[OSM-talk] Abnormal votings on military objects in RU wiki part; PocketGIS madness

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Eugene Iline wrote:
> Moreover you can never know the truth about the object behind the wall, 
> I repeat. The only truth on ground is that this is a wall and access is 
> prohibited.

That's another situation then. If there's just a wall and armed guards 
then it might not appropriate to tag it as landuse=military (although 
OSM does not demand that mappers only map what they can prove - if 
someone sees something that looks like a forest he may put 
ladnuse=forest even without actually going in there and checking if it 
is perhaps a park).

But I have to say again that you must view this as a three step process:

1. someone maps in country X
2. data is processed and kept by OSM
3. someone uses data and distributes in in country X

The authorities in country X can make laws that affect steps 1 and 3, 
but step 2 is outside of their influence unless X == United Kingdom of 
Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

> Frederik, is it possible in Germany to give away state secret (if you 
> know that some combination of information is not to be published for the 
> reason that it is a secret by the law, only in combination) without 
> being judged? 

Indeed in Germany you can be punished by up to 5 years in prison if you 
knowingly endanger national security by making photos or drawings of 
military installations or distribute such information. If you do not do 
this knowingly but negligently then you can still get up to 2 years.

But the situation in Germany is that the precise location and use of 
most military installations is already publicly known which makes the 
law (article 109 of German StGB) rather toothless - how can you endanger 
national security by reiterating something that can be found on Google?

I agree that once OSM reaches a level of detail where hitherto unknown 
facts about German military installations are mapped (by rogue elements 
inside the military perhaps), this might become a problem in Germany. As 
a provider of OSM maps and data based in Germany, I would then have to 
remove such information from the data I provide in order not to get in 
trouble with the law; as a mapper in Germany I would have to refrain 
from mapping such details.

But even as the most law-abiding citizen I have no legal obligation to 
log in to a database kept in another country and remove information 
about my country's military installations from there, or even try to 
convince the keepers of that database to remove it.

Bye
Frederik