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US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

bbc.co.uk

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Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#11

Post by ser_ocelot »

nitrogen wrote: post #7
McDiesel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point you will just have to realize that this illusion of privacy you have is just that... an illusion. Privacy exists in small pockets, and only in places that you control access to. Aside from that, you might as well consider it public.

Thanks to drones and satellites, privacy no longer exists in private yards, even those with high fences lined with trees. Thanks to infrared photography, structure-penetrating radar, cell phones, etc., privacy no longer exists indoors either. This is not right.

Is there a suitable material for a lightweight "roof" you could put over your property that would block aerial photography but still allow sunlight and rain to penetrate?

One could even make it shielded against electromagnetic frequencies. No more drones hacking your wifi!

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#12

Post by shiven »

trebor wrote: post #2

I don't like this. You can already see a lot of detail on these satellite photos. This is a huge breach of privacy. (Not that a 50cm lower limit isn't a breach of privacy.)

For all the browbeating about erosion of privacy, I have yet to come across practical, consumer-proof solutions to anything that protects against said loss of privacy. Digital, software, hardware anything? The only solutions out there are range from impractical to ludicrous. Go hoodies, go Tor, go klutzy-PGP, go burkas!! /sigh

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#13

Post by schoen »

nitrogen wrote: post #7
McDiesel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point you will just have to realize that this illusion of privacy you have is just that... an illusion. Privacy exists in small pockets, and only in places that you control access to. Aside from that, you might as well consider it public.

Thanks to drones and satellites, privacy no longer exists in private yards, even those with high fences lined with trees. Thanks to infrared photography, structure-penetrating radar, cell phones, etc., privacy no longer exists indoors either. This is not right.

Interestingly, the U.S. Supreme Court surprised many people in 2001 by putting limits on government use of infrared imaging. (They didn't ban it entirely, but they said that it would be regulated as a search, normally requiring permission from a judge.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States

This means that police may not be able to routinely use imaging technologies, including active radars, to look through the walls of people's homes.

(Interestingly, this is a way in which police now have fewer powers than the general public, since in most places there are no laws preventing you as a civilian from using infrared imaging to look at someone's house.)

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#14

Post by crusso »

dublinben wrote: post #10
nitrogen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to drones and satellites, privacy no longer exists in private yards, even those with high fences lined with trees. Thanks to infrared photography, structure-penetrating radar, cell phones, etc., privacy no longer exists indoors either. This is not right.

>This is not right. This is reality though. Our expectations of privacy must adjust to changes in technology.

What is allowed with technology does not dictate what is right or even legal.

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#15

Post by wahsd »

guylhem wrote: post #6

I don't like this. What is the business of a government in regulating the resolution of whatever form of imagery??? If it can be seen from the sky, or from the street, it's public. Planes, satellites, drones, whatever - you should be free to take pics and sell them if you want. Fortunately, digital camera didn't exist where such kind of laws had been passed, or there would have been similar stupid restrictions (imagi…

I don't think I can agree with that. To a certain extent, I think this will be another one of those fronts where modern technology tries to breach fundamental and human rights.

What should give you the right, just because you can fly something over someone's property, to take pictures of them and their private space. The issue is a similar one to drones. Should you be permitted to violate someone's privacy in their own back yard or on their property just because you have the technology to circumvent safeguards?

There is no real difference whether the drone is 100 feet above your property or in the ionosphere? If someone put a camera on a stick and held it high enough to tape what goes on in your bedroom or back yard when your children are swimming they would be considered committing an illegal act?

In a way, you should have the right to automatically remove your property from satellite imagery. Or maybe you should get royalties for your property being part of the service. In fact, what is the difference between royalties due for commercial use of their images and that of your back yard? There is none, other than that the imagery of your back yard, especially at those resolutions, are a violation of your most basic and fundamental rights as a human. What, is it going to be left to individuals to build visual obstructions to prevent observation from above?

So you are now rationalizing how this is all different and how it's justified. Well, what happens when technology is developed that allows real time 1cm resolution, live, 24/7 observation? Or what if technology is developed that allows reconstruction of the interior of your home, maybe even in color resolution based on chemical analysis, and maybe even in real time?

Where is the limit? It should lie with the most fundamental rights that are being violated right as we speak. Everyone should have the right to privacy or a choice to profit from it.

We are already having the value of our identities and activities harvested from us, are we really going to allow constant and pervasive surveillance to steal our humanity too? At what point do a certain subset of people simply regress to becoming a commodity that is monitored and maintained like cattle on Big USA Ranch?

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#16

Post by trebor »

rwmj wrote: post #3
trebor wrote: post #2

I don't like this. You can already see a lot of detail on these satellite photos. This is a huge breach of privacy. (Not that a 50cm lower limit isn't a breach of privacy.)

Do you worry about people flying planes over your house, looking over your fence, etc?

What worries me more is what kind of corporate espionage these satellite images will be put to use for. They've been able to see the car(s) in a driveway for awhile now. But imagine: now they can pay to see what the most popular cars are in a geographical region; they can look at your deck and determine furniture brands; they can see you sunbathing; they can see what you play with, etc. No longer is it just "buying habits" but they can, en masse, buy the rights to psychoanalyze your lifestyle base on what they see from the outside of your house.

I'm pretty certain that a company paying a team of photographers to stalk the average citizen to psychoanalyze their world would be creepy, if not illegal. But this is exactly what they will be doing—and we'll have no ability to "outrun" their team of photographers. Technically, we won't even know when they're overhead.

And that does bother me.

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#18

Post by bluman »

trebor wrote: post #2

I don't like this. You can already see a lot of detail on these satellite photos. This is a huge breach of privacy. (Not that a 50cm lower limit isn't a breach of privacy.)

Effectively the resolution of commercial satellite imagery will be changing from 50cm to 40cm and then 25cm later this summer when WorldView-3 is online. This is vastly less commercial aerial photography which has been around 15cm for the last decade and increasingly around 7cm at affordable costs. I don't believe that satellite imagery will be getting much better due to quantum diffraction.

I'm not saying that this isn't a privacy issue it's just that the situation hasn't gotten appreciably worse because of this announcement.

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#19

Post by keithg »

schoen wrote: post #13
nitrogen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to drones and satellites, privacy no longer exists in private yards, even those with high fences lined with trees. Thanks to infrared photography, structure-penetrating radar, cell phones, etc., privacy no longer exists indoors either. This is not right.

Interestingly, the U.S. Supreme Court surprised many people in 2001 by putting limits on government use of infrared imaging. (They didn't ban it entirely, but they said that it would be regulated as a search, normally requiring permission from a judge.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States This means that police may not be able to routinely use imaging technologies, including active radars, to look th…

Presumably citizens are allowed because they don't have the power to charge & convict you of some alleged crime. If the citizen's imagery were somehow brought into a legal matter, then it would be up to the judge to determine its legality. Conversely and unfortunately, law enforcement and government seem to enjoy a defacto legality until someone says otherwise. By limiting their use of this technology, hopefully it mitigates the defacto and clandestine nature of it, bringing it at least to a level of awareness during legal proceedings.

Re: US lifts restrictions on more detailed satellite images

#20

Post by bluman »

ser_ocelot wrote: post #11
nitrogen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to drones and satellites, privacy no longer exists in private yards, even those with high fences lined with trees. Thanks to infrared photography, structure-penetrating radar, cell phones, etc., privacy no longer exists indoors either. This is not right.

Is there a suitable material for a lightweight "roof" you could put over your property that would block aerial photography but still allow sunlight and rain to penetrate? One could even make it shielded against electromagnetic frequencies. No more drones hacking your wifi!

Camouflage netting is perhaps the only surefire way to do this, although I'm sure that will attract far more attention than doing nothing at all. Something that would work kind of OK would be to create a large radiometric difference in your property like having a dark black roof and making your lawn as reflective as possible (white cement or gravel, swimming pool). That way when the imagery is processed in an automated fashion it will render your area badly. It still would be possible to go back to the original images and enhance the area manually but can be quite a chore.
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