Please forgive me if this has been asked before or if it is a really inane question but -

Where does Google source the images for Google earth?

I have marvelled at this program since its early days - as an old 'Cold War Warrior' I would have been ecstatic with images of 'enemy' territory as good as you can now see on any computer! I can even make out the furniture in my garden! and I now have a better collection of aerial views of the RAF bases I served on than when I took my own photo's of them!

Sure Uncle Sam has always claimed its spy satellites were good, but unless they've hawked the images to boost the defence budget, how were they released?

I can't see commercial ground imaging sattelites being allowed to be that good over defence installations either.

So please, someone put this old warhorse out of his misery and spill the beans!

Moderators, Please move this to a more appropriate forum if this isn't it!

There are dozens of companies selling satellite data. At the end of the cold war what was left of the Soviet Union sold whatever they could, which is another source.

If you cannot get an image from Nasa you buy it from Russia, and if you cannot get it from Russia you buy it from Nasa. Additionally there is the European Geodat agency that sell everything not sensitive to European security.

Thank you for a prompt, straightforward answer that doesn't involve zarquon the great and the intergalactic planetary survey corporation of epsilon eridani!

Perhaps i am still set in my cold war ways, the idea that such images, that would be classed as among a country's highest secret capabilities, are readily available on the open market is i suppose a relic of the last century thinking that steeped the early part of my life.

Things that instill a sense of wonder to me such as the space programme, medical imaging technology and the pace of development in computer technology to name a few, I suppose are just too commonplace nowadays to be out of the ordinary.

The military and government can zoom in a few more times from what I hear.

We may not have much privacy unless it's cloudy.

Thank god for roofs. Heheh.

With certain technologies the NSA and CIA could zoom in on a newspaper headline on the red square. The problem is to cover all of the earth with that resolution you would need a few billion satellites, one or two can't be everywhere, and mostly too busy in some focal points of the globe.

That means, for most of us no problem.... they are busy elsewhere.

I remember seeing my first satellite images of my city. It was on the internet before google and they were declassified Russian satellite images. The feeling was surreal knowing these were the same images Russian intelligence would look at when surveying my city, which had five military bases, and knowing we would have been one of the first targets in any strategic exchange of ballistic missiles.

Perhaps with modern imaging technology, it doesn't matter whether the roof is there or not!

I have no doubt that when our images were first viewed by our Soviet Bloc counterparts. they too felt the same feelings!
When we used to intercept Russian long range aircraft (when they were 'testing' our responses), often we would be taking Photographs of them photographing us!

I was thinking the same thing. Of course if your own government is trying look at you, it might not even matter, they would not need to use a satellite and could see through your walls with thermal/infrared imagery from an aircraft.

oh noes the black helicopters keep flying over my house!!!

Lol, there are black helicopters and if they are flying over your house you should be worried.

Lol, In the UK a black helicopter merely shows it is allocated to a training role, I don't think that includes taking Xray movies of the cannabis farm in your attic! (Supposing you were to have one that is!)

dont forget about infrared and all the newest heat detecting tech.

People are more concerned, generally speaking nowadays, with the 'use' of information, and its 'value', rather than access to it.

In other words, if your primary concern is to prevent Russians from obtaining information that they could use to pinpoint a sensitive target, then you are going about it the wrong way: sooner or later information does leak, through spies, satellites, and of course, hard headed people often get away with getting what they want, eventually.

There is the first issue of technological feats, such as nanotechnology. You cannot possibly prevent information from leaking knowing that there are infinite numbers of products coming in from all over the world that could pose a threat to sensitive information: anything from a desk lamp to a cell phone, while not forgetting, of course, things such as television sets, scanners, cameras, etc. Of course, 'hacking' or 'pirating' means that your enemies don't actually need to spy on you to obtain information, they just let you do the hard work of figuring out where you would hit, how they can prevent that, and simply use it to come up with an ingenious way of ridiculing you on CNN. Much of the 'war' nowadays has to do with ambiguity and information channeling rather than its lack: it is much harder to decide which information is bogus and which is correct that it is to actually search for the right information if there were no 'traps', or bogus information readily available for the takers. Chances are, even if the enemy ends up obtaining some classified information, they wouldn't actually know what to do with it because it lurks somewhere on top of some desk with at least a thousand other 'prospect' files that may or may not prove to be useful, if anyone can manage to know how to use them. This basically means 'buying' time, because it does take a lot of time to figure out what to do with information once you do obtain it. And this is where the 'perfect' trick lies: by the time a solution or a scenario relating to 'correct' information is obtained, it is probably on a waiting list amongst other scenarios that will never work because they are based on 'lies', and even if the waiting list does shuffle the 'right' target to the top, then it is very unlikely to be a 'target' anymore, because well, things 'change', and if you keep that in mind, then the chances of actually getting anything out of information are about as close to winning the lottery's grand prize... Here's an example: suppose you decide you hate ants. Then there is this ant nest right in front of your doorstep. Of course, it would be easy to crush the ants every time you go to work, on your way to the cleaner's, before you pick up your kids from school: i.e. anytime. But that is only because you know of this ant nest that is right in front of your doorstep. One day you don't find it, so you go on looking for it: aha! Smash, there goes another funeral ceremony for the ant population. They move up the hill, but it only takes you a couple of weeks to figure it out, so smash, and the ants decide they've had it, they would build an infinite number of nests, keep migrating between these nests, put all sorts of bogus traps to make you believe they are in any one of those nests at any time, another infinite number of warning systems to warn them once you do start looking for the right nest, and so on. This will keep you looking for the ants, and the ants, pretty much safe. Or, simply put, the chances of you crushing the ants will be much less significant to you to keep on doing it, because after all, what do you benefit from crushing the ants other than that evil satisfaction? Nothing, other than a lot of wasted time, energy, resources, and frustration of not being able to figure out where the ants are so you could crush them.

There is no way to win such a game, because the attacker is always losing. And even if the ants lose, which is inevitable and will happen sooner or later, they would have figured out an infinite number of ways to blow you up, because while you are busy looking for them, they know where you are, and they are calculating ways of dealing with you, because they know that you are an infinite threat. They will never stop their calculations because they can never trust the 'remote possibility' that you could just get tired of the 'silly game' you are playing. Either way, the ants are always one step ahead. Because maybe one day you get back to your home and find that the foundations were 'ripped' apart by the ants while you were busy looking for them. And another day you might find poison on your food, that same poison you have put on some nest to 'trap' them. You get the idea? You cannot lose if you are a prey... Unless you actually want to lose. You cannot afford to lose, you can't lose, ... But the other thing is, you can't win, if winning is 'beating the hell' out of the enemy, defeating their urge or 'making them stop', because they won't. That's nature.

If you take that into consideration, and really think about it, you will see that there is no point in trying to 'restrain' information, because when you do that and once information leaks, chances are, it is information that will be 'lethal' to you. So you might as well let information leak, even if the enemy knows something important, they will probably not know that it is something important, because they know 'so much'.

This of course, is something that is relatively 'apparent' and that is being 'worked' on, i.e. long ago it was very hard to 'crack' a password, nowadays it is much easier, so that solution is not viable to protect yourself either. Maybe there is 'more' to it than we can possibly imagine

I hope this sheds some light about the current 'freezing' war;)

Sincerely,

Cruentos Solum

Cheers

Note that google earth has been known to downgrade the resolution of certain areas that the government deems to be of national interest.
If you look around the internet, you can even find people who claim that google even goes so far as to remove certain features from their images.
Google earth was a tremendous help to everyone who wanted to know where area 51 is.

Also, certain areas use aerial photography images in stead of satellite images for better resolution.

Thank you everyone who has given their time freely to reply to my question

I still feel Google earth is nothing short of miraculous - allowing me to relive flights I have made in the past and simulate those I can no longer afford to do for real!

I have spent time looking at my relatives property all over the planet, something I am never going to be able to do in real life now, and it's made my chats with them over the net and the Phone really come to life.

IF only they could finally perfect a matter transporter device to add to google, allowing us to travel instantly to whatever place we are currently viewing, that would be my idea of the perfect additional feature! Sorry not making much sense, the pain medications making things a bit fuzzy!

Is there a flight simulator that uses Google Earth?

Yes and no...you can use google earth images to create photo realistic scenery for MSFS (2002-FSX), but it does not come with google earth images.

Sorry I should have explained what I meant by 'flights' -

Google Earth allows you to 'Pan' over the image at various speeds, no matter what height you are viewing from, by left clicking to grab the image, sliding it and releasing. The image then moves below your point of view automatically until you grab it again.

I use this to give me the impression of soaring over various routes i have flown or would have liked to!

hope this has clarified my meaning and hasn't left you even more puzzled

There is already technology that uses 'xray' effects to see through your home, I am sure. What do you think?

Difficult, especially with x-rays. Radar would not be the most adequate either because of all the spurious signals from that distance.