I tried replicating a challenge Gary Ruddell the Cyber educator did a few weeks ago and loved it so I’m glad he’s started adding these weekly.
This next one is shown below!
For this one I started off by analysing the photo for any stand-out features:
- Power station visible
- 6 visible wind turbines
- Lots of plane trails – possible high air traffic
- Sea defences visible
- Possible land to the right of the picture due to the way the waves are lapping
- Also possible that instead of land it could be ships or boats making the waves
- The massive dutch flag is shown on the right of the picture behind an area of green land in what looks like an old fort or castle-style setup
- Multiple towers visible
- The land juts out to the left
- There are red and green buoys in the water
I decided to aim for the obvious and cross-reference power plants with airports in Holland. This seemed like a good place to start
It’s clear that there are several interesting targets based on this cross reference – there are power plants near Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the South and several smaller ones further north.
To me it makes sense to start at the capital so the first target is the Nuon Power Generation plant
Straight away you can see 2 massive towers in the first pic on Google maps so that’s a good start!
On closer inspection below you can see that the inlet the direction of the power plant looks like it fits the angle of the photo and there is even an interesting location where the pic could possibly have been taken from
Now lets look at the satellite imagery
From the satellite imagery we can see what looks like an old historical site in the middle of the inlet and then a row of wind turbines above that stretching out to the left of the power station
Let’s have a closer look at the old fort!
It’s clear that the sea defences and the dutch flag are visible in both photos and they seem to line up with the geography of the area!
Let’s zoom out again
Yeah, there’s the wind turbines too! Clearly visible to the left of the power station
This is looking promising here, let’s have a wider view and see if everything matches up
It’s clear now, I’ve found the location. Everything from the buoys to the towers, the old fort, the sea defence and the wind turbines, everything matches up!
One last stand-back image below:
Another great challenge from Gary!
If you want to follow his challenges or learn more about Cyber Security you can find him here Linkedin
