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China to Have Over 100 Eyes in the Sky
gollum123 writes "Reuters reports China plans to launch more than 100 satellites before 2020 to watch every corner of the country, state-run China Central Television quoted a government official as saying Tuesday. A "large surveying network" would be set up to monitor water reserves, forests, farmland, city construction and "various activities of society," a government official said without elaborating. "The aim is that, at any time and any place, we can obtain necessary data on any event through watching the Earth from space," said Shao Liqin, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology."
How ominous. Was this translated with editorializing in mind, or was this official so tactless as to expose the true purpose of such a constellation?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Good question, that. Depending on how much they're spending per satelite it's possible they're using geosync orbits, and simply have spent extra to have top end resoltutions. Although they'd still have to have some mobile and/or aiming capability, since even 100 satelites won't be able to keep the entire country within the view of high res cameras. My personal bet would be with a bunch of geosync sats over areas of significant intrest to the gov, (say, about half of the sats, possibly as many as 75) with the rest being in polar orbits to cover all the rest of the locations that aren't so easily predictable.
Z
I doubt the White House will mention this. Even if they did condemn it, they will be secretly trying to figure out their own way of one-upping it (assuming they haven't already).
The Bush administration has done things like that in the past. Remember when Bush made his campaign promise to repeal Clinton's secret evidence laws, and instead increased them dramatically?
The US have spy satellites up. Europe wants spy satellites up. Don't complain if the Chinese want theirs up there too.
Set up huge techno-fire works on the satellites and do horizon wide shows of colours. Or not..
I wonder if you would be able to see them from the ground on a good night or would they be beyond the reach of the human eye?
_+_
This makes a lot of sense for China. It is a vast country after all that is hard to monitor. Not only a lot of infrastructur is missing, but also the local authorities have a really bad tendency to cover up any problems including large scale environmental disasters. That is one of the problems with authorian rule. So being able to monitor the provinces from Beijing gives them a lot of control.
Do You really think China has now the technology to monitor people from the sky? I doubt even the US has this. But who am I kidding? This is Slashdot of all places so I better get my tinfoil hat to blend in with the crowd.
If they want to spy on the world - they should put spy satellites in polar orbit.
If they just want to spy on their own people - they should use balloons or automated high-endurance aircraft (say 1 month aloft time - solar powered - like that NASA thing).
One satellite for the whole country would be useless for spying - too much space to monitor if you want to be really intrusive. They'd need dozens, or 100 even.
Instead, you just float a balloon for a month at a time over each populated area. You can get better resolution than the US satellites get for less cost simply because you are FAR closer to the ground, and yet you could watch the entire city from a high-enough altitude. No contending with solar radiation, and it is easy to do repairs.
Something like this was talked about to replace cell towers in low-usage areas.
The only limitation of this plan is it is only good for domestic spying. However, it would make sense to use the expensive satellites to spy on other countries, and cheaper technology to spy on yourself...
Interesting. China is often seen as being the secretive control-obsessed state, yet America has had this capability for years, and the Chinese are only getting it now AND they are being open about their intentions.
China sure is wasting alot of money for a developing country.
If they're so bad, why were they permanently made our most favored trading partner while I'm still not allowed to buy Cuban cigars?
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
the US still is in afghanistan, i have 3 Marines from my platoon there. I guess it doesnt rate the shock news coverage that Iraq rates. As to the rest of your points, i was pointing out the view point as presented by US media. I personaly don't think that prioners made to stand for a few hours a day in capes and hoods is uncruel when US Marines and soldiers are standing 18+ hours per day in full MOPP (mission oriented protective posture) (ie nuclear biological chemcial gear weighing in a 50 pounds plus) and are handing out food and water and fixing the water and electrical lines that power Iraq and are being blown up by IED (improvised explosive devises) to provide servcies to the innocent. but i guess their lives are expendible, right? while those who massacre and desecrade them should be revered for defending their arab right should be praised? Regaurdless of your opinion of WHY we went into iraq, look at what we are doing for them. Look beyond the news. We are honestly trying to help the iraqi people. and we are being slaughtered while we do so.
magnanomous.
The only problem with the "watching for people gathering in Tiananmen Square" theory is that such squares are already in the middle of cities, and patrolled by police. China _is_ a police state. Don't assume that communist police was like, say, German police, which you only see about once per month. Communist governments have police and informants all over the place.
So they don't really need a satellite to tell them that. A cop will relay that information quicker.
More importantly, a cop has a brain and can filter data easier than a computer can. A cop can tell if it's a demonstration shouting anti-communist slogans, or merely a crowded day with everyone going around their business.
An orbital camera only sees a crowd in both cases. Even if you program it to only react at over a certain crowd size, a cop could still have informed you faster, while the crowd was still forming.
That said, I'm sure they'd _love_ to be able to track everyone by satellite. In fact, if the press release is indeed worded like that, it can well be that someone actually _wanted_ to give the population the idea "we could mean watching _you_."
I'm just saying it's not practical.
1. Tracking people from above, seeing only the top of their head, isn't of as much use as the tinfoil hat crowd seems to assume. Half the office building I work in would look just the same from above: a mess of hair anywhere between blond and brown, on top of some black clothes. Good luck telling it's me, and not some guy from the second floor.
And let's remember that currently software has trouble even recognizing a face in a clear photo. Recognizing someone by their haircut from above is just SF.
2. It loses track as soon as you enter a building, car, bus, train, or subway. If I enter a subway station, I could come out _anywhere_. Just supervising all possible exits to see me come out, is gonna take half of those 100 satellites. Just for one person.
3. It becomes useless on any cloudy or foggy day.
Needless to say, a human agent has none of these 3 problems.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I guess the Cherokee don't count, huh, since they weren't protesting, just being forcibly marched from South Carolina to Oaklahoma during the winter? Just to pre-empt your objection to that comparison, the supreme court, at least, did not consider them a foreigners at that point.
Then there was Wounded Knee. No, the one in 1973.
Oh, and let's not forget about those WWII Japanese interment camps. Please. That wasn't so long ago. But I guess we didn't just shoot folks there, we just took all of their stuff, land, separated them from their families, and put them in camps.
Right, we don't shoot our protesters, generally we just tear gas them, shoot them with "non-lethal" pellet/bag guns, and lead covert ops against their organizers, arrest them, and in many cases, they just end up 'mysteriously murdered'... that is a little better, I suppose...
Don't get me wrong, we're not quite to the point of having a ruthless dictatorship in this country, but... I don't know, I mean, those guys killed in China weren't just protesting, they were calling for something akin to revolution. Do you really think a serious bid at revolution or basic government restructuring or even large grassroots protest reform movement in the US would be treated kindly right now?? I'd like to think so, but an awful lot of protesters in the US have been injured, and yes, more than just a couple killed by police in the past 4 years...
Anyway, my real point? Don't think it couldn't happen here. Prevent it from happening here. At least, be aware that it could happen here, and check your historical knowledge of some of the events found in responses to your (IMHO) not-terribly-insightful post...
What the fuck WWII has anything to do with Iraq??? If you are doing something ugly, you cannot say "that guy did worse", you are only responsible of what you are doing.