Criminals using Google Earth to target exotic fish ponds
Google Earth is a brilliant innovation that has opened up a new way of looking at the world in which we live. Unfortunately, it has also opened up a new way for criminals to find targets.
Most Internet users will, at one point or other, take a look at Google Earth or its sister service, Google Maps. Most of us will have first viewed our own house, then maybe the houses of our friends and family, before finally getting a little bored and forgetting about for months.
But that’s because we’re not criminals. Or at least I’d hope not. Ordinary people view Google Earth as entertaining and informative, while criminals view it as homework (literally) and a chance to find their next target.
Google Earth and Google Maps has already been linked to the stealing of lead off roofs and expensive cars from outside people’s houses. Now, thieves are reportedly using the service to peer into back gardens in order to locate exotic fish ponds and steal expensive equipment and even more expensive koi carp.
The Telegraph reports on a spate of similar robberies having occurred in East Yorkshire. In all, there have been 12 thefts in a three-week period, all around the city of Hull. Police are blaming Google Earth because it would seem to be the only way the thieves could have learned of the whereabouts of the ponds in such a small area in such a short space of time.
Google disagrees, stating:
Google Earth is built from information that is available worldwide from a wide range of both commercial and public sources.
As such, Google Earth creates no appreciable increase in security risks, given the wide commercial availability of high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery of every country in the world.
Criminals could use maps, phones and getaway cars but no one would argue that these technologies are responsible for the crime itself, that responsibility lies with the perpetrator.
Isn’t that statement just a little on the defensive side? No one is actively blaming Google for these robberies, because, as Google itself says, each crime still needs a perpetrator no matter the method used, but this is a very clever use of the technology that now exists on the Internet and is accessible to all.
Google Earth and similar services weren’t designed to aid criminals but it’s an unfortunate side effect from the technology existing. Unfortunately, there’s really nothing that can be done about this misuse of Google Earth, apart from shut the whole thing down. Which isn’t going to happen.
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June 30th, 2009
And in another news report, it’s been discovered that thieves drive cars! And use hand tools! That last paragraph from the Google quote is correct.
Really, these idiots that blame technology for criminal actions need to be removed from any position of authority. They are doing harm to society.