Too Much Transparency Never Hurt Anyone?

At June’s “Atomcon”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1638/why-arent-you-at-atomcon-2008, Rosatom unveiled a website, intended to allow the Russian public to -control their iodine intake- check radiation background info on nuclear power facilities all over the country with a click and a zoom. I guess this was Rosatom’s way of dealing with hackers, whose attacks on NPP websites helped spread panic over a “non-existent radiation leak at a nuclear plant in St. Petersburg”:http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080523/108202288.html in May.

The website is basically a map of the country – “check it out”:http://www.russianatom.ru/ – and you can flip between map and google-powered satellite view. Sadly, I can’t zoom to see close-ups of my birthplace – the “beautiful Magadan”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magadan.

Anyway, my senior colleague “Cristina Hansell”:http://cns.miis.edu/cns/staff/hansell_cristina.htm discovered today that the website also allows easy access to and close-up view of amazing things like the “Rybachiy Submarine Base”:http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/nucflt/pacflt/rybachiy.htm on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where the Russian Navy bases several SSBNs (see “Podvig”:http://russianforces.org/navy/ and “NTI”:http://www.nti.org/db/submarines/russia/). A sample pic is posted below and you can “download a larger version here”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/file_download/14. Kinda funny, don’t you think?

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