[HN Gopher] Open Infrastructure Map ___________________________________________________________________ Open Infrastructure Map Author : bearbin Score : 129 points Date : 2022-01-15 17:47 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (openinframap.org) (TXT) w3m dump (openinframap.org) | AceJohnny2 wrote: | Nice! I can finally locate LA's Scattergood-Olympic underground | transmission line that was repaired in 1989 to much engineering | prowess [1]. | | https://openinframap.org/#10.58/33.9452/-118.3529 | | I love infrastructure engineering. There's so much going on that | allows us to take things for granted. Even the 2021 Texas power | grid failure fared relatively well for how close it skirted | absolute disaster. | | [1] https://practical.engineering/blog/2021/9/16/repairing- | under... (I should give Grady more money) People here may | remember jwz's post on the topic in 2002, copying the emails from | 1989 (note the following link may display something unsavory with | the HN referrer, in which case copy-and-paste it): | https://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/ | szundi wrote: | Aren't these national security secrets? | [deleted] | caseysoftware wrote: | I used to work in those circles ~15 years ago and the short | answer was: Yes. | | It turns out that an absurd amount of sensitive/national | security information is actually public _but_ it becomes | sensitive once it 's organized in a way that it becomes | "actionable" for attack, compromise, etc. In my particular | situation, an acquaintance studying operations+logistics had | overlaid communications trunks with transportation hubs and | realized many of them were one in the same. | | Now that more of this information is available easily and in | readily combinable forms should make us re-evaluate all of it | and how much gets shared, with who, when, and to what detail. | | _Btw, this is also a reason you should be skeptical whenever | there 's a leak and someone claims "none of this data is | classified!" While technically true, a piece of non-classified | but relatively unknown information might be the missing piece | that makes something actionable._ | justsomehnguy wrote: | It is pointless to 'hide' the things which are accessible to | anyone, including people who isn't even there physically, eg | can look through Google Earth or just browse photos with geo- | tags. | | Back in the day it could be (and sometimes was) a secret or | protected information. | r0gue808 wrote: | Not necessarily, there's a huge drive at the moment (in the UK | at least) encouraging utility companies to make their asset | related data open and publicly available. Look up the Energy | Networks Association's Open Networks initiative, quite | interesting. The same approach is being taken by other European | countries. | tomrod wrote: | It was a major blocker when I was writing my dissertation. It | would have been WONDERFUL to have this. | bertil wrote: | I noticed that the nearest power plant nearby isn't here. It's | really small, so I'm not surprised but I'm not sure how to flag | the discrepancy and share details about the station. | etcet wrote: | Check out the about page: https://openinframap.org/about | | You probably just need to tag the building "power: plant" on | https://www.openstreetmap.org/. | pleb_nz wrote: | Like the growth of bacteria on a petri dish | hamolton wrote: | Looks like OSM doesn't have a ton of data on US pipelines or | water lines. It's understandable. I do wonder if tools like this | would encourage more mapping of these. | mistrial9 wrote: | certainly US legal questions apply, but what about other | criteria? avoiding simplistic responses.. nations have | responded differently to mapping and open maps. A recent UNGGIM | report showed that close to fifteen ( _edit not thirty_ ) | percent of nations politically recognized worldwide, do not | publish national maps themselves in any meaningful way. Next | consider the case of the UK Commonwealth Nations, who generally | considered maps and mapping to be Crown authorized only, until | a certain date not long ago. Opposite to that is the nation of | China, which I think forbids all mapping of anything at all, to | be done or publicly published, without a license from the | single political party government. Other interesting cases | abound, in fact, most nations have unique stories and | solutions. | | I suggest we avoid simplistic responses or carefully worded | trap questions from a Defense point of view only, and really | engage in a civil manner, about a topic that does have Defense | elements, but also real civilian elements, too. | yummypaint wrote: | Alot of that info is probably already publicly available as GIS | datasets. Many counties and cities have surprisingly good web | interfaces to such information or at least will let you | download it. Most people probably use it to look up land parcel | information, but they usually include many more layers such | hydrants, water and sewer, sometimes detailed local electrical | grid info depending how local utilities operate. | | Someone should make a crawler that specifically looks for GIS | data on government pages and auto-adds it if passes sanity | checks and is up-to-date. | cozzyd wrote: | Definitely see some transmission lines missing (e.g. the line | going through the Fish Lake Valley in Nevada), but I guess it's a | WIP. I'll probably figure out how to contribute... | zaik wrote: | It's built on OpenStreetMap data, so you can start contributing | by clicking the 'Edit' button on openstreetmap.org | | Here's the OSM wiki entry on how to map power lines: | https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Power_lines | jcims wrote: | Would be difficult but interesting if they included proposed | projects. There are 36 square km of solar farms planned in west | central ohio that don't show here at all. | zaik wrote: | The data seems to be from OpenStreetMap. Features which do not | currently exist are out of scope for OSM. | tomrod wrote: | It shouldn't be too hard to generate new geospatial layers if | the data is available. | | It's not on OSM to do so, of course, but it isn't infeasible. | karussell wrote: | Impressive data collection from OpenStreetMap (as always :)). | | It would be great when wind power sources could be highlighted | like solar sources and when wind & solar are more visible by | default. Even solar power parks appear only on larger zoom scale | (in my area). | blhack wrote: | This is _incredibly_ detailed. Really neat. | fjfaase wrote: | In August and September 2007, I spend some tracking all major | power lines in the Netherlands using Google Earth. Interesting to | see that the information provided on openinframap.org is much | more detailed. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-15 23:00 UTC)