Hacker News Reader

Comment by Quentak | Hacker News Reader

Screenshot for when it will have been deleted by Google https://i.imgur.com/toSC5a0.png .

Would be disappointing for them to remove it for basically no reason, especially considering you can see a B-2 parked on the tarmac (https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B043'29.9%22N+93%C2%...) in the nearby Whiteman AFB. The B-2 was first flown 32 years ago. Its existence is neither covert or secret, but often used to do flybys at freaking football games where thousands of recording devices are present and active. There's virtually no national security risk with these images because any imagery obtainable by Google Maps would've been obtainable by whatever adversary long ago, plus some more.

Correct, but don't misunderestimate the power of knowledge.

Let's assume that some adversary is out there keeping track of these planes, and knows that they can scan Google maps for the RGB artifact by the engines to locate them reliably and programmatically.

Now Google maps becomes a repository for information that adversary may use to validate other information. Maybe this confirms the schedule for some training excersise. Maybe this particular B2 being in this location validates or invalidates other information about US troop strength abroad.

I was taught to always "assume your adversary is capable of going through your trash" and try to prepare my "trash" accordingly.

The fatal premise is assuming Google Maps updates these areas frequently enough to provide useful info. The military security implications of Google Earth have existed since its launch and Google Maps by relation is no stranger to it. This is not new info and it hardly counts as "knowledge" much less with "power".

Reconnaissance satellite technology isn't US-exclusive (https://www.dw.com/en/modern-spy-satellites-in-an-age-of-spa..., Ctrl+F "Spy satellites in numbers") and those who have a meaningful need to track B-2 movements most likely have their own tools that are up to date, more accurate, and not bound by laws or regulations a US domiciled company is subjected to. What we see on Google Maps is almost guaranted to be 100% "trash" from a military intelligence perspective because actual valuable information has always been obtainable without Google Maps for entities who are capable and in need.

Similar to how the president brings his own toilet when doing foreign visits so enemies can't analyze his poop to see what medicines he's taking or what medical conditions he has.

Kim Jong Un does that, but I can't find record of any other world leader doing so. That takes a special level of paranoia.

Can't find a source on the president doing that at the moment, but Stalin examined the poop of visiting leaders:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35427926

Spare a thought for the presidential aide responsible for safeguarding POTUS's poop, so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. I'd hate to be the person assigned to "doodie duty".

That would be some Gattaca level paranoia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

Any adversary that the USA cared about already can get this info from their own satellites. They aren't using Google Maps.

Impressive level of paranoia from a citizen of a country with 800 bases around the world. Mad propz for your mass media.

So the US should have no defensive doctrine at all because we have so many spoils of war?

Whatever country you are in would do the same if it could.

Honestly with the known ties between the US government and Google, if I were a state-level adversary I'd probably be wondering why Google wasn't scrubbing the plane programmatically, rather than assuming that I had caught someone in a 'Gotcha!' moment.

In other words; this google maps link has been circulating around the net for the past week and a half at least -- seemingly originating from either a Discord or the chans; if I were some foreign intelligence analyst I'd definitely be considering the premise that these photos have been so widespread and uncensored simply as an online show-of-force.

( personal anecdote : as an amateur aviation enthusiast/plane-watcher, the B2, as majestic as she is, isn't particularly rare to catch in the skies -- and nowhere near 'secret' )

i doubt they'd remove it for security reasons - as you say, there's nothing secret about what this plane is doing here. more that they'd remove it for the same reasons they remove clouds or any other in-air objects that obscure the thing they're actually trying to take photos of.

the plane isn't part of the map, so it shouldn't be on the map. even if it's not obscuring anything, they use satellite photos to generate building outlines, and this isn't a building. given how many planes there are flying all the time, and how infrequently you see them on google maps, they must make an effort to publish satellite imagery that doensn't have planes in it.

I wouldn't expect it to get deleted for any kind of security reason... but it will get replaced, and possibly faster because there's a defect. Moving object artifacts are undesirable and make the image more difficult to use especially for automation (such as Google's registration). They tend to get knocked out automatically over time as the composition algorithms try to keep a neatly consistent scene. They may even be handled as clouds depending on which methods Google uses to avoid cloud cover. This is the same force that has slowly worked most alignment and registration marks out of Google imagery (for a long time aerial imagery usually contained registration marks etched into the camera optics), although you will still find them especially in areas that are more challenging to register by machine vision (deserts, etc).

Aircraft in Keyhole and Google Earth used to be extremely common before the composition methods improved and more imagery sources became available. You could just about make out the traffic pattern at some airports. You can still find them but they're much rarer today.

Too bad they can't mark a tile (such as this one) to preserve forever from the backend control plane.

Wait until you see what's hiding in the cornfield under the B-2.

Ugh, so when Google does a normal map update, unless there just happens to be a B-2 flying in the same spot, the conspiracy nutjobs are going to think there's some Google / US government conspiracy.

The truth is the fact these planes exist and that there is a base nearby is public knowledge. Any country that cares already has its satellite imagery at much higher resoltion and realtime.

You can already see it happening in the first reply to this parent:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29628333

Here's another: https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B001'18.5%22N+93%C2%...

lol why would they? The B-2 even flies with radar reflectors in civil airspace so that ATC can track it.

Is Google taking their own satellite pictures now, or are these from Maxar, or another provider?

This particular image was done by Maxar, you can see it in the lower right corner.

Super, thank you!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com