With technology on a skyrocket to extinguishing any sort of privacy in our lives, it appears only the rich, corrupt or those subject to terrorist attacks can have an artful word with the web masters and remove themselves from Google Earth. Some are terribly obvious: solid green Lego-style chunks covering mysterious tundras; copy-and-paste jobs to replace secretive landmarks, and areas that have been completely Jackson Pollocked. At its extreme, whole countries can be virtually eradicated. Zoom into North Korea on Google Maps and you'll see a bare minimum labelling system, and that's actually an improvement: up until last year, the capital city of Pyongyang was the only point labelled. A community of citizen cartographers voluntarily collaborated on Google Map Maker for several years, using analog maps and known points of interest to create a highly detailed map of the Hermit country. Thanks to this newly-unveiled map, Google was able to reveal the exact site of North Korea's nuclear weapons test last month - one of the reasons they didn't want to be on the satellite system in the first place, along with the fact they now bear home to the largest death camps viewable on Google Earth. Concentration camps where between 600,000 and 2,500,000 people have been tortured, starved, and executed is definitely not desirable for any country to have on display. There are, unsurprisingly, regions of the planet that officials do not wish to be viewed by any old eye on the web. Reasons for certain landmarks being hidden by Google are obvious to see, but some are just unintelligible, and downright perplexing. Some conspicuously hidden places have been physically visited by Internet users, only to report back there was absolutely nothing to see there. What on Earth are they hiding? Come with us now on a globe-trotting journey through the ultimate virtual map, to 10 landmarks so secretive, we're simply not allowed to see them. What's more, we've found a way you can blur your OWN home from Google Earth. Read on.
10. Keowee Dam, South Carolina
A man-made reservoir on Lake Keowee has been given the Google blur: and a strong one at that. Why would they want to hide a reservoir? Could be the fact that the dam helps run the Oconee Nuclear Station. Whatever the potential risk at bay, someone doesn't want us to see it; simple as that.