Pushing Back the Boundaries of the Known World
Posted on May 6, 2008
Filed Under Apparatchiks, China Internet, China Law, GFW |
Pacific Epoch reports:
Online map services offered by Sohu’s (Nasdaq: SOHU) search engine Sogou (map.sogou.com) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) China (ditu.google.cn) reveal confidential Chinese geography, reports People’s Daily. The report said eight Chinese ministries including the Ministry of Industry and Information (MII), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, and Ministry of Public Safety will be investigating online mapping services from April through the end of the year. Previous reports quoted State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping deputy director Min Yiren as saying there were almost 10,000 illegal map websites in China, and that offending websites would be punished or shut down. This is the first time since the original online map regulation announcement that specific companies have been mentioned as offenders by official news outlets.
There was an apparent spotting of one of China’s new nuclear submarines on Google Earth in July of 2007. Why it took the Chinese government so long to follow up on this amazes me. Sogou started its online mapping in 2005.
China is not the only nation uncomfortable with the many potential uses of high resolution images married to a map. The Indian and American governments (most volubly amongst many) have both complained to Google and had to be mollified with vigorous blurring.
Plenty of ordinary folks with anything to hide at streetview level complained too, but it seems that privacy is only important to Google from space and when it involves regulatory bodies (of an organizational kind).
From Pacific Epoch’s note, it seems that the investigations are limited to China-registered content providers, so there’s no word whether or not this will affect Google Earth. I’m sure it’s somewhere on the to-do list.
When it does come up, Google Earth servers stream data to the client application via HTTP. The source IP address is 209.85.139.91. This could be a job for the GFW.
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“When it does come up, Google Earth servers stream data to the client application via HTTP. The source IP address is 209.85.139.91. This could be a job for the GFW.”
Hmm.. Is China afraid of Chinese in mainland seeing these sensitive information, or of foreign countries and terrorists seeing these sensitive information ? Which one will GFW stop ? Which group is more dangerous to China ?
My guess would be that the Chinese government, like any other government, doesn’t want anyone seeing anything in sensitive areas such as military bases, research facilities, etc., etc.
The truth of the matter is that for space-capable countries such as the US, China, and Russia, they’ve had this capability for years. It’s been improving as the cameras improve their resolution. So everyone knows that if you leave some super-secret whiz-bang gizmo outside of the garage at the old top-secret R&D center, someone’s satellite will see it. The US is particularly fond of this kind of stuff, think of all the sat photos released of Iraq, Syria, and North Korea over the years.
It’s not unreasonable to try to limit access to this information for general security purposes, you don’t want to give whoever who may be trying to do whatever a map to help them do it. My guess is that the online map operators will rush to comply with whatever regulations are in place.
The GFW can be used to stop internationally-based content providers, but isn’t necessary for domestic ones. China has the means to do this through its regulatory system. I wonder what will happen with Google Earth.
It’s this aspect of the whole thing that interests me. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Google’s relationship with China’s regulatory agencies and the conflict of interests there. I’ll blog about that eventually.