Showing posts with label basra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label basra. Show all posts

14 January 2007

Open Source War and Google Earth

How's this for a confluence:

Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra are using aerial footage displayed by the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint their attacks, say Army intelligence sources.

Documents seized during raids on the homes of insurgents last week uncovered print-outs from photographs taken from Google.

The satellite photographs show in detail the buildings inside the bases and vulnerable areas such as tented accommodation, lavatory blocks and where lightly armoured Land Rovers are parked.

Written on the back of one set of photographs taken of the Shatt al Arab Hotel, headquarters for the 1,000 men of the Staffordshire Regiment battle group, officers found the camp's precise longitude and latitude.

So what do they do? They try to censor the images. But guess what? That's not going to work, and it's going to get worse. The two main solutions are (a) change the way you fight wars or - rather better - (b) don't fight wars in the first place.