Google is watching you!

I'm not paranoid if they really are!

from JoeUser Forums
Yesterday I downloaded the new google earth thing. You know, the one where they have the satellite and they show you pictures from space? Anyway, I played around with it for a bit, and after the initial "I can see my house from here!" I started to wonder what this really means. I already could make out pools and trees and cars, but on their site they said they wanted to make it better and increase the resolution. My first thought was "okay, now I can paint "F*** off" on my roof and Google can see it from space." another thought was similar to one had by Big Fat Pauly in Family Guy ("Look at this, ya freaking aliens!"). Then I started to think about what this meant. I could already make out cars; if they increase the resolution they will be able to make out people and watch us 24/7. Increase it enough and you can might even be able to read license plates. Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable about a private corporation with a satellite looking down on my house?

Oh, and according to Google, Area 51 is in Kansas City.
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6,902 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
My take on surveillance is bring it on! make it total!! Of course it will never happen, and the reason has nothing to do with technical limitations.

No, it's more that those who believe in strong social controls know that total surveillance is counter-productive. Human perversity being essentially ineradicable, most forms of social control work on the basis of making deviance very difficult rather than totally impossible. You always, however, need to leave a few dark corners as a kind of social pressure valve.

Once you get to a situation of total surveillance, then there are no more dark corners. All deviants, whether brave or cowardly, have no choice but to brazen it out in the harsh light of social visibility. It's at this stage that fatal cracks start to appear in the social edifice.

This all, of course, supposes a grand malign plan by a sinister 'them' to control us all. Conspiracy theories are fun, but real life is more complex and actually far more interesting...

... anyway, please excuse me. The lights have just gone out and I feel the siren voice of deviancy calling...
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top


The Black Helicopter & Foil Hat Society Wants YOU! ;~D
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
When I was a teenager, there was a guy with a customized conversion van called "Yosemite Sam". It was in all the Van mags at the time, so anyone who was into that kind of thing back then may remember it.

Anyway, the mag photographers loved to take pictures of the top view of the van, but I'm not sure how many actually got them published.

Aside from a really cool murals freaturing (you guessed it) Yosemite Sam in the classic western town scene, drawing 2 "6 guns", on both sides, there was a big hand flipping the bird. He said it was for the police helicopters, which was probably true enough back then... but now we know what it would be for if it were painted today. ;~D
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
google may not be providing it to its users, but i don't think there's any question the technology for reading license plates clearly enuff has been around for a while.

double posting error... won't let me delete]


an excellent demonstration of ineradicable human perversity ummm perverservering.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

Google Publishes it, but it is not google taking the pictures (just like Microsoft did not take the pictures for its TeraServer project).

Love it, hate it, fear it, embrace it.  Like kb says, it is here to stay and aint nuttin we can do about it.

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
google may not be providing it to its users, but i don't think there's any question the technology for reading license plates clearly enuff has been around for a while.


It has. But it has primarily been in the military domain.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I did much the same experiement this spring.

This pics looked like they were taken in the summer two years ago. (When certain buildings were in mid construction). On a developed neighbourhood finding date is difficult to tell. JUst remember they most likely aren't live sat feeds.