Freely available and openly editable maps might be one of the things that we take for granted, but are simply an abberation of a brief period of peace and civility; now we'll return to the default hobbesian state of affairs.
See also: beautiful, detailed aerial photos of oil refineries posted by amateur drone photographers to public sites. Submarine cables and oil tankers, carrying the world economy on their shoulders without any protection out there at sea.
Security by obscurity is an illusion.
Bad actors, especially state actors, will have no problem getting this data.
We should make this data public so it's expected to be public, and then planners will take the risks more seriously.
Bad actors, especially state actors, will have no problem getting this data.
Everything that costs will cost to the degree that it costs. Putting the chocolate milk on the top shelf is enough to encourage children to buy less chocolate milk. The data you're talking about? The place I work at is the one doing the hard boots on the ground labor for aerial data, and from that perspective nothing is easy or free.
One can make great arguments about why people should have access to data notwithstanding all risks, but surely not that security by obscurity is mere illusion.
So, a handful of persons "believe that OpenStreetMap is a creation of Chinese communists" and are removing specific data from OpenStreetMap, and the OP explains why this is stupid but innocuous.
But that's not the first time that a community is tagged "Chinese communists" and attacked as such. Now imagine if some maga/alt-right/whatever leaders asked their followers to attack the "communist" OpenStreetMap by injecting a bit of false data everyday. Could OSM defend itself as easily?
Freely available and openly editable maps might be one of the things that we take for granted, but are simply an abberation of a brief period of peace and civility; now we'll return to the default hobbesian state of affairs.
See also: beautiful, detailed aerial photos of oil refineries posted by amateur drone photographers to public sites. Submarine cables and oil tankers, carrying the world economy on their shoulders without any protection out there at sea.
Security by obscurity is an illusion. Bad actors, especially state actors, will have no problem getting this data. We should make this data public so it's expected to be public, and then planners will take the risks more seriously.
Bad actors, especially state actors, will have no problem getting this data.
Everything that costs will cost to the degree that it costs. Putting the chocolate milk on the top shelf is enough to encourage children to buy less chocolate milk. The data you're talking about? The place I work at is the one doing the hard boots on the ground labor for aerial data, and from that perspective nothing is easy or free.
One can make great arguments about why people should have access to data notwithstanding all risks, but surely not that security by obscurity is mere illusion.
The US Navy posted all over the Gulf of Aden says “ahem?”
So, a handful of persons "believe that OpenStreetMap is a creation of Chinese communists" and are removing specific data from OpenStreetMap, and the OP explains why this is stupid but innocuous.
But that's not the first time that a community is tagged "Chinese communists" and attacked as such. Now imagine if some maga/alt-right/whatever leaders asked their followers to attack the "communist" OpenStreetMap by injecting a bit of false data everyday. Could OSM defend itself as easily?
Ask Wikipedia how they are dealing with this shit. Openstreetmap is a rather unlikely target, so it's news.