German vandals target Street View opt-out homes | Hacker News Reader

German vandals target Street View opt-out homes

bbc.co.uk

31 pointssoren_dahl47 comments

I didn't think very much of it at the time these requests were made, but now that I have seen the effect, pixelating these houses seems like an act of vandalism in itself to me.

Imagine 50 or so years from now, these recordings will be a wonderful document of our times, but in Germany they are now heavily scarred.

But don’t you know that creating historical documents is not the task of filthy profit-oriented corporations but of the pure German government?

Touche - I guess the EU will soon invest a Trillion dollars into their own streetview project, which will unfortunately never go anywhere (what has happened to the EU financed Google killer?).

How so? The source material is no doubt still available in unpixelated form.

No, the German data protection officials insisted on Google blurring the original source material and not preserving any unblurred copies.

IMHO, that might be appropriate in certain exceptional circumstances, e.g. when inadvertently something very private or embarrassing has been captured, but it is a bit over the top as a general policy.

According to google, it is not.

The picture displays typical German life.

That photo was taken in the small bavarian village Oberstaufen (pop. 7,000). Their marketing people invited Google (and baked cake for them [0]) when the debate about Street View was heating up in Germany. As a consequence Oberstaufen was the only town or village you could visit on Google Street View two weeks before the service launched with all the major cities. Suffice it to say, Oberstaufen received tons of free media coverage because of that.

I think that’s a pretty genius move of the marketing people in a small village in a tourism region.

[0] http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/11/special-preview-o...

Thanks! I did not know that. It's a brilliant move.

Haha, totally. I don't know - I think it's kind of sad. Rural Bavarian life is taken for life in Germany in general... it's plain wrong. I should know, because I live in Germany. I wonder why everyone keeps going back to restricting Germany to that single cliche.

The southern part of a european country is usually the stereotype of the larger nation.

When thinking of the UK the stereotype is the english banker more than the scottish clansmen, for spain is the mediterranean south insted of the atlantic/mountainous north, for italy it's the more noisy&caoithic rome/naples/sicily instead of the mitteleuropeans & industrial milan and turin.

I have no explanation for this though except some pseudohistorical ramblings.

How about the Russians? It can get pretty hot in the south in summer there, but everyone is just depicting Russia in winter.

Another funny thing is that part of European countries that's closer to Switzerland tends to be richer. E.g. the north of Italy, and the south of Britain and Germany. (It doesn't work for Belgium, though.)

Because the other cliché is even less political correct.

(And I am German, but don't live there any longer.)

Strange enough, I passed an Alphorn concert in a Berlin park the other day. Berlin is very far away from the Alps.

I must admit that I would find it amusing as a street art project to pixelate some of those houses for real, with some kind of graffiti perhaps. Or like the artist Christo who wraps things into garments (including the German Reichstag).

I find the pixelated buildings really annoying. Luckily mine isn't pixelated yet, but I am sure it is only a matter of time. My street already has 5 pixelated buildings.

>I would find it amusing as a street art project to pixelate some of those houses for real,

That would be fantastic, I'm thinking, having large pixels on a fuzzy material, varying colours matched to the surrounding buildings but at different depths to avoid anyone getting a focussed image of the whole building? Any ideas on materials? At first I thought frosted perspex, but I'm more drawn to fabric that can be fuzzy round the edges too.

I've opted out from street-view, asking both my flat, and my car to be removed, Google obliged. No eggs yet.

The eggs are the exception, I think. With 250k people having opted out, and the article speaking of 'some homes in Essen'... it probably were some youths high on googlemania - a local thing. Though I suppose others may follow - copycats.

"some youths high on googlemania - a local thing"

Is this really a thing in Germany? That's the weirdest part of this whole story, that kids would care that much about an international corporation like Google. It'd be like getting in a fight with someone because they didn't drink Coke.

It’s a bit baffling to me, too, but there are some voices on the web which feel very strongly about that whole Street View thing one way or another. The sentiment that opting-out is very narrow minded definitely exists. It also looks like this is an isolated case, so all it takes is one or two people taking that sentiment too far.

Just to give you an idea of the discourse at the moment, there was for example this blogger who proposed uploading geotagged photos (publishing those is, after all, legal if maybe morally questionable) of the blurred buildings which will then appear on Google Maps and Street View [0]. That idea found quite a few supporters and was also controversially discussed.

[0] http://mspr0.de/?p=1767 (German)

Why?

Why did I opt out? I'm not on Twitterbook, and try to share as little personal (non work related) information on-line as I can (although there's probably more out there than I'd like). It's my 'default mode' to be cautious when sharing data, I may be over-cautious but I still think it's my right to be. There only seems to be upside for Google, and potential downside for me, in having my property on their site.

Do you understand that image of your house is public domain information?

I do. It's a public space. But while Google gives me the option to remove it, I will.

So you are vandal. You are vandalizing Street View.

Let's put a webcam at your door. Your employer would love to confirm you are on your way on time this morning and some of us would love to see you struggling with the keys again, like the other night.

It's public information.

This reads like sarcasm right now in this context, but it won't always. By 2020, I would expect cameras to be so cheap, widespread, and connected that you can walk virtually down most city streets in real time. Shortly after that's common, the idea that you would consider the outside of your home "private" will seem peculiar.

I can well believe that will be the case. I saw a link on HN the other day for 'personal drones', unmanned flying devices that track you with GPS taking aerial photos along the way http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870363170457555...

If it's not regulated then I'll call myself libertarian and sabotage as many cameras as possible. If it's left behind on public space it's public.

>try to share as little personal (non work related) information on-line as I can

What, are you afraid we'll come around to Halesworth Rd and steal your kindle or something?

I know you are just trying to make a point, but is that really necessary ??? Also, where's Halesworth Rd, and why would my Kindle be there?

It was a serious question: I noticed that you're traceable via your business which you link to _grrr so I assume that you consider HN to be a business use rather than "personal" life.

So, I was wondering what it is you're trying to achieve by not being on Facebook, say. Is it that Facebook can access your data or are you worried that they won't honour your privacy settings, or?

well done, you can use whois.

.. and notice that at least one of the contacts there is made up.

When visiting someone for the first time it's nice to be able to look at street view and know what the house looks like. (This may only be an issue in a town or city, but it's a lot easier to read building numbers from street view ahead of time than it is while driving.)

PS: You can also vairfy you have the correct location when talking to someone over the phone.

If you are an invited visitor, he could send you a photo of his house along with the invitation.

Can you elaborate in what the potential downside might be ?

It's subjective, and just my personal opinion, but I cann't see any upside to me from Google using these images of my house. So, my logic begs the question that if there's no upside for me, what else is left, and for what possible reason would I want that data there? At the end of the day I'm just exercising my choice, I'm not vilifying Google, like I said, they obliged. Fair enough?

all your data are belong to us ;-)

I've given friends directions to my building by showing it to them on Street View. It isn't devoid of upsides.

"So, my logic begs the question that if there's no upside for me, what else is left"

Society, the greater good? What upsides are there for you to keep your house in good order? Why not let it deteriorate and make your street ugly?

What's keeping my house in good order, and being a good neighbour got to do with electing to use the option offered to me by Google to remove these images? Are you saying I'm wrong for doing so? I'm saying that this matter is still very subjective, it's all new, and there are no wrong or right answer yet, but isn't it still my choice? Google seems to agree with me.

Well you ruined your street in streetview, and diminished the usefulness of the product for everybody else. Of course it is your choice.

Would you feel the same if streetview was a government project? Sure, google is a company, probably they'll get something out of it. But then again, they created this really cool utility and document for people - and you spoiled it.

How exactly does it ruin streetview for you if his house is not included?

> Would you feel the same if streetview was a government project?

Yes

Bah! Humbug!

I live in Germany and eyed the whole process of Google Street View.

The whole thing with the opt-out is more considered to be a conflict of generations, so don't take this too seriously.

The problem is a different one: if in one apartment building only one rentee opts out the whole apartment building becomes blurred. This is what caused a lot of hate by rentees who want the house to be seen in Street View.

Another action that occured (only in German, sorry, but I'll try to translate roughly):

http://asset.soup.io/asset/1253/8519_985c.jpeg

Someone put a note saying that because some rentee saw his private sphere violated by Google Street View he won't accept packages for his neighbours anymore since this is also a violation of private sphere. Additionally he blurred his signature for security reasons (because of the often quoted argument that showing the house in Google Street View causes safety concerns).

The other kind of vandalism has happened too, where houses were requested to be taken down / pixelated by someone other than the owner or tenants. There was a news report about this happening to the Green party headquarters last week, and according to Google, it couldn't be undone because Google had deleted the data (imagine that).

Completely deleting the photos of houses people requested to be blurred was one of the requirements of the government. (It’s not a law but a voluntary agreement. The government did, however, threaten to regulate services like Street View. That’s probably not going to happen now.)

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