Google Maps: Cool and Disturbing at the Same Time!

Today I was just messing around online. I figgured I'd try to find the best directions to Jessi's apartment. So I'm sitting there looking at google maps, and then I clicked on the satellite view. It was almost disturbing how far I could zoom in. So just for the hell of it I went over to Baghdad, and actually found my COP!!! for almost an hour I was zomming in and out of familiar landmarks that I knew in the greater Kamilayah and Fedalayah area. I saw Preadators and Pluto, Rusty, the airfeild, hell I was even able to find both outter ans inner berm road. I was able to pick out at least three different houses I'd conduced raids on and I don't even want to talk about some of the other stuff I was able to find.

Then, just for shits and giggles I found my folks home and would you belive it the view showed it in such great detail that i was just a little creeped out. I could see the boat that my dad had, the tents he'd erected to protect shit from the elements, I could almost see the dogs!!! It was freaky. Were I in a anti-US mood I could do a lot of damage with intel like this.

Now granted the photos aren't current (the one for where Jessi is has snow on the ground) but If the photos are taken with in a few months, things don't change that drastically. Our Intel photos weren't this detailed, and we lived and died by them. Hell if the FBCB2, were hooked up to google maps we'd never run into dead ends. Ok maybe thats an exaguration but not by much.

So here I am, a cyberistic satellite vouyer, and I'm seeing things that I probably shouldn't, and wondering if Google can do this, how hard would it be for those that are not the good guys, to do it? The answer is I don't know, but I'm sure I wouldn't like the answer.

I don't know if I'm that good at land nav, or what, but every single point I tried to find, I found, even if I didn't know the name of the roads. All I needed were landmarks, and I found everything from E Quad at Schofield, to where my current barraks are (they don't actually show up on the map, but they're there). There is not one point that I dreamed up that I couldn't find, making it Either google, or me that's really good.

I don't think anything else has nailed home the point that, in the information age, everything is available. It seems that there is no peice of information or technology that a person can not find or at least figgure out where to get it. I'm almost affraid to ask but at what point does the government step in and say that's a little too much information for the private sector? At what point does a really nifty tool become a serious threat?

I'm going to go to bed, just a little freaked out, and hoping that I can sleep. I get the feeling that this will probably have me a little jittery for a while. After all, if I can find it, then I know someone else can. Scary hugh?