Originally published in September 2005.

This marvellous new Google Earth thingamabob has already got itself in trouble for snooping. I cottoned on to the controversy on Tuesday when I was editing a story for The Nation about Thailand’s role in it. I tried to make our story fun, but there wasn’t as much life in it as the two articles I’m posting here.

For a genuinely funny look at the mess, scroll down to The Register’s tongue-in-cheek coverage below. But first, Michael Hann provided an overview in The Guardian on September 16 …

You can bet that Google … was not thinking about the implications for global terrorism when it launched Google Earth in July. This jaw-dropping overview of the world uses a patchwork of satellite photographs to construct a virtual globe, enabling users to type in a name and visit the place.
Now, however, governments and officials around the world are saying state security has been endangered by the site. Are they right? The South Korean government wants answers from its US counterpart about why South Korean military facilities are on plain view to any North Korean spies. A Thai military spokesman said: “We are looking for possible restrictions on these detailed pictures … I think pictures of tourist attractions should do.” A source in the Russian secret services told the MosNews website: “On these pictures, terrorists will see all they need to carry out an attack in any part of the world.”
So would it be possible, given access to the basic Google Earth package (you get better pictures if you pay) and a list of targets, to uncover the secrets of the military industrial complex? It took five minutes to find our first potential secret, at Thailand’s Korat air base, where close inspection revealed a runway lined with expensive military hardware, including fighter jets and an Awacs-equipped surveillance aircraft. Airfields, however, are the easiest military installation to spot – those vast runways are a giveaway.
So it was simple to uncover the Kunsun air base in South Korea, though zooming in to try to pick out individual aircraft just gives a dizzying blur.
So surely the South could also use Google to spy on the North? Of course. In fact, the home of North Korea’s nuclear programme at Yongbyon is there in high-resolution colour. Which is more than can be said for the centre of the Israeli nuclear programme at Dimona, the images of which are blurred to the point of uselessness – it’s impossible to tell if one is looking at a town or what is known euphemistically as a “facility”. That’s no surprise: the Israelis are so paranoid about Dimona’s secrets that they once shot down one of their own fighter planes when it strayed too close.
Quite a few American bases, too, are present in perfect detail. Khanabad, the US outpost in Uzbekistan, is shown stacked with large jets. But it used to be a civilian airport, and Google Earth uses images a few years old (the world’s intelligence agencies don’t want to upload their latest images. Shame). So are these civilian planes or US transports? We’re betting on the latter, if only because it is hard to believe Uzbekistan ever had an airport this busy.
There is one difficulty in becoming an UNCLE-style intelligence network – you really need to know what you’re looking for. Google Earth, irritatingly, won’t allow you to type in “top secret military installation” and then provide a handy list of sites to look at. And even if you do find them, the temptation is to play with the fancy zoom facility, before popping over to check your house is still where it ought to be.

Here’s the view from The Register, a wonderfully flippant online technology magazine. I’ve excerpted from their September 13 piece here, but you can find the whole thing here.

Google Earth threatens democracy – Military hardware laid bare to Godless commies

By Lester Haines
The recent news that South Korea is to take the US to task over Google Earth images which expose its military installations to close Commie scrutiny has provoked a mini stampede of other peace-loving nations eager to protect their assets from prying eyes.
Enter stage right Thailand, which says it may ask Google to “block images of important state buildings vulnerable to attack”. Armed forces spokeschap Major General Weerasak Manee-in told Reuters: “We are looking for possible restrictions on these detailed pictures, especially state buildings. I think pictures of tourist attractions should do, not crucial places which could threaten national security.”
Well, we went and had a quick shufti at some Thai military installations, and took the opportunity to scour the Earth’s surfaces for other Google satellite data which might threaten Our Way of Life. We restricted ourselves to stuff which lends itself to perusal, mostly air force bases, because (trust us on this one) you can easily waste a whole day looking for Russian ICBM installations.
First up, the evidence for Thai military preparedness. Here’s Udorn Air Force base, around 300 miles from Bangkok. Move along, nothing to see here, but try Korat [a town in Thailand’s northeast]. That’s more like it. Zoom in for a closer look, and voila! Top-quality, US-bought hardware. They’ve even got an awacs [American plane with spy dish on top] parked there on the hard shoulder: Hmmm. The good General may have a point. On the other hand, what is Thailand realistically going to do about it?
Manee’s Sri Lankan counterpart, Brigadier Daya Ratnayake, … sagely said: “In this era of technology, you have to live with the fact that almost everything is on the Internet - from bomb-making instructions to assembling aircraft. So it’s something the military has to learn to live with and adapt.”
India agrees. Reuters quotes an anonymous security official there as confirming that “the issue of satellite imagery had been discussed at the highest level but the government had concluded that ‘technology cannot be stopped’.”
“We are aware that there are websites which give detailed pictures of buildings like the president’s house including every tree in the compound. Our security agencies are aware of this but how can we stop technology?” he added.

The Register then goes on to say that Australia has been fretting over Google’s all-seeing eye and is taking “appropriate measures to manage the threat” posed by satellite imaging. It shows a pretty good picture of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation nuclear reactor south of Sydney, “although ANSTO declared the ‘current images on Google posed no security risk’ because ‘although buildings are clearly visible, critical infrastructure is not. The photographs are over two years old.’

“Quite so,” The Register says. “At this point we’re getting the feeling that the South Koreans and Thai may be over-reacting a tad. What’s more, they’re not looking at the plus side: if Vietnam and North Korea are as we speak eagerly filling their broadband boots with Google-supplied military secrets, what’s to stop us exploiting the same resource?
“Accordingly, we thought we’d have a sniff around for installations belonging to those countries who do not share our absolute belief in the God-given right to surf the Internet for Paris-Hilton-based softcore porn and military secrets.
“As we’ve already said, scouring the birch forests of Russia for ICBM silos is a fruitless task, although we invite readers to prove otherwise. Yes, we know the Russians are our mates now, but there’s something deliciously Cold War about aerial views of Zhukovsy air base – blessed with the longest runway in Europe, we gather, as the pic shows [a pic of Zhukovsky – now the Gromov Flight Research Institute near Moscow, then another of an air base at Lingshui, on the Chinese island of Hainan].
“Down in North Korea, meanwhile, which was the cause of all this kerfuffle in the first place, there are Migs in that thar Orang airbase, make no mistake [dull picture]. Not very impressive, we agree – and hardly the kind of top-quality imaging which brought us the US’ famous Area 51 [dull picture].
“The contrast between the resolution of snaps of America’s finest crashed-spacecraft-handling facility and Godless commie airstrips brings us to our final, crucial question: has Google sold the West out to the forces of darkness? The answer to this is yes. And no. Sort of. Let’s have a look at some sensitive UK sites [several photos of UK military facilities, ALL of them blurry, apparently like the rest of England, as I’ve lamented elsewhere].
“Disappointed? Yes, us too, until we took another swoop over the English countryside. It’s a matter of record that Google has obscured the White House roof, and the tops of other key US governmental buildings (Why? Because that’s where they park the black helicopters, naturally), but this concession to national security does not extend to RAF Coltishall … RAF Fairford [and] Gloucestershire? [all good pics].
“In conclusion, we’d like to say that we cannot claim to have scoured every tasty airbase in the world to see if Google has caught the propeller-jockeys with their trousers round their ankles, but we reckon readers will have hours of amusement hunting for naked military hardware.”