That's why some countries have weird regulations about maps. South Korea does not allow exporting vector maps, so Google Maps rendering is vector based everywhere except in a region surrounding South Korea [1]. China applies a (not so) secret pseudorandom offset to all geographic coordinates in online maps, frequently resulting in mismatches between systems that apply corrections and those that don't. It seems silly during peacetime but when there's an actual war, you can see why people might want that kind of thing.
And militaries all over the globe do use Google Maps extensively, if not by policy then just by soldiers doing their own thing. Wrong borders in Google Maps have nearly led to international incidents when soldiers ended up on the wrong side of a border. And then there are the disputed borders that Google is forced to display differently in different countries. There is no globally accepted map and as a result the map Google shows you changes depending on where you're located.
[1] Actually I am out of date, it looks like the South Korea maps are vector based now. Maybe the law changed. It definitely used to be the case.
The law as I recall it a decade ago was a bit more specific: you could only store and process the data in South Korea. Thus, the whole planet's tiles were rendered in production on Borg, except for SK, whose tiles had to be rendered on a workstation under somebody's desk in the Seoul office. That meant no fancy mapreduces, let alone any rendering on the fly like the Maps API allows (selecting what details to show on the map, their look, etc.). Then, IIRC, the rendered bitmap tiles had to be pushed from the workstation to production. Vector maps, at the time, would have been heresy. Google asked for years to have the laws changed. Korean companies weren't affected, at least until they moved their own rendering to e.g. a cloud provider outside the country.
> Actually I am out of date, it looks like the South Korea maps are vector based now. Maybe the law changed. It definitely used to be the case.
The South Korean mapping law allows for the domestic service (still subject to slight censorship), but Google didn't want to put any servers other than edge servers to South Korea so as a sort of protest it essentially froze the map for South Korea from November 2016 to December 2021, when Google finally gave up and established a new domestic data center.
>Wrong borders in Google Maps have nearly led to international incidents when soldiers ended up on the wrong side of a border.
Speaking of, if you go click on the Ukraine label right now on Google Maps, you won't get the red outline showing their border. Click on a neighboring country label for a comparison.
Just for curiosity: did you mean that soldiers do have smartphones with them while on duty? If I were an officer I never accept personal proprietary devices with computing and communication abilities, it's simply absurd and crazy imagining soldiers on duty tracked by private companies just because they have a macro-spay in their pocket...
> And militaries all over the globe do use Google Maps extensively
ISIS and the other Islamist factions in the Syrian Civil War were also using it extensively when fighting the Syrian Government forces and when planning their suicide attacks, but because Assad was the bad guy no Google action was taken (like restricting GMaps access in the area).
It will be hard to delete all of these points if Google doesn't cooperate. Instead, Ukrainians should massively add thousands of fake and duplicate points. Got a cousin in the countryside who needs their field ploughed? Call in a Russian artillery strike by tagging it as a military camp on Google Maps.
Data poisoning like this won't help if russian forces are being sent to a specific map item.
Best they can do for now is report these geo markers to google as soon as possible for deletion. (And hopefully Google bans the users who are adding these fake locations)
I almost can't believe the Russian army is so... trashy.
For the army of a state willing to be completely independent of the West to use an American web based service for military purposes, and to do it in a way other people can see it is sloppy to the point of tragedy.
Or maybe that's an elaborate attempt to do psychological warfare?
Seeing the videos of destroyed Russian equipment I am a bit surprised how familiar it looks to what it was when I was forcefully drafted into soviet military some 30+ years ago. There are maybe few new types of personnel carrier vehicles which I do not recognize but everything else is decades old, and even back then in 80s it was not any high tech (except for T-80 maybe). As an example, to coordinate artillery fire we used paper maps and mechanical rulers to convert target coordinates into azimuth and elevation angles. Officers would carry secret reference table books with them which were used to apply a ton of corrections: ambient temperature, wind direction, mass of the charge and the projectile and drift due to rotation of the projectile etc. All that was manual, calculated on paper, slow and error prone. I remember myself back then wondering why we couldn't use simple calculators to do this math quickly. The dead reckoning equipment (which was based on mechanical gyroscope) had such high error that after few tries we decided to never turn it on again - after few kilometers of drive it would place us some 500m off the actual position.
Sure, maybe some electronics are upgraded nowadays, it is hard to tell from those videos. But the stories of Russians being lost on their way, it rather looks that nothing much has changed.
Of course it's trashy. Everything is. Many readers of HN are well aware that most of software is shit. It's not surprising that this extends to military equipment too.
As an example from the other side, the British BOWMAN comms system used to be understood as Better Off With Maps And Nokia.
Some units have also been communicating in the clear on civilian bands. There seems to be a severe shortage of military electronics on the Russian side.
Or, just purely from a UX standpoint, you can use a military receiver with an interface like this https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0083836/800wm and then look up the coordinates by hand on a twenty year old paper map. Or you can drop a pin on gmaps and text it to Sergey at the artillery battery. If you don't care about opsec, which is easier?
Yeah, after reading a guide on how places are added to google[1], I'm suspicious. Based on the screenshots there, it looks like it doesn't show up immediately. The guide says "You should receive an email regarding whether or not your submission was accepted within two weeks". Given that the delay could be hours to weeks, why would you bother with public POIs? Why not use my maps[2], which is private and shows up instantly?
I know everyone wants to paint the Russians as buffoons so hard right now, but do you really think they would organize and target air strikes with public Google Maps markers?
It's fairly standard practice in the military to use Google Earth for air/ground coordination. I would have no doubt that Russia's military uses these same procedures.
If you need evidence that Google Earth is used by militaries then download Google Earth Pro and look in settings. There is a setting for, "Enable MGRS".
Some people might wonder why would Russia use public Google maps to tag places for air strikes. I agree that it is trashy but I have some arguments why it can be real:
1) Many talegram chats has sprang up recently asking the pro-Russian population to physically tag places/do some tasks for money
2) Yandex is not accessible from ukrainian Internet
3) It might be pro Russian volunteers hoping that it will help the Russian army
4) I believe that despite being one of the most powerful army on planet Earth they are quite dumb and inefficient(so does other countries' bureaucratic military, perhaps in a lesser extent). Due to their incompetency they may do strange stuff but it can still harm us and the world
We did this for russia for the Syrian defense from isis by geolocating terrorists based on the pictures they'd release. Still proud of my contributions.
I have reports of new pins from (already-shellshocked) locals, and would like to get them removed ASAP.
Is there a contact at google (twitter handles are great) that these suspected locations can be sent to? They cannot be posted publically for obvious reasons.
I have sent a legal request to Google which may be read, but not in time, as Kharkiv is actively being bombarded.
Email in profile, or give instructions below. Thank you.
Wouldn't it suck if it was a false flag complaint and ukrainians were using it to coordinate? I don't envy the google employee that has to make a decision on this.
Military grade means things like “works for outside air temperatures between -40 and 120 F” and “will still work being vibrated to hell for decades”.
On the other hand modern tech is like “my cat knocked my Apple Watch on the floor and shattered the screen” and things are generally extremely fragile.
They’re also old. You want things that work for decades, not UIs that change every few months.
I once read a comment chain on this website that went like
> I generally feel like military equipment is of higher quality and will last longer
> I've been involved in military contracts for a long time and the stuff they buy is generally consumer grade, but they have some standard and forced manufacturer for every tiny screw used on the vehicle, driving cost up tenfold without any gain. I don't see the appeal
> so you're telling me there is a standard
And that day I understood why overstock military stuff is so attractive to many buyers: It doesn't change. If you read good receptions about a military backpack or some kind of tooling, you can be dead sure that if you decide to get it, it will be just as nice as the thing in the reports. Because they make sure every pice will be exactly the same, no surprises.
In another forum I've seen pictures of so-called Russian 'saboteurs' and their belongings. Lots of SIM cards and ways to get connected. If Google record the IP address, or even the MAC address, of whomever adds to Maps then perhaps they can share that with ISPs so these devices can be monitored or blacklisted.
> The page you've requested isn't currently available in your language. You can instantly translate any webpage into a language of your choice, using Google Chrome's built-in translation feature.
I suspect that this is an attempt to hide attacks on civilians and/or other protected classes under the Geneva conventions. If you get a attack/bomb/missile destruction photo from a location that's GPS tagged in the photo, a media person verifying the site on Google Maps will get the latest description. If that's a fake farm photo, what would they believe? The photo or GMaps? Unless you have your own boots on the ground, I'd guess GMaps.
[+] [-] neonate|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] modeless|4 years ago|reply
And militaries all over the globe do use Google Maps extensively, if not by policy then just by soldiers doing their own thing. Wrong borders in Google Maps have nearly led to international incidents when soldiers ended up on the wrong side of a border. And then there are the disputed borders that Google is forced to display differently in different countries. There is no globally accepted map and as a result the map Google shows you changes depending on where you're located.
[1] Actually I am out of date, it looks like the South Korea maps are vector based now. Maybe the law changed. It definitely used to be the case.
[+] [-] the-rc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifthrasiir|4 years ago|reply
The South Korean mapping law allows for the domestic service (still subject to slight censorship), but Google didn't want to put any servers other than edge servers to South Korea so as a sort of protest it essentially froze the map for South Korea from November 2016 to December 2021, when Google finally gave up and established a new domestic data center.
[+] [-] perihelions|4 years ago|reply
Probably referring to this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1873285 ("Nicaragua Raids Costa Rica, Blames Google Maps")
[+] [-] vsareto|4 years ago|reply
Speaking of, if you go click on the Ukraine label right now on Google Maps, you won't get the red outline showing their border. Click on a neighboring country label for a comparison.
Belarus: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Belarus/@53.696013,25.7358...
Ukraine: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ukraine/@48.2486332,26.694...
[+] [-] kkfx|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alasdair_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paganel|4 years ago|reply
ISIS and the other Islamist factions in the Syrian Civil War were also using it extensively when fighting the Syrian Government forces and when planning their suicide attacks, but because Assad was the bad guy no Google action was taken (like restricting GMaps access in the area).
[+] [-] k_sze|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] satya123788|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] stereo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aceazzameen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged71|4 years ago|reply
Best they can do for now is report these geo markers to google as soon as possible for deletion. (And hopefully Google bans the users who are adding these fake locations)
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sharikous|4 years ago|reply
For the army of a state willing to be completely independent of the West to use an American web based service for military purposes, and to do it in a way other people can see it is sloppy to the point of tragedy.
Or maybe that's an elaborate attempt to do psychological warfare?
[+] [-] aivisol|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gherkinnn|4 years ago|reply
As an example from the other side, the British BOWMAN comms system used to be understood as Better Off With Maps And Nokia.
https://immortaltoday.com/battlefield-digitisation/
[+] [-] sbierwagen|4 years ago|reply
Or, just purely from a UX standpoint, you can use a military receiver with an interface like this https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0083836/800wm and then look up the coordinates by hand on a twenty year old paper map. Or you can drop a pin on gmaps and text it to Sergey at the artillery battery. If you don't care about opsec, which is easier?
[+] [-] waffleiron|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruez|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.wikihow.com/Add-Places-to-Google-Maps
[2] https://www.google.ca/maps/about/mymaps/
[+] [-] sevenf0ur|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kodah|4 years ago|reply
If you need evidence that Google Earth is used by militaries then download Google Earth Pro and look in settings. There is a setting for, "Enable MGRS".
[+] [-] jdfx3|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perihelions|4 years ago|reply
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgd7dd/google-maps-live-traf... ("Google Maps Live Traffic Showed the Russian Invasion of Ukraine") (2/24)
https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-temporarily-disabl... ("Google temporarily disables Google Maps live traffic data in Ukraine") (2/27)
[+] [-] ukrwantpiece|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kuraudo|4 years ago|reply
Anyway, I agree with the assessment.
[+] [-] natn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iso1631|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randy408|4 years ago|reply
https://support.google.com/maps/thread/152809911/terrorists-...
https://old.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t4copf/they_are_us...
Someone with a line to the Maps team should contact them immediately
[+] [-] mdaniel|4 years ago|reply
but either way, I do hope the traditional "Google support via HN frontpage" actually helps in this circumstance, too
[+] [-] hendiatris|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yurifury|4 years ago|reply
Is there a contact at google (twitter handles are great) that these suspected locations can be sent to? They cannot be posted publically for obvious reasons.
I have sent a legal request to Google which may be read, but not in time, as Kharkiv is actively being bombarded.
Email in profile, or give instructions below. Thank you.
[+] [-] cheschire|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thaxll|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
Military grade means things like “works for outside air temperatures between -40 and 120 F” and “will still work being vibrated to hell for decades”.
On the other hand modern tech is like “my cat knocked my Apple Watch on the floor and shattered the screen” and things are generally extremely fragile.
They’re also old. You want things that work for decades, not UIs that change every few months.
[+] [-] f1refly|4 years ago|reply
> I generally feel like military equipment is of higher quality and will last longer
> I've been involved in military contracts for a long time and the stuff they buy is generally consumer grade, but they have some standard and forced manufacturer for every tiny screw used on the vehicle, driving cost up tenfold without any gain. I don't see the appeal
> so you're telling me there is a standard
And that day I understood why overstock military stuff is so attractive to many buyers: It doesn't change. If you read good receptions about a military backpack or some kind of tooling, you can be dead sure that if you decide to get it, it will be just as nice as the thing in the reports. Because they make sure every pice will be exactly the same, no surprises.
[+] [-] navbaker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LorenPechtel|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tqi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] secondcoming|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaik|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charcircuit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ukrwantpiece|4 years ago|reply
original post was deleted
[+] [-] squarefoot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Closi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] googlr29783|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3np|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] longway2go|4 years ago|reply
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