From a website that calls itself the Strategy Page, you’d expect an article about the security implications of Google Earth to be nuanced and knowledgeable. Instead, you get Why Terrorists Love Google, superficial drivel riddled with non-sequiturs. Some examples:
[Google] gathers together the largest collection of satellite photos ever…
Islamic terrorists are long on fanaticism, but short on practical skills.
Many countries have managed to persuade the satellite photo providers to lower the resolution of images showing sensitive areas.
This stuff is just made up, like a rookie blog post. As for the last quote, I am only aware of one country that has successfully lobbied the US to bar US companies from being the ones providing the highest-resolution commercial imagery of its territory: Israel. Does the unnamed author of the article care to name “many” more?
Nor does the article explain how time-delayed satellite images might be of use to terrorists. In fact, while we’re on the topic, here is why terrorists don’t love Google.
I must agree on the overall sceptic view on blaming Google Earth (or other geo-software) for supporting terrorism.
Terrorists did not wait for GE to crash their planes into the twin towers. They knew better: they did it before.
Of course they may have used some simulation software or game-like software to get a feel for the flight situation. So we should have banned these from the planet beforehand.
Terror, fanatism or war is perhaps less a matter of technology (the right or the wrong one) than of human(e) behavior (the right or the wrong one).
When one wants to go to war, all means available and secure are welcome – including the spoken word. So why blame it on the typical civilian use of that geo-information technology that was first developped from within the military domain in the first place?
I’d say embrace all means (including civilian use of military-inherited technology) to empower civilians against war, terrorism and fanatism.
And again, ancient and modern technology might not give enough answers at all. So where is the need to indue Google Earth (or a simple map) with such powers?
I sent a message yesterday from inside Iran but you deleted that !!! you stupis are bitting around the bush