
US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images - darrhiggs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27868703
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guylhem
I don't like this. What is the business of a government in regulating the
resolution of whatever form of imagery???

If it can be seen from the sky, or from the street, it's public. Planes,
satellites, drones, whatever - you should be free to take pics and sell them
if you want.

Fortunately, digital camera didn't exist where such kind of laws had been
passed, or there would have been similar stupid restrictions (imagine google
streetview with n-times 640x480 pics crafted together, or worse - a law
restricting the resolution of the reconstructed google streetview you can view
on your screen!)

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wahsd
I don't think I can agree with that. To a certain extent, I think this will be
another one of those fronts where modern technology tries to breach
fundamental and human rights.

What should give you the right, just because you can fly something over
someone's property, to take pictures of them and their private space. The
issue is a similar one to drones. Should you be permitted to violate someone's
privacy in their own back yard or on their property just because you have the
technology to circumvent safeguards?

There is no real difference whether the drone is 100 feet above your property
or in the ionosphere? If someone put a camera on a stick and held it high
enough to tape what goes on in your bedroom or back yard when your children
are swimming they would be considered committing an illegal act?

In a way, you should have the right to automatically remove your property from
satellite imagery. Or maybe you should get royalties for your property being
part of the service. In fact, what is the difference between royalties due for
commercial use of their images and that of your back yard? There is none,
other than that the imagery of your back yard, especially at those
resolutions, are a violation of your most basic and fundamental rights as a
human. What, is it going to be left to individuals to build visual
obstructions to prevent observation from above?

So you are now rationalizing how this is all different and how it's justified.
Well, what happens when technology is developed that allows real time 1cm
resolution, live, 24/7 observation? Or what if technology is developed that
allows reconstruction of the interior of your home, maybe even in color
resolution based on chemical analysis, and maybe even in real time?

Where is the limit? It should lie with the most fundamental rights that are
being violated right as we speak. Everyone should have the right to privacy or
a choice to profit from it.

We are already having the value of our identities and activities harvested
from us, are we really going to allow constant and pervasive surveillance to
steal our humanity too? At what point do a certain subset of people simply
regress to becoming a commodity that is monitored and maintained like cattle
on Big USA Ranch?

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IgorPartola
I agree with your general point but:

> In fact, what is the difference between royalties due for commercial use of
> their images and that of your back yard?

The difference is that the photographer holds to copyright to any picture they
take. The drone/satellite operator would have to explicitly sign the copyright
over to you of the pictures of your backyard.

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pingou
Does "images that showed features as small as 31cm" means 1 pixel = average
color of 31x31cm or is it more complicated?

~~~
natosaichek
That is roughly correct. There is typically a bayer-mask filter on a grayscale
sensor, so any given pixel is actually only either blue, red or green, but
then a mixing algorithm is applied and you get the full resolution with the
appropriate mixing. Of course, there are a variety of filters and a variety of
algorithms, so the exact mix will vary across different technologies, but
roughly speaking, yes.

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snarfy
For anyone concerned about privacy, higher resolution imagery already exists
and is used heavily in industry. See
[http://www.pictometry.com](http://www.pictometry.com). They use airplanes.

~~~
secabeen
Right. This is a win, because it allows you to get images that previously
required airplanes over areas where airplanes aren't feasible or cost-
effective.

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joosters
I thought that some of the higher-res photos from google earth and competitors
were taken by plane, rather than satellite. I wonder how/if the new
restrictions apply to lower-flying photography?

~~~
tokenadult
Most of the higher-resolution photography on Google Earth and Google Maps is
taken by airplanes rather than by satellites. Google calls it "satellite" view
just to emphasize that it is from above, whatever the source.

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trebor
I don't like this. You can already see a lot of detail on these satellite
photos. This is a huge breach of privacy. (Not that a 50cm lower limit isn't a
breach of privacy.)

~~~
rwmj
Do you worry about people flying planes over your house, looking over your
fence, etc?

~~~
trebor
What worries me more is what kind of corporate espionage these satellite
images will be put to use for. They've been able to see the car(s) in a
driveway for awhile now. But imagine: now they can pay to see what the most
popular cars are in a geographical region; they can look at your deck and
determine furniture brands; they can see you sunbathing; they can see what you
play with, etc. No longer is it just "buying habits" but they can, en masse,
buy the rights to psychoanalyze your lifestyle base on what they see from the
outside of your house.

I'm pretty certain that a company paying a team of photographers to stalk the
average citizen to psychoanalyze their world would be creepy, if not illegal.
But this is exactly what they will be doing—and we'll have no ability to
"outrun" their team of photographers. Technically, we won't even know when
they're overhead.

And that does bother me.

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toomuchtodo
Write an app to calculate orbital elements and pop up an alert: "Imaging
object arriving over horizon, take action"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_elements](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_elements)

[http://www.heavens-above.com/](http://www.heavens-above.com/)

Other countries have done this _for years_ , and cover their equipment with
camo cover when opposing country assets are overhead. This is why the Air
Force/Boeing X-37B is such a big deal; its an asset that can shift orbits to
counterattack known orbit information.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37)

[http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/X_37B_Gets_Stranger_999.ht...](http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/X_37B_Gets_Stranger_999.html)

