TITLE:
Google Maps Security Concerns
AUTHORS:
Aqil Burney, Muhammad Asif, Zain Abbas, Shamaila Burney
KEYWORDS:
Google Maps, Anonymous Users, Cybercrime, Security Issues, Security Concerns, Spatial Information, Signup Mechanism, Potential Threats
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Computer and Communications,
Vol.6 No.1,
January
8,
2018
ABSTRACT: Google Maps and other such maps in GIS have a lot of significance in every one’s life for in modern world due to technological development as well as contemporary needs in travelling, business planning, agriculture, e-marketing supply chain management, census and planning and excessive use of mobile phones. Being a revolutionary technology, it attracts the users from its inception. It has been revolutionary in having an impact on one’s daily life by helping one explore geographical locations virtually anywhere on the whole planet. It has become a norm that people use Google Maps before or while commuting to a certain place as most of the people rely on it to provide the shortest or fastest route to a destination. Google Maps has had a profound impact not only one’s personal life, but has opened new avenues of marketing, business intelligence, urban planning, infrastructure strategy development, as well as traffic engineering. Hence, no one can deny the impact it has had on our society in a short period. However, Google Maps has security concerns associated with its use. This is because whenever a user is searching for a geographical location on Google Maps, there is no way to ascertain his/her intention. As result, whatever is requested by the user, it is provided without much security checks or personal specific logging history. Criminal minded people may use the technology to carry out unwarranted and uncalled-for activities such as terror attacks, exploitation of military assets, target killing, trailing a potential victim, kidnapping, demanding ransom money, and compromising national security etc. Numbers of such activities may be carried out using the guidance from “Google Maps” without getting noticed. This is largely due to that anonymous login is allowed into Google Maps. The paper highlights the main security issues that exist in the use of Google Maps and suggests the key areas to improve upon. In this research paper, we discuss the security concerns related to Google Maps utilization and try to identify the associated risks that may be worst in some situations due to that it is significant to assess the usage of this tremendous technology. We categorize the millions of Anonymous Google Maps users into two major categories (Anonymous Good Users and Anonymous Bad Users) based on Google Maps browsing and analyze the associated risks and potential threats and propose the way to minimize them. In future, if Google Maps adopts the proposed techniques and improves upon, then its utilization minimizes security concerns and makes the world much safe place.