
Google Earth didn't update its image of a military installation for eight years - amaccuish
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gye79x/google-earth-stopped-mapping-this-military-installation
======
avar
> [...]We immediately assumed censorship at a federal level[...]

This is just sensationalism. How about:

a) These areas are restricted airspace, and most of the aerial imagery Google
et al buy is taken from airplanes.

b) Even if it wasn't restricted airspace, what's the commercial interest for a
company like Google? To sell mapping services to the armed forces within their
own bases? It's not like they're all buying Android phones and getting turn-
by-turn directions in their Humvees.

c) There's also satellite imagery, but no imaging company is imaging the
entire globe at a resolution Google and friends are interested in. You need to
pay for specific areas, which brings us back to b), what's the commercial
interest?

d) They point out that other restricted areas had updated imagery, but none
are the size of the Nevada site, so they might have been imaged as a side-
effect of imaging other nearby areas via satellites.

Maybe that's not what's going on, but these sound like reasonable explanations
that don't require us to assume a bunch of men in black and a shadowy cabal of
CIA agents coercing SV companies.

~~~
module0000
>> a) These areas are restricted airspace, and most of the aerial imagery
Google et al buy is taken from airplanes.

Just replying to point out that this is true. I worked 3 summers for
"Aerometric", a company that does exactly this. We flew flight lines from
10-20 thousand feet with a huge camera rig. Those photos were transmitted back
to corporate, where they are stitched back together to form large high-
resolution aerial maps. Our customers were usually timber companies, gas/oil
companies, and occasionally FEMA.

Until that job, I naively assumed everything was a satellite image with some
Bond-like zoom capabilities.

~~~
madeuptempacct
What's your career path?

~~~
joshvm
Coming from a background in remote sensing, and having been to several
conferences where companies desperately try to sell destitute students
instrumentation worth hundreds of thousands of dollars...

A lot of remote sensing folks come out of geography degrees into specialist
Masters' programs. The use cases are all the various things you'd use high
resolution aerial maps for. To be clear most of the scientists are _users_ of
this data, rather than the creators. Historically there were more computer
vision scientists involved, but we've mostly solved the big problems like
image stitching and camera calibration. Then GPS came along and solved the
geo-referencing problem as well.

Most academics just buy their data or get it from a space agency, do some
analysis in GIS software and get on with answering their research questions.
There is still a healthy research field in remote sensing, but fewer people
worry about the collection side. There are also plenty of people involved from
the space side of things, but again, unless you're on an instrument team
you're a consumer not a creator.

So the career path depends. Typically degree in geography with a specialism in
remote sensing, then into a career with an appropriate company. Most of the
airborne cameras are produced by large orgs like Leica Geosystems. Also look
at Hexagon AB who have bought up just about everyone else.

The people that generate this data tend to be small companies who own a plane
(or three) kitted out with expensive surveying cameras. They are then
contracted to fly over places and they provide calibrated (ortho-rectified,
geo-referenced, etc) data to the client. Depending on the budget and
requirements, this can include (multispectral) imagery and/or LIDAR mapping.

If you're interested in camera development that spans the engineering gamut
from electrical (sensors) to optical. There are also aeronautical engineers
and of course pilots. Nowadays if you have some machine learning knowledge,
you're probably useful.

------
patrickyeon
Without getting into the conspiracy-ish side of this, I'd like to point out
that this is changing. Until recently, I worked at Planet Labs where our goal
was to image the entire landmass of the Earth, at 3m resolution (not quite as
good as Google's most zoomed-in imagery), every day and make it available to
everyone. The monitoring system design means, amongst other wins, we don't
need to know "something is about to change" to get the before/after pictures,
and it also prevents the "checkbook shutter control" the article talks about.

You can sign up for an account[0] with just an email address and start digging
through imagery right now (unfortunately, purchasing it at full quality is a
different story). Make sure to select an Area Of Interest to get down to daily
imagery, I'll start you off with one for the Tonopah Test Range[1] which has
coverage on 21 different days so far in October.

[0] [https://www.planet.com/explorer/](https://www.planet.com/explorer/) [1]
[https://www.planet.com/explorer/#/area-
coverage/0.32,1/mosai...](https://www.planet.com/explorer/#/area-
coverage/0.32,1/mosaic/global_monthly_2018_09_mosaic/center/-116.851,37.723/zoom/11/geometry/POLYGON\(\(-116.8971+37.6131,-116.5308+37.6131,-116.5308+37.8955,-116.8971+37.8955,-116.8971+37.6131\)\)/items/PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180533_100c,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180532_100c,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180531_100c,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180530_100c,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180529_100c,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180528_100c,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180425_1009,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180424_1009,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180423_1009,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180422_1009,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180421_1009,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_180420_1009,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_174521_0f49,PSScene4Band%3A20181023_174520_0f49/interval/1%20day)

------
amingilani
> _The contract we signed with Apollo states that we may show "image
> derivatives" of image #103001000EBC3C00 to "authorized users" within our
> company. Thus all attendees will have to sign a document temporarily making
> them independent contractors of Eyebeam._

That's the best darn r/MaliciousCompliance I've ever seen.

------
ramblerouser
Vice is being very sensationalist. There are very real abuses of government
power related to 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act, but this is a distraction.

~~~
stronglikedan
> Vice is being very sensationalist.

FWIW, they've always been investigative editorialists, so I'm not surprised.
Although, I do often enjoy their style, even if I don't always agree with
their opinions.

------
mwfunk
I thought that many, maybe even most US military facilities (at least the more
secretive ones) were blanked out altogether on Google Earth. I thought it had
always been that way. Maybe I’m wrong.

I’m more surprised that it was there in the first place, if there were people
who considered it sensitive. Not updating the imagery of a particular military
site for 8 years seems more like expected behavior than some monocle-popping
revelation of malfeasance.

~~~
smacktoward
You might be surprised. You can't find it by searching, for instance, but if
you put in the coordinates you can see the notorious Groom Lake airfield (aka
"Area 51") isn't blanked out:
[https://goo.gl/maps/UHEneL7nJbN2](https://goo.gl/maps/UHEneL7nJbN2)

~~~
seba_dos1
There's even an easter egg around there when you try to use the Street View.

~~~
singingboyo
Who needs streetview when the nearest highway is 'Extraterrestrial Highway'?

Also, possibly spoiling the easter egg - apparently military bases are a)
boring b) not as strict as expected (see [1], which specifically says not to
photograph and yet... though there are also no connected street views.)

[1] [https://goo.gl/maps/eRP4dhtVK3R2](https://goo.gl/maps/eRP4dhtVK3R2)

ETA: Apparently google has added photo spheres to its map, so that's not
strictly street view. However, it's still interesting.

------
olivermarks
I'm probably overly cynical but I think it highly unlikely any of the publicly
viewable 'military installation' mapping would be accurate or up to date.
Basic military strategy requires maps for planning - why share location
details with your potential enemies?

~~~
MaxLeiter
The vast majority of our enemies have satellites of their own for high
resolution images that we can’t stop them from taking, right?

~~~
nradov
The concern was mainly over terrorists, who don't have their own satellites
and have to rely on commercial imagery.

------
noonespecial
Seems like if there were really some mustache-twirling villainy going on here,
there would be hi-res imagery that was completely inaccurate/faked.

~~~
vaughnegut
This is the case in South Korea where imagery of sensitive locations is
illegal. If you compare Naver maps to Google maps you'll see military
installations are missing and are replaced with home and trees. Interestingly
this also applies to the presidential palace, which is a huge building in the
center of the capital which has stood for decades. I'm still not sure why they
did that.

~~~
dba7dba
Simply due to North Korea. Despite all talks of normalization between South
and North Korea, it's still not safe to let your guard down. Such talks of
normalization took place few times in the past, going back as far as 1960s I
believe.

~~~
avar
There's been good discussion on some episodes of the Arms Control Wonk
podcast[1] about how bad the South Koreans are at this, although I
unfortunately can't remember on which episodes.

Things like military installations being obvious from aerial imagery because
it's the only areas where someone incompetent at using the Photoshop clone
tool has copied a bunch of trees around.

Other examples are "secret" missile silos being discovered because a bunch of
buildings are seen in the exact size / configuration as other known military
sites. The South Koreans having re-used the plans and architectural drawings.

They said that in some cases the most plausible explanation for some sites
still being secret is to save face. Nobody wants to own up to how much of an
open secret they are due to opsec failures over the years, even though
everyone, and certainly the North Koreans, know exactly where they are and
what they're for.

1\. [https://www.armscontrolwonk.com](https://www.armscontrolwonk.com)

------
ucaetano
Except that it was refreshed in 2017 (per the article itself).

What is even the point?

~~~
dudul
Slightly misleading headline and first paragraphs yes, but then they focus on
the idea that the location was not refreshed for 8 years and are curious about
this gap.

~~~
romed
I think it is much more likely that the mapreduce shard responsible for
updating the tile was stuck for 8 years, than there is a massive government
conspiracy to prevent the update.

------
guessmyname
Here is the Google Maps link to the satellite imagery of the Tonopah Test
Range site [1].

[1]
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tonopah+Test+Range+Airport...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tonopah+Test+Range+Airport/@37.7303561,-116.7295302,49155m/data=!3m1!1e3)

------
chiefalchemist
Isn't it possible for this to be happening on a smaller scale and in plain
sight? That is, for example, if Google is not always the source of the images,
can't the supplier / vendor doctor the images it provides to Google? Who would
know?

------
kevin_thibedeau
Google used to blur many sensitive commercial sites. Fuel depots, airports,
and critical manufacturing plants would just be indistinct smudges. They seem
to have abandoned the practice after switching to primarily aerial imagery for
urban areas.

~~~
puzzle
A more accurate description is that they used to buy satellite imagery from
third parties such as DG, which were responsible for the blurring. Nowadays, a
lot of images come from planes, many of which are operated by Google, which
does not do the blurring.

------
xbmcuser
It's a military installation unless it's an illegal millatary installation I
don't see what's wrong with any government from any country asking any public
satellite company not to show details publicly.

------
topynate
Commenters annoyed by sensationalism, use of the term "censorship", or the
lack of a substantive argument, should bear one thing in mind: It's an art
installation.

A successful show needs a message, and needs press. It's very accepted _within
the art community_ for the message to be a bit blurred around the edges. Take
these "cyberlibertarian progenitors", for instance. Who are they and how are
they making people believe the internet is a "flat, endless digital plain"?
Any sources? No? Well, it doesn't really matter, because this isn't really
journalism. It could be very important to the artists – of course it would be
very important to them! – but it should not be judged by journalistic
standards.

Sadly, this does mean that Vice is something less than a home for journalism
proper – but why would anyone ever have started to think that in the first
place?

------
uslic001
They have not updated many places in NC for over two years now. I think they
are going to phase it out like all their other pet projects.

------
anonu
> join us at Eyebeam, at 199 Cook Street in Brooklyn, at 6pm on Thursday
> October 25th to view image #103001000EBC3C00 yourself.

Cool - I'll be there!

------
matt4077
> _That this gap occurred for eight years without any acknowledgement from
> Google, Alphabet, or the federal government suggests that it can happen
> again with no warning or oversight. This is Google’s Earth, not ours._

Reading this sentences, I gained a new understanding of what my dog feels when
he tilts his head and looks at me with his big, questioning eyes.

