The terrorist attacks in Mumbai have once again put Google Earth in an unfavorable light. The one (“baby-faced”) terrorist that police caught has said that the terrorists used Google Earth the help plan the attacks. (That they also used everyday cellphones, GPS and other technologies appears to be lost on the ban happy Indian officials.) In order to prevent future attacks, so the line of thinking goes, officials there want at the very least to force Google to blur our sensitive sites from the software, if not ban it outright.
Let’s also keep in mind that India plans to launch its own version of Google Earth, so to speak.
While it seems an overreaction to me to want to ban what amounts to an electronic map—are we looking to ban regular, paper maps now?—in no way was I affected by the attacks, at least not directly, so it’s hard for me to qualify India’s reaction. It does seem that attacking (banning) tools instead of the idea and forces behind those tools is folly.
Did they use any sort of shoes or boots? What about rope? Let’s ban everything….
Let’s ban cellphones, landlines, pens, markers, paper, toilet paper, water, clothes, watches, the sun… If you want me to stop, say when.
Nobody banned cars when they exploded, nobody banned trains when they derailed, nobody banned telephones when they were used to activate bombs inside someone’s house…
It’s stupid to argue that it’s the tool’s fault. Guns are different because they are made for one thing only… Kill.
Let’s all get naked, burn all our possessions, depilate and paint ourselves #A8A8A8 (this fine website’s background color), cut out our eyes, hands, ears, tongues and noses. Because we should ban EVERYTHING so we do not harm each other… Sheesh!
But Google Maps? Did anybody ban piano strings? They where used in a lot of murders too. Manure, sticks (big and small)…
Oh but how many think that India is here to enlighten us?.
This is crazy, banning technology because of the people who abuse it is like banning a car because of a drunk driver. Also I could hardly say they are banning “sensitive locations” if they ban Hotels, and other Tourist attractions. I understand blurring out oil pipelines and military bases, but they attacked tourist locations.
I hate the fact that the media’s scare tactics are working. Replacing freedom for security is a dangerous dangerous step.
I blame Allah; lets ban him.
Equally, I’m blaming maps for being patially to blame for the IRA pub bombings in the ’80s.
Ban stupidity.
Egypt wants to ban gps.
Bush wants to ban science.
What’s new?
This is the same thinking behind gun control idiots. Let’s not blame the person, let’s blame the tool. The person couldn’t possibly be responsible for their own actions right?
yeah, lets blame a person who killed somebody AFTER he does it -.-
if ‘he’ would have the gun in the first place there would be no crime because wtf is a gun for besides killing!? and how can you even compare those two thing guns/maps!?
*”if ‘he’ wouldn’t”
*things
It is ignorant to compare baning a tool that displays maps to banning guns. Guns are meant for a single purpose, to kill the living being it is being fired upon. Why would anyone ever want to allow every tom, dick and hary to carry an object that will let them kill another person.
As long as we’re making suggestions…
I say we ban over-sized Ray-Ban sunglasses.
This would expose the identities of several thousand child molesters.
Hahahaha I luv the comments, this is even more absurdly funny to me, being an Indian well versed with the stupidity of the blinking (dire need of Ray Ban?) clueless rule-makers.
A country’s officials HAVE to react to an event as big as this terrorist attack & broadcast their “outrage”. Unfortunately since they always have their hands full with all the money they’re busy siphoning off the country’s gold-veins, they can’t even ‘google’ for better response tactics, leave alone properly think through the situations to come up with reasonable preventive measures, possibly the dumbest of which are the current ones.
It’s the same old story – most of the capable/honest/hard-working people have left the country due to greed or lost hope of ever flowering their talents there, leaving mostly incapable, greedy, manipulating, corrupt politicians. And the few good men left are always at the risk of being shot down just like all those people at the train station….
And ofcourse that is not to say that technology did not have a role to play in the corruption of the human mind & heart. For, at the root of everything ofcourse is human greed & if anything is to be blamed, it is that at first.
Which is not to say that technology that fuels greed-derived human values should continually be invented (guns & arms all being a part of it, apart from teh whole ‘product’ industry amongst many other things).
But that is another long story.