from Hacker News

Ask HN: Can you help me remove the marks for the airstrikes from Google Maps?

by wzyoi on 3/2/22, 7:10 AM with 147 comments

• by playpause on 3/2/22, 8:02 AM

  I don’t know if this is true. But to everyone dismissing the idea that a military would ever use Google Maps to co-ordinate, you may have missed some news stories about what a shitshow the first few days of the Russian invasion has been. Major breakdown of their digital systems and lots of improvisation.

• by Maxious on 3/2/22, 7:53 AM

  > “Out of an abundance of caution, we are removing user contributions like photos, videos, reviews and business information and all user-submitted places from Google Maps in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus since the invasion began, and are temporarily blocking new edits from being made,” a Google spokesperson said.

  https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahemerson/russia-goo...

• by hedora on 3/2/22, 7:50 AM

  Other commenters in other threads say that these marks are placed by civilians working on behalf of the Russian government. It makes some sense. No software is needed, and traffic analysis looking for spies is unlikely to flag https requests to google maps. Also, Russian owned map services are supposedly blocked in Ukraine. Some people claim to have worked with Russia in this way for anti-isis strikes in syria.

  At the very least, they are defacement, and google should pull them. Hopefully someone from their maps abuse team will take a look. HN search of articles in the last 24 hours should find the comments I’m referring to.

• by KerryJones on 3/2/22, 8:58 AM

  Google employee here, though not on the maps team, I just raised it internally to look into (please continue to try to make edits, I don't know when it will be seen)

• by jonathanstrange on 3/2/22, 9:27 AM

  I think decision makers from the Ukrainian military should get into touch with Google before anything is done, since there is a distinct possibility that removing these markers is a bad idea. Even if they are used for real targeting, they can also be used to warn civilians and the respective installations of upcoming strikes or sabotage actions. Besides, if they really need the marks, they will not stop shooting when they disappear, they will instead more likely shell indiscriminately to show their superiors they're fulfilling their objectives.

  I don't know if these considerations are relevant but would urge OP to contact someone in Ukraine about it.

• by ketralnis on 3/2/22, 7:38 AM

  It feels very improbable that a government would be using google maps for this. It feels even more improbable that even if they are, removing a mark from google maps would prevent them from launching an actual air strike. Surely a target important enough to "mark" would be worth finding an alternative way to target in case a bunch of keyboard warriors figure out your nefarious plan.

  None of this makes sense.

  I know it feels good to feel like you're helping but I think you're being trolled by assholes on the internet.

• by tomek_zemla on 3/2/22, 8:21 AM

  It has been noted by number of analysts that it is surprising that Ukraine still has access to Internet. Everybody expected cyber warfare to be a major part of the invasion. One of the possible explanations mentioned: Russian army and its covert operatives need it.

• by wzyoi on 3/2/22, 8:07 AM

  In times of uncertainty I always count on worst.

  If chances of this true are 10% and this is indeed true, giving it some attention is worth it.

  Edit: by attention I mean somebody from Google who can check things up

• by dsomers on 3/2/22, 10:37 AM

  I don’t think google maps info was ever close to 100% reliable anywhere. Once in midtown Toronto there was a giant hole where google maps said a bank was, they where building a condo there. I thought I’d be helpful and submit a correction to the map — I later got a notification my correction was not accepted and they kept the ghost bank there years after it was gone.

  There’s also no way they could reasonably think I was a spammer because I had a decades old google account that existed within months of gmail existing. They probably know what I’ve eaten every day for the past 20 years.

  That’s all to say, google is a giant machine, and if it decides your version of reality is wrong, don’t bother, no human on their side will probably ever look at it because humans are expensive.

• by waffleiron on 3/2/22, 8:48 AM

  Yesterday’s discussion:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30516996

• by curl-up on 3/2/22, 11:26 AM

  OP, why do you think a farm business (which gmaps are showing the location of) should be in the same place where farm land is?

  These simply seem to be the addresses where a "farm business" is registered, as can be confirmed on a company-info-aggregator site [1]. I assume, in a lot of cases (especially for family owned farms), these are actually homes of the owners, to simplify all the mail and other paperwork. Actual farms can be located anywhere, probably outside of town. It might even be multiple farms (multiple pieces of land).

  To answer your point about why these seem different (e.g. you cannot report them), I think it's because they are automatically scraped by google from the official company-info sites in each country. Seems to be a similar situation in other countries, as far as I can tell.

  [1] this is the info of the first item on gmaps I get - address matches the location I'm shown https://youcontrol.com.ua/catalog/company_details/21897611/

• by Rastonbury on 3/2/22, 8:22 AM

  Targeting airstrikes theory aside, wonder what Google thinks of the potential that Russian soldiers are using Maps to navigate while invading Ukraine?

• by salzig on 3/2/22, 8:39 AM

  How about adding reviews to those places that tell the truth about the whole situation? Looks like it could get to the right people.

• by marius_k on 3/2/22, 7:34 AM

  Does anyone know why google maps is used here? Could it be trolling? To make people busy doing useless work?

• by wzyoi on 3/2/22, 2:56 PM

  tldr: false alarm, unclear google

  I'm back to process info and make edits.

  I couldn't stay online due to injured hands from gadgets overuse.

  > OP, why do you think a farm business (which gmaps are showing the location of) should be in the same place where farm land is? These simply seem to be the addresses where a "farm business" is registered, as can be confirmed on a company-info-aggregator site [1]. I assume, in a lot of cases (especially for family owned farms), these are actually homes of the owners, to simplify all the mail and other paperwork. Actual farms can be located anywhere, probably outside of town. It might even be multiple farms (multiple pieces of land). To answer your point about why these seem different (e.g. you cannot report them), I think it's because they are automatically scraped by google from the official company-info sites in each country. Seems to be a similar situation in other countries, as far as I can tell. [1] this is the info of the first item on gmaps I get - address matches the location I'm shown https://youcontrol.com.ua/catalog/company_details/21897611/

  curl-up was right - these are all addresses of legally registered farms and they are Googlable.

  I did not think about googling the names or how farms are registered or why Google has such weird marks.

  I thought they are similar because it's the way to find them and not because they are from one trusted source.

  Also, all marks I've seen were close to Russian troops. But the only border of Dnipro that's completely safe is west.

  Google parses open data. I was not aware of that.

  Thanks for the help and sorry for the wasted resources.

  P.S. Those marks still look weird nevertheless. Not reportable or edible. The only article they link to is useless. Maybe it's worth fixing.

  I'm out of resources (hands) to continue typing. Thank you all <3

• by thatjoeoverthr on 3/2/22, 8:29 AM

  If it’s real intel, forward it. Let them think it’s secret.

• by tempestn on 3/2/22, 7:39 AM

  Why would Russia mark airstrikes with some kind of obfuscated Google Maps entries? I hope your hometown stays safe, but I can't see how this makes sense.

• by social_quotient on 3/2/22, 11:30 AM

  If this is really a thing why would google not probably know about it first and second why would google not just hide everything but roads views for a temporary period. No sat views, no places, nothing but roads. If you want to be fancy maybe roads and gas stations and food.

  It seems like out of an abundance of caution you would not want your service to be used for this. Same for bing and other maps.

  Am I missing something here?

• by GTP on 3/2/22, 10:10 AM

  I was trying to check if this is happening also on OpenStreetMap, I searched for "фермерське господарство" which returned results in Ukraine, but I wasn't able to restrict them to a single city so I don't know if those are actual farms or not. Somebody who knows OpenStreetMap better could check this?

• by VaxWithSex on 3/2/22, 8:55 AM

  We could run Ads: Tired of Starting a War on your Brother-nation? Apply for political Asylum in Europe now!

• by graderjs on 3/2/22, 8:07 AM

  If true, what would the debate within Google be like about closing Google services / blacklisting accounts or devices, over the affected regions?

  For such a thing they probably have to get approval from the state department or someone else correct?

• by CodeWriter23 on 3/2/22, 2:15 PM

  Definitely remove this information that may be used by civilians to leave hot zones prior to attack. I cannot believe this level of lack of insight from a group of people who call themselves engineers.

• by sdfgdfghj on 3/2/22, 10:19 AM

  I remember reports on the first night of the invasion of a traffic jam from Crimea towards Ukraine. It was 2-3am local time. Makes me wonder how many Russian troops sneaked in personal devices.

• by AriedK on 3/2/22, 10:12 AM

  Why is this immediately attributed to Russian troops as markers? Couldn't it also be Ukrainian movements using this for their organization? 'Farms' being code for supply houses?

• by hogrider on 3/2/22, 5:42 PM

  How the fuck is google still serving Russians?

• by rocqua on 3/2/22, 10:00 AM

  This is an un-authenticated method of communication. It might be hard to stop people from using this, but it seems easy to overwhelm them with misinformation.

  Start placing 10, or a hundred times as many of these signs around non-important objects. Drown the signal in noise.

  Some consideration is needed for how to keep these symbols believable, without accidentally marking certain people for being bombed. Still, I think if you have marked 60% of roofs in a town with these signs, then some-one will realize something is wrong.

• by merek on 3/2/22, 11:07 AM

  To clarify, are you suggesting these are unusual because "farms" are being marked in urban areas? What is the possibility these are simply addresses of farming-related businesses (e.g. farm equipment suppliers)?

  (comment cannot be removed, only edited)

• by pythonlion on 3/2/22, 8:43 AM

  also google probably should delete all new entries from Ukraine or review them manually. if deleting all of them is difficult for users maybe maybe op want to create falses? idk

• by venkat223 on 3/2/22, 11:49 AM

  Google should remove such maps retrspectively.

• by RamblingCTO on 3/2/22, 12:43 PM

  looks like free OSINT for UA. could also be used for trolling (set markers on russian forces) if true

• by 55555 on 3/2/22, 7:39 AM

  Probably not.

• by s5300 on 3/2/22, 8:05 AM

  Strap in boys, gonna be an interesting century.