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Comment by emj | Hacker News Reader

I do not doubt some people were using unclassified public domains maps. CIA should use Openstreetmap so they can all share the same info, just add a "NOT_FOR_TERRIES" the the entries that should be kept secret.

Getting names of landmarks right is really hard unless you have people on the ground that are specifically looking for that, and who are supposed to update maps. I don't know how the military/intelligence community works, but have they really invested manpower into this? This is from experience with mapping around lake Victoria and Haiti, the map might look ok but when you put your boots on the ground things are different. Especially since official vs. local names can differ so much.

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“Getting names of landmarks right is really hard unless you have people on the ground that are specifically looking for that, and who are supposed to update maps”

Isn’t the purpose of intelligence agencies to collect intelligence, such as landmark names and maps?

Yes of course, and I have no insight into how they worked with maps (except remote imaging), I just know that the amount of hours you need to invest per village with 300+ pop is quite large. There are also several organizational issue with maps, how do you keep them secret, what do you map, where do you map, if caught with a map are you a spy. Basically why would you give a beat cop a top secret map, my comment about Openstreetmap was a joke but it highlights the bigger problem that maps are a social good and that is not always the goal of the intelligence community in hostile environment.

Lots of places have multiple names. Especially in the Arab world, I would expect many places to have a "formal name" that might appear on a government map but that differs from how locals refer to it.

I'm alo not sure if the purpose of intelligence agencies is to collect the names of landmarks either. And speaking as someone who works with maps, it wouldn't surprise me at all if various agencies used severely outdated maps. In fact, I'd be shocked if they were efficient about that kind of thing.

Of I was CIA, I would fund openstreemap. Wait...

Wait, the map is not the territory?

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