Digg Townhall now online!
Check out the latest Digg Townhall, where Kevin and Jay answered the top questions from the Digg Community!
Top secret, in plain view/ Google Earth may blur the image,but others don't
sfgate.com — Aerial images of a nuclear power plant in Perry, Ohio, are considered so sensitive that they are blurred on Google's popular satellite mapping service, Google Earth. But on Microsoft's online maps, users get a crystal-clear bird's-eye view of the facility, including the cooling towers, storage tanks and a parking lot filled with cars.
gokss- 29 diggs
- digg it
- vsujohn2, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Maybe one of Google's huge data centers is somewhere nearby this nuclear facility?
I'm not trying to imply anything, but then again... maybe I am?- EntropyMan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Google doesn't blur anything. People who claim they do are simply wrong. And I don't know how many times I've had to repeat this. It doesn't ever seem to get through.
Microsoft and Google simply use different data sources for different areas. Individual data _providers_ may or may not blur their data, but that's out of Google's control. That's the reason one will have blurred imagery and the other won't. If you look closely, you'll see that even the kind of blurring varies from place to place. Pixelation one place. Gausian blur another. Some areas even get whited out. It's the imagery provider(s) that do this, not Google.
For example, satellite photos are not as commonly blurred, but they don't give the best hi-res views. Aerial photos can be much better for close-ups, but require planes to fly in a country's airspace, and so local laws apply. The government can therefore censor the aerial photo takers.
But even for satellites, the sat owners have arrangements with many countries -- some countries are big intel customers and may have enough financial leverage to get blurring done. Some countries also contain the ground stations to needed receive the data from the satellites (these need to be spread out along the flight path), and so they may also get more say in what gets blurred.
But the bottom line is, there is no point for Google to blur anything when the original source data is still available without the blur. Google has nothing to gain by doing this and everything to lose -- if people start demanding blurring of their sensitive area, or just their own back yard, there would be no end to the work, and they'd lose credibility.
It's the same reason Google doesn't censor the web unless it's forced to by local laws -- and even then, there's always a major stink over it (see reluctant Google China vs. Yahoo China, which even turned over dissidents to the government).
- EntropyMan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Google doesn't blur anything. People who claim they do are simply wrong. And I don't know how many times I've had to repeat this. It doesn't ever seem to get through.
- Phildo5000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1There are a few places like this that are blurred out. Usually power plants, refineries, etc. There is one at 421805.50, 710242.96 just south of Boston.
- thebyte2005, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1lol.. I used to live in Perry.
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is