own custom data.

So you're saying we should pay no attention to the simplest and easiest of security measures because a potential adversary could take more agressive action. That's like saying it's okay to have a sticky note with the root password on a critical server as long as you keep the firewall updated.

"Years-old databases"? It's not like the design of a nuclear power plant changes on a day-to-day basis.

Re:

I don't really mind the use of blurred out images for some things, but I think to use the mantra "better safe than sorry" too loosely is wrong. Torture a potential terrorist? Hey, "better safe than sorry". Tap the communications of innocent citizens? He

Re:

The problem is that when an attack succeeds because of something the government failed to do, everyone and his mother complains that the government should have "done something" to prevent it. Ofcourse, when the government tries to "do something", they get

Re:

Also, while you make some decent points, it's obvious that you've never actually seen the full Ben Franklin quote, otherwise you wouldn't be referring to him while making your claims. So, for your benefit, I shall now reproduce the full quote, with the par

Re:

I don't really agree that the ordinary citizen has the right to all information out there. I don't understand why American citizens get butt hurt every time information is not open to them. There is classified information, and information that is available on a need to know basis all over the government. Being in the military there have been several times when I have done things without knowing why I am doing them, or why they are happening. It sucks, but you know what, I have come to accept that sometimes it is necessary.

I think a perfect example of going too far is that the old Soviet Union era street maps of Moscow were purposefully made inaccurate to foil spies. Stands to reason, a warped reason, that the people who need to get someplace already know where they are goi

Re:

Are you claiming corporations and government agencies are plotting to blow up the nations nuclear facilities? I think you need to stop watching X-Files reruns.

No, you're the one who's got science fiction on the brain.

Of course governments are plotting to

Re:

I figured that MIT Bates Lab [google.com] would be blurred out too, but it is not. I guess particle accelerators are not as high on the security list.

Re:

We all know thats just the cover up Area 51, built afterwards in order to remove attention.

The real one is several miles away and uses an active camouflage bubble to hide itself.

Crap, am I posting from an unsecured lo ...CONNECTION TERMINATED...

Say What?

AC said:

This is very similar to news reporters reporting in Iraq back in 1991. They were perched up on top of hotel's miles away from the battle front, and reporting the precise position, direction, and numbers of the US forces. This information, freely available on CNN gave the enemy real time reports on the US troop movement and lost many US lives because of US reporters not thinking about their actions.

Can you provide any credible references for this claim? I had never heard this before and Google has not given me any leads.

The Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] does not mention media caused American deaths but it does tell us that of the 147 American deaths, 41 (28%) were killed by either friendly-fire or allied munitions. The Wikipedia does report [wikipedia.org]:

U.S. policy regarding media freedom was much more restrictive than in the Vietnam War. The policy had been spelled out in a Pentagon document entitled Annex Foxtrot. Most of the press information came from briefings organized by the military. Only selected journalists were allowed to visit the front lines or conduct interviews with soldiers. Those visits were always conducted in the presence of officers, and were subject to both prior approval by the military and censorship afterward. This was ostensibly to protect sensitive information from being revealed to Iraq, but often in practice it was used to protect politically embarrassing information from being revealed.

It seems to me that the lack of troop movement information caused more American deaths than any CNN news reports. It also appears that you've been taken in by anti-free-press FUD that was used as an excuse to even further curtail objective reporting in the current Gulf War. But if you have credible evidence to the contrary, please share it with us.

On the other hand, I agree with you that it is probably a good idea for Google Earth to be blurry around nuke plants.

Re:

Old war propaganda takes years to die (eg. reporting that eating carrots improves night vision as a cover for the success of WWII radar) and this is just another bit of it. The 1991 war at the time US and British forces moved in mostly consisted of the Ir