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by Rastonbury 1577 days ago
Targeting airstrikes theory aside, wonder what Google thinks of the potential that Russian soldiers are using Maps to navigate while invading Ukraine?
1 comments

I'm the exact opposite of a military expert, but the conflict being extremely asymmetric, a service like Google Maps helps the Ukranians side more than it helps the Russians.
Does it though? Maps in general help me more when I'm new somewhere. I wonder if it couldn't be helpful for Google Maps and other services to block out for example all small roads, inner cities, etc. Maybe I'm wrong though; why would maps help the defenders more?
It would be nice if Google Maps would distract the invading soldiers by asking them to calibrate their accelerometers all the time like it did on my phone.
It should not be too challenging to block services to phones originating in Russia but being used in Ukraine now.
Indeed. Cell phones are by definition location tracking devices so data can be routed to the right place. Ukrainian mobile network operators should be able to figure out the exact movement of every single soldier carrying a regular phone, and selectively block service at opportune moments. More trivially, wouldn't they be using russian SIM cards?