Want to find out the latest secret nuclear submarine technology? Then just pop along to Google Maps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth and seek your nearest top secret naval base.
A man looking for a new home on an online mapping service has stumbled across an aerial image of a US nuclear-powered submarine in dry dock showing a part of the vessel that wasn't meant to be seen.
The image which appears on Microsoft's Virtual Earth mapping service – is of the seven-bladed propeller used on an Ohio class ballistic missile submarine.
A similar incident occurred recently when Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons analyst for the Federation of American Scientists, spotted an aerial image of China's new Jin-class nuclear-powered submarine on Google Earth.
One has to really wonder about military and security establishments don't you. They really don't have any grounds for demanding that internet be sanitized for the sake of national security do they. So much security, and secrecy yet a commercial satellite snaps sensitive information, so who knows what the spy satellites have got.
Maybe nations could seriously reduce their (excessive) military spending and just use the internet to find the latest "secrets". It seems to work for everybody else.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:07 am
[...] through obscurity (Apple) and denial (Macintosh). Last year on Google Maps you could go and look at satellite images of a top secret US Navy submarine in dry dock. The US military screamed to take down the images. D'uh hello? If a commercial [...]