Indian president warns against Google Earth

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Adept
HYDERABAD, India -- Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam expressed concern Saturday about a free mapping program from Google, warning it could help terrorists by providing satellite photos of potential targets.

Google Earth, launched in June this year, allows users to access overlapping satellite photos. Although not all areas are highly detailed, some images are very high resolution, and some show sensitive locations in various countries.

At a meeting of top police officials in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, Kalam said he worried that "developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen" for providing high resolution images of their sites.

The governments of South Korea and Thailand and lawmakers in the Netherlands have expressed similar concerns. South Korean newspapers said Google Earth provides images of the presidential Blue House and military bases in the country, which remains technically at war with communist North Korea. The North's main nuclear facility at Yongbyon is among sites in that country displayed on the service.

The Google site contains clear aerial photos of India's parliament building, the president's house and surrounding government offices in New Delhi. There are also some clear shots of Indian defense establishments.

Debbie Frost, spokewoman for Mountain View, California, Google, noted that the software uses information already available from public sources and the images displayed are about one to two years old, not shown in real time.

"Google takes governmental concerns about Google Earth and Google Maps very seriously. Google welcomes dialogue with governments, and we will be happy to talk to Indian authorities about any concerns they may have," Frost said in an e-mail statement Saturday.

Kalam, a scientist who guided India's missile program before becoming president, called for new laws to restrain dissemination of such material. He said existing laws in some countries regarding spatial observations of their territory and the United Nations' recommendations on the practice are inadequate.
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Source >> Wired News
 
i was surprised the US govt had nothing to say about it when google started making such detailed american maps.
 
Well.. If google can do it, wont the terrorist organizations be able to do it anyway??

If they could plan an attack on WTC and If they are able to plan so many coups, they would be able to get satellite pics, google earth or no google earth..

my opinion.
 
Kalam said he worried that "developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen" for providing high resolution images of their sites.
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^^ tha is factually incorrect ....

The unfortunate part is that I wouldn't have have expected Mr. Kalam to have made a comment without researching into it :(

I don't mind if a stuid news channel or a TOI reports or a sucky politician makes a stupid comment....

But Mr. Kalam is one person I (and I think most of us here) truly respect.....

wonder what made him issue a statement like this....
 
Nope... it is about equality here... cos the US is free toask google (and since goggle is an american company it needs to listen) to remove any pictures it so wishes (and it has).

Google has responded to Kalam by agreeing to work with India (READ: tell us what u want removed and we will remove it) so that is the end of the issue...
 
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