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51 Areas You Can't See On Google Maps
By Dan Morrill
Expert Author
Article Date: 2008-09-10
An interesting article over on IT Security on some of the areas in the world that are blurred out in Google Maps, either due to the sensitivity of the subject, or via pushback from concerned groups.
The most interesting set of pictures comes from the subheading of Nuclear power and critical infrastructure pictures. The interesting part is that they are blurred out in Google maps, but that does not mean that some intrepid photographer will not take a picture of a nuclear plan, geo tag it, and post it to their favorite photo dump site like SmugMug or Flickr.
While we are used to Google Censorship in search results, and we have a basic understanding of how it works because of some excellent work by Indiana University researchers, we can now add Google Maps to the list of systems at Google that for one reason or another censor information, for whatever reason seems to make sense at the time of the decision.
While we can debate the relative merits of censorship in relation to national security, some of the more interesting ones are those sites or places that are blurred out because of lawsuit or township pushback.
North Oaks, Minn.: In late June 2008, the St. Paul, Minn. suburb of North Oaks successfully petitioned that street images be removed from Google Maps' Street View feature. The argument put forth collectively by North Oaks' 4,500 residents involves the fact that the town has private roads that are protected by a trespassing ordinance. Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo said that she didn't know of any other city in the country that has made a similar request. Source: IT Security
Most of the time people will understand of government sites, like the infamous area 51 that does not exist officially, but is all over satellite maps and other sources of information despite government denials that it is even there. The idea though of being able to determine a person's identity by the shadow they cast from pictures via satellite, and other advances in technology will make Google Maps all the more interesting if the current round of censorship or "blurring" continues.
Some people have been busted on Google Maps, and there have also been some interesting visual effects like the flying car on Google Maps, but the idea of restricting information via Google Maps (and most likely Microsoft's live earth as well) means that as we get used to the increasing availability of high quality satellite imagery, that more bouts of censorship like this will continue.
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About the Author:
Dan Morrill runs Techwag, a site all about his views on social media, education, technology, and some of the more interesting things that happen on the internet. He works at CityU of Seattle as the Program Director for the Computer Science, Information Systems and Information Security educational programs.
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