Creepy Google streetview comes to my neighborhood
 

So I wanted to check my houses altitude above sea level and flood plain. I went to Goggle and typed in an address on my street, and saw the 'street view' link was active. I clicked on it and found my house, with our cars in the driveway.

I don't live in or near a large city, so I was surprised and a little creeped out. I never cared about the satellite view, but the house view did seem a little bit like stalking.

I couldn't figure a timeline on the photo, since I didn't see my son's car in the picture.

Could you see license plate numbers or anything like that?

A while ago, I checked out my brother's ex-wife's address. I wanted to see a sample of what Street View was, and it was the only residential address I had been to in the past that was in Street View's database. (It was my brother's old house.)

Anyway, I was able to read the name of the roofing company that was re-shingling her roof. They put a sign in her lawn. I could also see how they stacked the new shingles up near the ridge of the roof to have them close at hand.

That is VERY creepy.

I just checked several of my addresses. I seem to have escaped their notice, so far. Just what ARE you doing in that house?

Well, fortunately our cars were parked far enough away that it isn't possible. Our neighbors, who live on the side of the street the camera came up on might not have been so lucky. One car had a plate I could almost read, and might be able to with image enhancement.

The police already use license plate recognition software. I wonder if some private agency could plug into Google's data and do a nationwide search.:eyebrow:

Things don't usually hit the private sector until they are used for quite some time by the military or gov't agencies. Chances are these technologies have been used long before it was bought by google and the real technology is probably more widespread and advanced than the google version. Google is probably doing the reverse, buying into a technology that is already there and a hell of a lot more advanced than what a private company like google can access. Right to privacy is dead in this country.


I checked...An ex lives directly in the line of fire of this thing. Of course I'm creepy enough to figure it out and tell him about it immediately. The view in denver almost starts right at his frickin' front door. It's funny that they chose Colfax Denver as one of the first viewing areas. That street is notorious for ummm...activity. He lives right off it.

I am pretty sure most of this street view has the best resolutions in city and largely populated areas not so much for the more rural areas, correct?

I just looked at my house and the picture is at least 5 years old from the satellite view.

Microsoft's Bird's Eye view (not the aerial view) of its maps is also pretty amazing, and it has coverage of some rural areas.

Check out this house in the rural tobacco fields of North Carolina. I know this person.

Isn't that his buddy's wife's truck?

Using Microsoft the maps of my house is about 3 years old.

You can see my apartment on the Microsoft map, but thankfully Google streetview hasn't found me yet.

When I looked at my previous address on the MSmap, I was able to locate my car in the parking lot, which means that the shot was taken sometime before 3pm.

im not streetviewed yet...

and microsoft's picture is much more current than google's. google's is from before we moved here in 03.

Can someone give me step by step instruction on how to share my map?
It so clearly shows the cool building I work in, and how far I have to walk to work.

Well, if you tell us which map you are using, and give us your work and home address, we can just do the search ourselves.

Or if you want to keep that data private, you can do like I did above, and hit the "print screen" key to make a copy of what you see on your screen. Then go to an image editing program. I use Irfanview, but I think MS Paint would work as well. Click "Paste" once you are in that program, and then you will have a picture of your desktop you can crop and save, and then upload as an attachment.

Print screen never works for me :mecry:
I bang away on it and nothing happens - perhaps because I'm at work.

If I PM you the postcodes (don't want to annoy HM) then can you do it for me? I can then describe which buildings I'm referring to.