Submitted 2 weeks ago by new_otters_raft@piefed.ca to technology@lemmy.world
Planet Labs, one of the world’s leading commercial satellite imaging companies, said Friday it is placing a hold on releasing imagery of some parts of the Middle East as a regional war enters its second week.
Planet wants to prevent “adversarial actors” from using images for “Battle Damage Assessment” purposes.
Probably because the New York times article that came out Thursday proved they bombed the school on purpose and refused to do more research and intelligence to confirm their targets.
The administration hates when evidence of their crimes come out, so they most likely threatened every GPS company they could to stop updated images.
The article says image over Iran are still available without delay. It’s the regions around around that are affected. I assume it is to hide the effectiveness of Iran retaliation to Iran or to to public opinion.
For oldies like me, this is like watching the Iraq military operations ‘leak’, like the time they targeted a civilian van with high imapct artillery. That image is burnt in my mind. A white van, two men collecting their things around, than the vehicle is bombed as it is going down a dusty road.
I cannot be willing to fight for any such power. We have freedom to be after all.
A rather pointless move, since Russia is providing Iran with satellite intelligence. Not to mention, I highly doubt the feeds are encrypted, and if not than anyone with the will to download them and a couple hundred dollars could build a receiver. There’s tutorials on how to do so on YouTube.
Not completely pointless until Russia starts providing the intel to news organizations.
This isn’t about keeping Iran from seeing the damage, it’s to keep the public from seeing it.
Is this what winning feels like?
Any of our news orgs simply won’t publish them.
Not completely pointless until Russia starts providing the intel to news organizations.
none of the mainstream media would report on that anyway, so it’s still pretty pointless. western media has shown that it’s pretty invested in not covering things that make western nations look bad.
Honey pots. Highly monitored.
Stupid is as stupid does.
what are you implying? the youtube videos are honeypots? do you think Iran cares about that? I really don’t think Iran cares about that.
As if China and Russia didn’t have satellites. They just don’t want to admit they’ve stepped into deep doodoo, so the general public must not find out.
Israel has made it illegal to post photos and videos of damage caused by Iranian missiles in Israel. They have an agenda.
They have an agenda.
Whaaaa? No way!
I think it’s the common practice under the war. Not saying this war is totally shit.
I think they are lying about the casualty counts as well. Pete looks extra scared in his most recent broadcasts, he’s masking like a mfer. The bottle is his only safety.
I hear 200 dead the first day.
The US 5ft fleet base (second largest in the region) was hit multiple times in the first few HOURS of the war. there was a billion dollar radar system there and a large wide building that I saw with a large hole in its roof. Since then it has been hit repeatedly and from what I heard, is basically gone. There were like 9000 troops stationed there.
Ol Petey has been sucking his own farts for too long.
The United States Military undeniably has a technological and financial lead compared to basically every other nation.
He forgot that it doesn’t matter if you have a lead when you don’t have a plan to use any of that shit. You could put a chimpanzee in the cockpit of an F35, that doesn’t mean it can do anything productive with it. That’s Pete Hegseth.
I find it very unlikely the US could keep a lid on 200 deaths and saying it’s six. Not for more than a week or so. People’s families are going to wonder where their loved ones are. Hospital workers, morgue workers, life insurance companies, people are going to talk, and share pictures.
The US is lucky to have escaped with their aircraft carrier boat-thing
hope that bitch finds how deep the bottom of that bottle is and drowns in it.
Just do what he does to others. Slip it in when he’s not looking.
Little bitch boy should be.
Plenty of other places to supply Iran with satellite imagery.
Stating the obvious: Preventing US citizens and news agencies from easily accessing timely info that would contradict trump’s lies.
“Regional war” my ass…
“Oops, the observable truth! Our bad.”
Calling it a regional war proves they’re bought
The incredibly selective quote makes it sound like the imagery is being held indefinitely, but according to the article it is only being held for 4 days before becoming publicly available as normal. Furthermore, the hold does not apply to imagery inside Iran.
To quote more from the article:
“In response to the conflict in the Middle East, Planet is implementing temporary restrictions on data access within specific areas of the affected region,” Planet said in a statement emailed to Ars. “Effective immediately, all new imagery collected over the Gulf States, Iraq, Kuwait, and adjacent conflict zones will be subject to a mandatory 96-hour delay before it is made available in our archive.”
Imagery over Iran will remain available as soon as it is acquired, the company said. “This change applies to all users except authorized government users who maintain immediate access for mission-critical operations.”
Russia is sharing these images with Iran anyway.
Yes, the Russian government is probably happy to share these images with the Iranian government, but my understanding is that the military units who are firing missiles are acting independently after our decapitation strike took out the Supreme Leader, which was the one to whom they had pledged their allegiance. (There is a moral here: taking out the leader does not necessarily get rid of the organization, it just means you no longer have a single person you can negotiate with to in order to get it to back down.) Thus, the people firing missiles might not actually be able to benefit from images provided by the Russian government.
The military censor in Israel does the exact same thing: ostensibly to prevent enemies from using the data to improve their systems, in reality as an attempt to keep domestic morale high (it only ever manages to slow down the inevitable fall, though).
The losses on the American/Israeli side are so low they need to censor any publicly available information. Truly nothing to see here. In fact, they’re doing you a favour by saving the time you would have wasted looking for damage done by Iran that clearly doesn’t exist!
Imagine a world where only one country had the monopoly of information
It feels reeeeallll fucking weird to have just started watching Pluto this week, having previously had no idea what it was about
Sure buddy. I believe your lying ass.
kescusay@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
To me this translates to, “America’s military is being led incompetently and we don’t want anyone to see the real damage being done to it.”
Jesus fucking Christ, this is the stupidest possible way to start WWIII.
avg@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
To be fair, wars have never started smartly, there is usually stupidity involved.
aquovie@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
There are lots of ways to start a war but they all end the same: everyone sitting down to discuss peace. For some reason, no one thinks to try discussing peace first.
sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Satellite services are pretty amenable to hiding sensitive parts of the world: en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_satellite_map_images_w…
It seems totally on-brand for the US government to request that bits of the war zone be hidden, and it’s entirely on brand for satellite companies to hide them.
CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Yeah it’s normal to ask for a warzone - but this isn’t a war of course.
Akh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yep, it is funny how many images of this shitshow are not showing up on like reddit. Full on censorship
0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Expect to see uptick in posts/comments critical of lemmy/fediverse because it’s critical of the USA.
Generally it’s framed as something else like UI, grammar, content, or people but with the goal of trying to dissuade people from using it.
The imperialists censorship works in multiple ways, by censoring content in their own platforms and also sowing distrust and reservation in platforms they don’t control.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean, you could have that opinion I guess. But the stated reasoning is perfectly valid. After you launch a long distance attack, it is in fact important to know how effective it was. This is a very strategically useful ability. Leaving your adversary in the dark has always worked to your advantage in war.
Look, we all know this war is stupid, there aren’t many who would deny that. But to be perfectly honest, despite the political leadership at the very top, the US military and it’s leadership are actually pretty good at what they do. I doubt they’re trying to cover up a failing war. To me, this looks more like operational security than a cover up.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Iran will have access to Chinese and Russian satellite images, as well as their own “on the ground” intelligence assessments. This move is more likely meant to control public perception in the US.
architect@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
I don’t believe the current us military is any good at all. The ones that were have quit. The rest are dick sucking psychopathic “god Trump” bitch boys.
WesternInfidels@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
The stated reasoning sounds okay in isolation, but: 1. Why didn’t they start the blackout when the conflict began, as opposed to waiting like this? 2. Why is it just a delay, instead of a real blackout?
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Still better than the sandwich from WWI