Google Earth accused of aiding terrorists in Mumbai

Last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai have apparently triggered India’s long-simmering moral panic about maps, satellite imagery and security in general, and Google Earth in particular. A petition has been filed before the Bombay High Court demanding a ban on Google Earth and similar services because the gunmen used satellite imagery to plan the attacks. They also used GPS, satellite and cellular phones, BlackBerrys — and, oh yes, boats — but no one seems to be calling for them to be banned.

The Times has more; Stefan does his usual excellent job demolishing and fact-checking the petition and the news coverage: “Forcing Google to make imagery of India inaccessible to users of Google Earth in India would mean that everyone but people in India could access the imagery. Considering that the planning for the attacks likely took place outside India, such a ban would have achieved nothing, security-wise. And let’s not forget that people sophisticated enough to use VOIP to coordinate their attacks are also likely to know about proxy servers.” From what I gather from this Washington Post article, the issue isn’t that the attackers were technologically sophisticated, it’s that the Indian authorities aren’t.

Stefan advises not to take the petition too seriously. It’s worth noting, as the Times and Stefan do, that India is launching its own competitor to Google Earth, Bhuvan (which Stefan reported on last month), and, even if the Indian government censored the hell out of the available imagery, it’s a safe bet that the hotel district of Mumbai would have been available in exquisite detail, had Bhuvan been available at the time of the attacks.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article5311241.ece

Stampede for 'Bush shoe' creates 100 new jobs

Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes which the Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi threw at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad last Sunday. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/22/turkey-george-bush-shoe

Type Trumps

http://www.face37.com/#/work/type-trumps/

Clock for Identity Designers

Last month, I wrote about the day I spent obsessively chronicling all the brands, logos, identities and symbols - all 1,035 - that I interact with throughout the day. This research was done for a project I was working on at the time in the Visual Communication Design program at Arizona State University under Professor Al Sanft. This clock serves as a reminder that we are constantly enveloped by brands.

http://www.fillslashstroke.com/slash/2008/12/a-clock-for-identity-designers/

Web of Influence_DEC 9, 08, NYT

The United States attorney’s office in Chicago accused Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of having numerous schemes for profiting from his office. The affidavit contains details of a five-year investigation into public corruption and accusations of “pay to play” deals. This chart shows some of Mr. Blagojevich’s interactions with advisers, fund-raisers and other individuals, both named and unnamed.


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/12/09/us/20081209_corruption.html

Draw Me Schools Of Commercial Art

http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=38860#more

Israeli Candidate Borrows a (Web) Page From Obama

The colors, the fonts, the icons for donating and volunteering, the use of videos, and the social networking Facebook-type options — including Twitter, which hardly exists in Israel — all reflect a conscious effort by the Netanyahu campaign to learn from the Obama success.

http://netanyahu.org.il/