Inquiring minds...care to check it out?

[meowbunny]

Just some info on Google Earth. The pics are taken at different times and left up for a long, long time. I looked at my old house and the picture shows it the way it was 5 years ago. None of the backyard upgrades are there. The house I am presently in looks pretty much the same but, then, it has had no upgrades so who knows when the picture was taken.

 

[donna723]

I noticed that on some of the places I was looking at. I was checking out places in downtown St. Louis and for the longest time it still showed the old Busch Stadium that was torn down a few years ago. Now, the last time I looked, the old one is gone and the big, ugly new one is there instead! Bahhhh!

 

[trinityroyal]

MB is right. Google Earth pictures are static images. When I look at my house, Step-D's truck (the one that up and died 3 years ago) is still parked in the driveway.

The thing about privacy and tracking...

There are so many ways that information is collected about us that we don't think about. For example:
- If you use a credit card or a points card at a store, they gather information about your shopping pattern and the products you buy
- If you go through certain neighbourhoods in Toronto, there are street-level cameras that record all passers-by. The idea is to record people who run red lights, but they also get footage of whatever else passes in front of the lens

I think the point is, most of this information is never going to be used for "nefarious purposes", so I don't think it warrants adding this to your worry list.

As for sunbathing nude in my backyard, I'd be more worried about my neighbour being able to see me from his second-floor windows than I would be about a spy camera for Google earth.

I do think that identity theft is a real concern, but Big Brother just doesn't have time to worry about most of us.

Just my $0.02
Trinity

 

[Fran]

I am hoping that at some point there will be better regulation of the information access to casual surfers.
It's no one's business where you live, how much you paid for a house, if you filed bankruptcy etc. When you had to go to city hall to snoop on neighbors it was too much effort. It's way too easy for people who have no business snooping getting into your stuff.

The internet is still in the Wild Wild West days of rapid growth and discovery. Eventually order will be restored and common sense will create safeguards and boundaries. I hope.

I'm not paranoid, I don't care about a lot of stuff like shopping patterns or red light running but I sure don't like that strangers can delve into personal info that they have no right to delve into.

 

[Nancy]

Huh? I can't find what you are talking about. I understand the link is a joke but where is the real thing? Is there another link I don't know about? I can see putting this to good use to locate difficult child.

Nancy

 

[donna723]

Nancy - the cell phone part was a joke. Google Earth is a program that you can download to your computer. Once you download it, you will have an icon on your desktop that you can click on to get in to it.

Google Earth is detailed satellite photo images of pretty much anywhere on the earth. But they ARE NOT LIVE IMAGES. You will see a picture of the earth, and when you type in a location, even a precise street address, it will zoom right in on that place. The image starts out a little blurred but it clears and you can control it to zoom up or down and move from side to side. You can set it to show the street names and use it as a map - makes it much easier to actually find something when you can see what's around it.

It's a tremendous amount of fun to play with. The first day I downloaded it, I was up till 1:00 a.m. checking it out. I've "visited" the pyramids in Egypt and Ground Zero in New York City. I "explored" the old neighborhood I lived in as a kid, and I now know that the people who bought my parents old house have put in a pool! And I saw my daughters house in S. Carolina clear enough to see their black car in the driveway and the trees in their back yard! What you see is rooftops because the view is from looking straight down, but it's all kinds of fun.

If you google "Google Earth" (and now they have "Google Earth Plus") there will be a link that will take you to the site to download it. You'll LIKE it!

 

[Scent of Cedar II]

I didn't get it at first, either. I thought I WAS seeing my neighborhood. Then, when the man with no teeth came on, I was CERTAIN I was seeing my neighborhood.

Pretty scary!

I put in a phone number from Minnesota though?

No snow.

Same man with no teeth.

Hmmm.....

Barbara

 

[Nancy]

Thanks Donna, it is fun. Although I was hopig I could track my difficult child's cell phone LOL.

Nancy

 

[meowbunny]

Thanks Donna, it is fun. Although I was hopig I could track my difficult child's cell phone LOL.

Nancy

Check your cellphone provider. I think some with GPS are trackable but won't swear to it.