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Satellite Spotters Make Government Uneasy
An anonymous reader found an interesting little story about satellite spotters and how, not surprisingly, their painstakingly methodical hobby doesn't exactly make gazillion dollar government agencies all that excited. Of course the article raises the very obvious point that if a guy with a pair of binoculars in his back yard can spot a satellite, so can the Chinese government.
If they are spotted, they failed. I think they should thank the spotters for the free bugtesting.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
...but the sky is pretty much Public Domain. Or are you going to outlaw looking up?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I have some 20x60 Russian binocs I've used for satellite spotting in the past... long ago, however, I discovered that there were more interesting things in the sky than satellites - I'm talking UFOs...
Based on my observations, I do not believe that UFO's are nuts-and-bolts physical craft. Often, they are polymorphic, sometimes they seem to be made only of light and they solidify before my eyes, they defy our physical laws. In short, I do not believe that they are fully "in" this universe. For this reason, I think they might be extradimensional rather than extraterrestrial.
Sort of like when the sphere appears to the square in Flatland.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/05/1734208
There's only so much one can see from the ground. Okay, so you can look up at the sky and say, "hey, there's a satellite, and it isn't listed publicly on the internet. It must be a secret government satellite!" Now, alright - this may be a small problem. It lets the enemy know where our spy satellites will be, and when. But they won't know what kind of sophisticated spying equipment is on them; whether they have a resolution of 5 meters or 5 inches. All they know, basically, is that there's a hunk of metal at some point in the sky, at some point in time.
The only way around this would be to create a bunch of decoy satellites. That is, until clocking technology is invented, I suppose. Unless you can keep the satellite with the sun behind it all the time, but then it isn't very stationary, now, is it.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
Of course the article raises the very obvious point that if a guy with a pair of binoculars in his back yard can spot a satellite, so can the Chinese government.
Just think what the Chinese government would be capable of if they were to stand in this guy's backyard with his binoculars!
Yet again another story that props up a straw man argument so the lefties can bash the government. All the government folks are saying is that they would rather not have folks doing the work for the Chinese government. You are also perfectly free to stand outside a government building, log anyone going in or out and put it on the web. But don't be surprised if someone calls you an a**hole for doing it.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Seriously, two articles in the same day scaremongering about China. Slashdot is turning into The New York Times in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
If the Chinese can develop tiny robots good for them. If the Chinese can spot satellites, good for them. Why the summary decided to single out China, I don't know. I'm sure if a guy with binoculars can do it, so can just about every government in the world, including the United States government. Remember, you guys aren't the only with satellites up these days.
First of all we aren't all American here so we don't all quite understand this paranoia about the Chinese. Secondly, I highly doubt the average Slashdotter, who is generally well educated, has the kind of irrational paranoia that Slashdot seems to be provoking in these articles.
I Spy with my eye, something smal-
Hey! Hold on! Hold on! Lay off the Chinese! I thought they were our friends I mean they ARE hosting the Olympics. Nobody who hosted the Olympics ever turned out to be bad. Am I right folks? Am I right?
So what if they can see all the satellites the Yanks ever launched? It's not like they'd be developing some means to shoot them down. It's pretty obvious they're working on a weather control machine at the moment.
I have nothing compelling to say
The people charged with our defense and national security are *supposed* to be uneasy, ...lay awake nights, ... constantly wonder if all they've done is enough. That way, the rest of us don't have to.
Many LEO satellites are visible to the naked eye, and certainly with only a little optical assistance. Spotting one and speculating what it's doing are two different things. But maybe it's time to employ a little stealth for satellites too.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Isn't this a dupe? I could've sworn there was an article about this just a week or two ago.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
... a revolutionary new way of cloaking secret, spacebased facilities.
The new method is called black, dull color.
The US government isn't worried about China or vice versa. We both know where each other's satellites are; both public and "secret". You don't put two billion dollar objects in orbit on a potential crash course. It just doesn't happen. That's why they know, we know they know, they know we know they know, and we're all comfortable with that.
Next question?
Do NOT look through binoculars at secret government laser satellite with remaining eye.
"...so can the Chinese government."
Thus begins the Cold War with China.
Install Ubuntu in Android
When did China become "The Enemy"? I thought you were still working on Al-Qaeda. Did I miss a memo?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Clearly these spotters were actively violating the security measures implemented in the systems by "being small, being far away and travel fast". Teens across all of USA will be visited by the feds, getting all their viewing equipment seized (telescopes, binoculars, glasses, contact lenses). You just wait and see! ;)
Insert `fortune -o` here
What makes this even worse/funnier is that most satellites run properietary, closed source operating systems like Windows, reducing security and making them very easy to hack. Even leaving out the hardcore Linux hackers (to whom hacking even the most secure Windows system is a breeze), all you need to do is have some Joe Sixpack in the Canadian Alps browse porn via his satellite internet connection, and the satellite's Windows software gets infected with malware as it transmits the HTML to the user. Then you need some astronaut to go up and fix the registry, something that just does not need to be done with an Open Source operating system, like Ubuntu.
Combine this with the difficulties in running Windows update on the satellites (let alone keeping the virus checking software up to date - which is often closed source, proprietary software itself, and therefore demonstrably inferior) and you end up with satellites running software that is months or even years out of date.
When governments start putting up satellites that run Open Source Software, they will be much more secure. The elegant, secure-from-the-ground-up design of OSS means that these satellites would be virtually unhackable. And the best part is, wether these are used for good or bad, is ultimately up to the users, as they can check the source code and fix any problems or malware that the government tries to slip in.
...Knowledge is unquestionably a dangerous thing. We can't have people with knowledge on our streets.
In the interests of safety and security, we should create two groups of people. "Leadership" and "workers." This will create the peace and order we've all be craving for so long! Naturally, we wouldn't actually call them "Leadership" and "workers." I think something less obvious should be used... let's say maybe "Moreloks" and "Eeloy" perhaps?
When backpacking in the Sierra Nevada, above 6,000 feet or so, you don't need binoculars. You can look up to the sky at almost any moment, and see satellites going by.
Let's just restrict the access to that guy's backyard, and forbid he let any chinese people use his binoculars.
____
nico
Nico-Live
...a revolutionary new way of preventing secret, spacebased, black, dull colored facilities to burn up by attaching heatresistant ceramics at the hull.
Of course the Chinese can track these satellites, the Chinese have a multi-trillion dollar economy. With that you can afford the education, staff and equipment to track satellites with far more accuracy than these hobbyists since they can use things like Radar and large telescopes. The Chinese got these things by being a stable and peaceful (albeit repressive) state. The Chinese know where the satellites but they're not the ones who anyone's worried about. Smaller groups such as certain terrorist organisations possibly do not have the organisation or patience to find out this information themselves, but they do have the ability to look up web pages.
Despite their benign intentions, there are consequences for exposing any information of this nature. Information has always been one of the most important weapons in any human conflicts. Whether you believe you have a nationalistic duty to protect the secrets of your nation and its allies or not, one must consider that by publishing data of this nature, despite it just being numbers one can calculate in one's backyard can result in bad things happening to good people. One must consider that just because one is fairly safe from terrorism in most of the developed world, it is a way of life in Northern India, Pakistan, Israel, Iraq where it claims life on a steady basis, if public satellite data prevents the governments of these regions from suppressing those who attack civilians, then those deaths are a consequence of the publishing of the information. This isn't about protection of the revenue model of some fat record labels, this isn't about exposing government lies or software patents. This is information who's revelation could lead to death and it should be treated with serious discretion.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Just kidding. If the rocket scientists doesn't get off their ass China will be seeing its own satellites up there- with red, white, and blue stripes. I wish I had a list or link of rocket failures by country, but the US is up there.
You don't have to worry about the solar panels, these are spook sats, put a nuke in it.
I can only assume that the sats owners are doing this, so why isn't it working?
when after their economic bubble bursts a demagogue in beijing announces the invasion of taiwan to assuage empty stomachs and shortcircuit criticism of the technocrats with a little rally round the wagons ultranationalism
of course, that's totally impossible. of course. i'm a false alarmist for saying that. of course. han imperialism is a myth, a lie. of course
it's hardly an american obsession friend. if america disappears into a giant lake tomorrow, i hardly think the rest of the world will toast the peace and benevolence of a country that machine guns democracy activists and outlaws and imprisons religious practioners and sells the organs of prisoners in reeducation work camps and belches tons of pollution and occupies tibet
yes, lovely peaceful china. it's just an american obsession to criticize china. you're on the money friend
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What's interesting about this satellite that is going to get shot down is that the News Media is pretty much parroting the PR that it's being shot down so the hydrazine that powers it could kill a lot of people. But we know that's not the case, the true reason is they are paranoid that super secret technology will land in China...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
C'mon people. How stupid do you think we are?
We want you to think you can track our "secret" sats. We want you to change your behavior when you think we are watching.
It just makes it that much easier to confirm if something suspcious is going on.
You don't know the schedules of our other sats. You only know the schedules of the ones we want you to know about.
Is the whole rest of the world enemy to the US now?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
First of all we aren't all American here so we don't all quite understand this paranoia about the Chinese.
... Then there is also the little detail that they have militarily attacked us, they entered the Korean War to save the North Koreans when they were on the verge of defeat.
... They seem well poised to need a diversion and a scapegoat. We seem to be their number one candidate. The cold war only ended in the west, in the east the same people are still running things. Only their strategy has changed.
Well they are number one with respect to industrial and military espionage directed at us. They attempt to manipulate our electoral system with illegal campaign contributions. Their military is a bit aggressive with us, recall their ramming of our surveillance aircraft and the games played with the aircraft on the ground. Their currency manipulation to remain an extremely inexpensive exporter. The blind eye turned towards piracy and counterfeiting. Their involvement in the drug trade (precursor chemicals and opium exports, and money laundering). Their transfer of ballistic missile and nuclear technologies.
Now look at how they treat their own citizens. The growing unrest of these citizens. The unavoidable crisis coming as the countryside becomes even poorer, and the population becomes older overall,
I know some people don't like how China runs their country. But I suspect a lot of those people are the same preaching "sovereignty" from the UN and other such orgs. How about letting China run the country how they want, and only decrying what they do outside their country. I find I it weird how the news media is descrying China for spying... as if the US doesn't spy... totally disregarding that some of the satellites are called "spy" satellites.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I agree that you can't hide something that's orbiting the planet.
Nonetheless, isn't it also true that the amateur spotters and their extensive records are providing a lot of data points that other governments could not amass on their own without a lot of work? In the past a government might have had some home-based resources for this kind of tracking, with data collected at intervals and lots of gaps. But with the hobbyists they've now got an international network of tracker/spotters and more continuous datasets.
There must be some value to unfriendlys in having that kind of information, both for the information itself, and for the stresses the release of the information imposes on the operators of the satellites.
First of all, you're reading this article from the wrong angle. It isn't about distrusting the Chinese government; it's about the US government being uncomfortable with the free flow of information.
A person in TFA brings up China for good reason; China is one of the few countries in the world this particular information would have any use to.
With respect to nanotechnology, this is an important story. China still plays by the old rules in a world of free trade. When was the last time you heard about a serious US effort to establish national leadership in some technological area? Oh there's talk about it, but the ideology for both major parties has been free trade; national trade and research policy is no longer based on gaining advantage for American workers or products or companies, although politically the government will advocate for American commodities within a free trade context.
China is the last major power, economic or military, that still does things for national prestige, or which associates its national interest with the industries within its borders rather than the unrestricted flow of capital across borders. However its massive, low paid and unenfranchised workforce makes it a vital element in other nation's economic policies. It is sensible for other governments to be wary of Chinese economic nationalism.
It's also sensible for other countries to be wary of Chinese military ambitions. China is a major economic power that is deeply involved in serious territorial disputes, both its own with ROC, and on the Korean peninsula. Of course you could say that with US in Iraq, but we're just shooting ourselves in the foot there. If China calculated that it could take Taiwan by force with sufficient swiftness, they would do it as a matter of national prestige.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's also there because high-tech secrecy is something that only matters if you've got a high-tech enemy, and Russia's really not that relevant a threat these days. So if you're in the business of high-tech paranoia, the Chinese are the only other superpower around.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Very impressive! http://www.spymac.com/details/?2343566
I despair of slashdot - when someone who obviously misses sarcasm like this gets an insightful mod.
Or are we supposed to be looking for +5 Super Irony ??
When I was in the Air Force people always used to be surprised when someone would do something stupid; they thought that since you had to score in the 40th percentile in the ASVAB test to get in the Air Force rather than the 30th as in the Navy, the people should be smarter.
;-)
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/genjoin/a/asvabminimum.htm
You sure you weren't in the Coast Guard, they require 40. The Air Force 36 and the Navy 35.
With an understanding of tracking and their speeds, couldn't governments (like the $@$@!& Chinese) (had to join in on that) focus a large amount of light (such as mirrors reflecting the sun, or lasers) in the area of the satellite to pretty much not allow it to see anything?
To be effective, a space-based platform must be out there, visible by all and vulnerable to all.
In space nobody can hear you whine like a little girl.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Planespotting seems to be more of a European obsession than an American one; perhaps it's a leftover from WWII and the Cold War. But recently it's been a problem for the US government - planespotters tracked a bunch of those CIA "extraordinary rendition" kidnapping flights that the US pretended weren't happening.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
There is supposed to be an international registry of known satellites, although not all countries use it consistently, especially for military satellites.
Pretending that a spy satellite is a different kind of satellite probably wouldn't work too well. First, different kinds of satellites use different orbits. Even more importantly, non-military US satellites have lots of publicly available information. Non-military satellites are usually either scientific instruments or commercial assets. The paper trail on a "real" non-military satellite would be hard to reproduce in a convincing way.
Last year China shot down a satellite in a very public display of their capability to take out our communication and spying infrastructure. Let's say maybe the demonstration wasn't their best technology for anti-satellite weaponry. The US thinks all they've got are these noisy missiles to shoot satellites. Now we've got a spy satellite that's not functioning and is falling from ortbit. Perhaps its mobo was lacerated by a sino railgun. We'd never suspect the Chinese because all they've got are those easy-to-track missiles, remember?
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
... a revolutionary new way of protecting secret, spacebased, black, dull colored facilities with attached heatresistant ceramics to become ultimately overheated by using semiconductor based heat-to-electric-energy-converter-technology to power the boardsystems with electric energy as well as an laser generator which beams odd energy to the outer space were it is not longer a harm for the satellite.
(Hey, that could be a real way: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/electricity-1205.html)
Nice. ^_^
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
When did China become "The Enemy"? I thought you were still working on Al-Qaeda. Did I miss a memo?
You missed headlines of the 1950s and 60s, not just a memo. You might start with China entering the Korean War and attacking US forces in order to save North Korea from defeat.
Nobody was worried about being able to see satellites until University of Michigan announced their giant laser.
I guess if I was in the position of being in charge of the spy satellite systems and design, I would look at this as being more of an opportunity. If I think we have a design that would be difficult to spot, put it into orbit and then watch the satellite spotters web site to see how long before they actually notice the thing.
As the one gentleman interviewed said, they cannot actually tell what a satellite is. Only that it is there. They can surmise what it is used for, based on its orbit and if they know who launched it and when.
Whew! This water sure is cold!
... US agencies are uncomfortable with amateur satellite spotters.
Do they really think other countries & organisations don't have the binoculars or math to do their own spotting? ^^
Obviously competent governments should be able to do all this on their own, so the only real concern must be terrorists or other non-government actors using the data to avoid having their movements watched.
My question is: is such a strategy viable? Are there not enough spy satellites up there that every part of the Earth is constantly being watch, at least by the U.S.? How many are there, anyway?
Grr! Arg!
If you are going to put junk up in the clouds, or higher, poluting the sky, don't expect people to not notice. Dish Network and Direct Tv have a heck of a time keeping their Electronic Counter Measures working since so many hacks know right where each of their satellites are and know exactly what frequencies are coming out of them... don't be foolish enough to think that a government can do a better job. If you are going to put junk up in the sky that can possibly transmit some information, especially if you are going to hover it above other nations, don't expect others to not pay attention. Hacking satellite tv is a piece of cake if you don't mind violating the law, don't care if your equipment could be fried with an ecm, or if you don't mind constantly updating your software with possibly bug ridden junk on a daily basis. If hackers don't mind going to those extremes just to freaking watch a little tv, don't dare believe other countries citizens aren't watching the sky. Look how many UFO spotters are out there... quite a few of them have binoculars or telescopes and see satellites on a regular basis. If you want to hide junk in the air, use cloaking stuff like the stealth fighters... If you want a not-too-easy-to-hide non-recyclable soda can in the sky, use satellites.
Who the hell is so naive as to believe that if human ca spot objects in the sky with low-tech tools, international agencies with far more long-range detection options would not spot them ?
I can't take the bush administration arrogance and stupidity anymore, please elect someone else, quick !
[Pruneau
The 1st GPS "NAVSTAR" satellite SVN01 PRN04 (space vehicle number 01, pseudorandom noise) was launched 30 years ago from Vandenberg AFB as of 22 February 1978 @ just before 1600 Pacific.
http://www.insidegnss.com/node/522 Despite these separate Air Force, Navy, and Army efforts, the early GPS program lacked support from the military services' operating commands -- which would rather have spent the money on weapons systems. Mission needs, user requirements, and concept of operations were still in the process of being defined.
The underwhelming response had led DoD officials to adopt GPS as an agency-wide initiative and place it under the care of a Joint Program Office with an Air Force colonel acting as the executive manager.
Over the years, the program faced many risks and overcame many obstacles -- even defunding by the Air Force in 1980-82. But the launch of SVN01 became a shot heard 'round the world [...]
LOL, where the hell did you get that "fact"? You do realise China's been nuclear-capable since the late '60s, right?
How many nukes China does or does not have is one of the world's most closely guarded secrets and frankly, unless you're some top level NSA operative, you have no fucking idea.
The *only* credible information about the Chinese nuclear arsenal was the HK leak which emerged in 1996, which indicated China had in excess of 2,300 warheads. Look it up. That was close to an order of magnitude above any prior western media report - I somehow doubt they have given up making them since then.
They have ICBMs easily capable of reaching anywhere in the US. Accuracy doesn't really matter with nukes. If you think 2,300 nuclear warheads - and that was over *10 years ago* - isn't a significant deterrent to the US, you're out of your god damn mind.
I do not claim to have any special knowledge but I do take an interest in geopolitics and have a few friends in (Australian) intelligence circles who would laugh in your face if you tried to claim the USA would automatically win in an all out war with China. They would say, and I'm inclined to agree, that the USA is more likely to automatically *lose* anything other than for-real "all out war" with China - by default - because the US government cannot take any action which leads to nuclear retaliation by China, but the Chinese Govt couldn't give a shit. You think the US is going to risk getting nuked to save Taiwan? LOL!
If you would like to see the previous discussion of the exact same article published on the same day(although published through a slightly different outlet), please see the discussion here.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
As they said during the AT&T wire tapping and domestic spying program, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to .
Any sort of free intellectual activity, following what interests you to see where it leads, makes authoritarians uneasy. Bad governments seek to exercise power by restricting information. Anyone who's just naturally curious and follows their bliss for the sheer joy of finding things out represents a danger to authoritarians.
It's not just political speech that's dangerous, it's anything that seeks truth that might not always align with propaganda.
That's why the freedoms provided in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution are so precious.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
How high an orbit do you propose to send these (low orbit) satellites into? ;-)
Seriously, the distance between the earth and the satellite is *tiny* compared to the distance of the earth from the sun. Thus, the satellite is practically always going to be in the earth shadow when on the "night side".
Only when it's in the sunrise or sunset part of its orbit will it be exposed to the sun - and only from an oblique angle, so unless you're planning to place the satellite in a geosynchronous orbit above the Lalamatine district of Ursa Minor Beta, you shouldn't have a problem.
Why fight with weapons when you can use money which is far more powerful, but maybe a bit slower?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I always go there to look for NYT articles because IHT doesn't require lame and unnecessary registration.
.... satellites spy YOU!!! oh, wait..... nevermind.
... with Slashdotters. They can't see satellites from their mom's basement anyway.
Have gnu, will travel.
"The US military seems to think otherwise"
The US military is a whore for funding. I'd bet my first born child, my kidneys, and my soul that they would claim inferiority to the Girl Scouts if it got them a budget increase.
Double whoosh!
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
the worry here is that one evil empire doesnt like another evil empire spying on their spying sattelites. who has the moral high ground here?
I Predict A Riot
I would like to say thank you.
I would like to say it, but seeing as how you haven't shot yourself in the fact yet, I can't.
Congratulations for contributing fuck all apart from another retarded "teh US IZ A POLICE STATE, THIS SUXXORS11111!!!!!ONE1111!!!" comment.
I'm sure your insight will be ridiculed for its inherent stupidity.
Really? Because it sounds to me like the government is being a bunch of dumb asses. According to TFA:
What do you suppose happens to an open source project when someone like Oracle comes along and hires away the key developers? Business figured this out a long time ago.
"That's why the freedoms provided in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution are so precious."
The Bill of Rights and the Constitution in no way "provide" any kind of freedom. The freedoms are inherent, and would exist even if said documents crumbled to dust tomorrow.
Your rights aren't dependent on a piece of paper.
In xanadu did kublai khan A pleasuredome *erect*
> ...if a guy with a pair of binoculars in his back yard can spot a satellite,
> so can the Chinese government.
If the government didn't want China, or anyone else for that matter, to know the whereabouts of their secret satellites, maybe they shouldn't register them. Of course, there are many reasons why it would be stupid not to register a satellite, the most obvious being:
(1) It would be in violation of several international laws
(2) You would run the risk of some other satellite trying to occupy the same 'space' (pun intended)
Seriously, it's not WHERE the satellites are that are secret, it's what they do, how they do it, and how they encrypt and transmit their information payloads.
Or other governments. If the NRO thinks they can hide satellites from China, Russia, or any other government, they need to turn in their secret decoder rings.
Its about spying on the public. The average citizen of the US, or other country, may not have the resources to track satellites on their own. If they want to conceal a little pot farm, keep personal property off the county tax roles, or conduct paramilitary training at the local madrasah. Web pages or other resources compiled by amateur groups can give them the knowledge they need to avoid surveillance.
Have gnu, will travel.
TO "accidentally" take out a spy satellite with a launch supposedly sent to place a high orbit satellite.
"Oh. Sorry, my bad. I had no idea that unregistered satellite was there."
Maybe, just maybe, the CIA shouldn't be placing big honking satellites they want to keep secret in very predictable, visible orbits.
Do human spies walk in the middle of a great big plaza in full sunshine on a predictable rotation if they want to stay hidden? Of course not-- they stick to the shadows, and they vary their route.
Spy satellites are going to be a relic of the past pretty soon anyway, as radar-invisible high-altitude drone planes are becoming the norm. A drone does not have a set flight path like an orbit, so the enemy can't predict where it's going to go even if it is spotted. It flies in the atmosphere, so the IR contrast with the rest of space is not there, and it's made of radar-absorbing materials that make it all but invisible. Add in some visual camouflage (like painting the underside the same color as the sky) and reduce the engine noise with cleverly shaped nozzles, and the enemy will never even know it's there. As the technology to fly these things gets better and the drones themselves get longer range, we might not even need spy satellites anymore.
Satellites with cameras will always be useful for Earth Science and other pursuits. But they might not be the best vector for obtaining covert high-altitude images of enemy territory anymore.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Yes, China is a threat, and has been so despite what Wall Street wants to think. As for their policies over there, we do have an interest, as they have bought influence yet they are of a nonvoter status in our country. Various reasons include devaluing their currency, persistent lack of detail to quality(flooding the area with junk), various human rights violations that are more extensive than the last few US administrations combined, and an insistence to stay out of their country when they're deep into ours.
They are an economic and military threat, for which may require Wall Street to be pushed aside and stop parceling our country to those who have no right to it. Businesses need to stop screwing with our government- they know not the US or care, which is a problem.
Wall Street as it is now is very close to becoming a foreign and domestic enemy.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
And if they decided to start dumping some of the trillions in US cash on the currency market, they'd immediately eliminate the USA as a superpower.
Of course, economists will tell you they won't because that would cost them money. I say once they want to devastate us, they might decide they could afford to lose a few bucks on the deal. And this would be a relatively cheap way to destroy us--probably cheaper than buying ICBM fuel.
If the sattelites are visible from North America, then what are the satellites looking at?
How hard is it to think about. Foreign governments could care less about U.S. satellites that look at the U.S. And they already know about their own satellites that look at the U.S. and about the U.S. satellites that look at them.
In one of those Jack Ryan movies (Patriot Games? I dunno) there was a scene where the terrorists at their camp would go inside every time the spy satilitte was overhead, indicating they knew about them, and this was generally accepted as a realistic scene. It's not so much that the satelittes themselves are secret, it's what they can do that is secret. Trust me, if you are building a doomsday device, you put a line in the budget for "binoculars" and "big silver tarp".
I'm pretty sure it was 40 when I enlisted, but I don't remember. I was a programmer so I was surrounded by people who scored in the 99th percentile anyway (just ask them). One of my best friends always hung out with people in Security Forces because "they don't all think they are better than everyone else." Seems the common computer nerd tries to make up for his lack of physical prowess by overestimating the value of uninteresting knowledge.
Whale
"Of course, economists will tell you they won't because that would cost them money."
And what the hell do they know, they're only experts, while you, on the other hand are a slashdot poster. It obvious to me who we should be paying attention to...
"I say once they want to devastate us..."
They'll realize that using debt is a stupid choice. We can choose not to repay, thereby pooching their plans completely.
Or were you not aware that was an option when you were constructing your oh so scary yet totally inaccurate rant?
The US population owns most of the US debt. Fuck, China isn't even close to being the foreign country with the most US debt, yet people like you are too fucking stupid to realize that. You hear some moron run his mouth, decide you like his charismatic presentation, then off you go, spewing retarded half-truths and gross misunderstandings while pretending you know what the fuck you're talking about.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050301facomment84201/david-h-levey-stuart-s-brown/the-overstretch-myth.html
You're wrong, and you're an idiot. Please stop posting until you can do so without being wrong and idiotic.
Cosmic
Microwave
Background
I.e. the black stuff away from the sun radiates mostly as if it were 3kelvin.
That's cold.
cf the orbital temperature at the earth orbit: about 220 kelvin.
Radiated energy sigma time temperature to the fourth power.
"You are wrong. France, Russia, Israel, and Taiwan have the largest industrial espionage programs against the United States."
Any sentence that begins "you are wrong" and isn't followed by credible sources (or in your case, ANY sources) is suspect.
So, sources please?
Q: What time is bedtime at Michael Jackson's house?
A: When the big hand is on the little hand.
There will also be those secret satellites with light absorbing material used in the F-whatever.
They're only "visible" for a very brief moment when they block the light of a star.
But sorry. I have to go. THEY are knocking on my door now.
Privacy is terrorism.
Welcome to slashdot
But seeing through the atmosphere works both ways.
1 second of arc for an object three inches across would be a distance (directly down) of about 9 miles.
Slant distance would reduce that 9 mile figure.
Any satellites that low?
You don't really have to actually hide the satellite. Rather, you have to employ a technology that attempts to hide it. At that point, if a satellite spotter spots the satellite, he must pretend he didn't, or he will be in violation of the DMCA.
Once a spotter is in violation of the DMCA, he can be arrested and charged with code breaking. You then have to consider whether it is a military satellite. If this is code breaking of US military secrets, it would also have to be considered whether he only used this information for himself -- in which case it would be hacking -- or whether he handed this information to one of our adversaries, in which case it would also be treason.
I'm sorry. Our way is no longer straight.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Now all the posts below it are going to be taken sarcastically, even if they're supposed to be taken literally. Nice going. /sarcasm
Would it be impossible to catch the satellite when it falls? I bet it would be very fun to study.
If they* aren't tracking** you, most reliable reason why not is that it's not cheap enough to be worth it--yet. Two decades ago, your credit card company and your stores weren't keeping a log of every transaction you made; now they are. A decade ago, the government wasn't mining all telephone call data; now it may be doing just that.
What changed? For the most part, computing power and storage became so cheap that the small benefit to be had from monitoring, recording, and mining all this data now outweighs the cost. They think this cheap tracking capability is great. They get to sell more stuff and prevent crime/terrorism/whatever.
What will be interesting is what happens next. Tracking and managing data keeps on getting cheaper. Soon, it will become so cheap that it will be economical for us to track them. Doubt it? Pricegrabber already tracks their sale prices. How long before your PDA will be able to tell you instantly how the price of milk at your grocery store compares to every other store in a 5-mile radius? You can already add to your car's nav system the locations of red-light cams. How long before you can add a database of the location and time of every speeding ticket ever issued--to improve your odds? How long before the smart mob starts collaborating on the current location of every police cruiser?
We barely whimpered as it became cheap enough for them to track us. It will be interesting to see how they react when it becomes cheap enough that we can afford to track them.
*There are a whole host of they, but the short list includes (a) governments and (b) corporations who want to sell you something.
**Their intentions aren't necessarily malevolent--just self-interested. This is not tin-foil hat stuff. To the contrary, it's dismally routine.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Satellites are classified by orbits, and orbital maneuvering, more than by anything else (assuming you don't have direct knowledge of their mission). Different satellites have different orbits for a reason, to support their mission, and their orbits thus provide information about their missions. GPS satellites are in high 12 hour orbits, comm sats are in even higher, 24 hour, orbits, weather satellites are in sun-synchronous polar orbits, etc.
An example : if you have an orbit that passes over Baghdad, big deal, they all will do that sooner or later. If you have one that passes over Baghdad early to mid-morning, when the shadows are nice and long (generally regarded as the best time for surface photography), you may have something. If you have an object whose orbit is continually tweaked to keep passing over Baghdad during mid-morning every few days, and that also happens to be at the perigee of the orbit, then you almost certainly have something. If you look at where it passes over during later-afternoon on other orbits, you may start to gain insight into what other targets are of interest.
You can bet that every serious intelligence service on the planet does this. Amateurs have been doing it since the 1950's, so this is old, old news.
If you don't read the signs then I don't feel sory for you when the shit hits the fan.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Could a computer not be used to do much of this work (record, compare star charts, do the math)?
Paint a yellow star, hammer and sickle on the satellite ...
In Soviet Russia government makes satellite spotters uneasy
The "important" terrorist organizations (the ones that might actually be able to do some damage to the USA) are getting weapons and other forms of direct support from foreign governments as it is. If knowing where our spy satellites are can help them, then they already have this information.
Also, it's not like these things are geostationary or something like that. Each one is in an orbit that lets it image the whole earth over time, in strips. They aren't really meant to catch a "sneak peek" at other countries so much as deny them the ability to secretly carry out large-scale activities, like moving troops around or building military bases. Being able to predict times when there won't be one nearby doesn't really help with this at all.
If we don't pay back the debt, that means no one shows up at the treasury auctions and THAT will cause devastation. It's not the current debt that will kill us. It's the fact that we can't go 30 days without begging the world's investors that we'd gladly pay them Tuesday for a hamburger today. The day they stop being nice (or when we indicate there's a chance we won't pay them back) is the day we become a third world country. Oh, and fuck you too.