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US Military Blocks Data On Incoming Meteors
Hugh Pickens writes "Nature reports that the US military has abruptly ended an informal arrangement that allowed scientists access to data on incoming meteors from classified surveillance satellites, dealing a blow to the astronomers and planetary scientists who used the information to track space rocks. 'These systems are extremely useful,' says astronomer Peter Brown, at the University of Western Ontario. 'I think the scientific community benefited enormously.' Meteor data came from the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite network consisting of infrared satellites in geosynchronous orbit to monitor the globe for missile launches or atmospheric nuclear blasts, forming the principal component of the United States' ballistic missile early-warning system. The satellites' effectiveness was demonstrated during Desert Storm, when DSP detected the launch of Iraqi Scud missiles and provided warning to civilian populations and coalition forces in Israel and Saudi Arabia. As a side benefit, the satellites could also precisely detect the time, position, altitude and brightness of meteors as they entered Earth's atmosphere, information the military didn't consider particularly useful, or classified. 'It was being dropped on the floor,' says former Air Force captain Brian Weeden. Although the reason for ending the arrangement remains unclear, Weeden notes that it coincides with the launch of a new generation of surveillance satellites and speculates that the Pentagon may not want details of the new satellites' capabilities to be made public, or it may simply lack the expensive software needed to handle classified and declassified data simultaneously. 'The decision may have been made that it was perhaps too difficult to disclose just these data.'"
I would too, do you want people running around like Chicken Little?
From TFS, the military stopped giving out unclassified information that was a byproduct of a military function - a windfall.
"Blocks" means that the information would flow but for the military's action.
The editors (snicker) should have used "stops" - more ambiguous and yet more accurate at the same time. But I guess that wouldn't generate the clicks, now would it?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I assume this means the mothership is now on final approach, and we don't want those scientists causing a panic.
I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords. Advanced warning is only useful if you are against them. Join us.
--
Toro
Meteors are coming, everyone panic.
That's crazy talk.
Generals! Let me help you out. Me and right wing buddies will start posting stories about how the USA is dropping its guard against meteors, and potentially large asteroid strikes, and we'll create a groundswell of support for getting this thing turned back on. If the lefties can come up with some stuff about how good it is to have this government program, then, I'm sure we can form a bipartisan consensus to get you the funding you need.
This is my sig.
alter table SatelliteInfo add IsClassified bit not null default 1
Then update the rows for the non-Classified ones.
But seriously, "Expensive software"? Isn't most of this stuff custom-built anyway?
They are most likely worried that the pictures might infer classified information or they think it had happened with the older system. Maybe you are able to map the positions of the satellites using the pictures. Its only a matter of time before things like that are figured out. The military will then likely declassify the information.
after the government started a new secret weapon program collecting adamantium meteors.
"north korea"
...they are hiding the Transformer invasion from us.
Table-ized A.I.
This is obviously deliberate, those scientists might get alarmed by the strange data when Dalmatians enter orbit, especially motherships.
/s
This is just one of many attempts at covering up the pending PlanetX disaster of 2012. http://www.december212012.com/media_push.htm
I would think the problem is that North Korea is supposedly going to be sending a missile over to Hawaii. Perhaps meteor monitoring was simply a bad use of the satellites' time as the US military is gearing up to track North Korea's launch.
Doesn't seem too far fetched to me...
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
You forgot the thousands of pages of architecture, systems engineering, regulations, requirements, and certification documents that support said code :-)
Congratulations, you just failed your NSA cert because you attempted to mix classified and non-classified processing in the same processor. If you want to handle classified data, a processor can only handle classified data, you cannot mix and match. In devices that are forced to mix and match (edge devices, like encryptors typically) you have to build your device in two halves and minimize the contact between the halves (typically they will be in separate metal boxes inside of the device, with a single wire connecting them. That single wire will eat up pages and pages of documentation when you try to get your device certified explaining how there is no possible way to leak information out of it (even in cases like slamming the crypto with bad traffic on the red side to cause it to slow down in some pattern that could be identified on the black side).
Your failure in design just cost your company a million dollars and several man-years of effort.
Sure, sure, I'll just need one more quick function from you. Please write something to determine whether the high speed ballistic object that just showed up on the satellite is a missile, plane, or meteor.
Remember that size, temperature and speed will be variable within each type. Also, once you've identified the type of object, please determine classification. Accuracy of this product must be 100%.
http://www.chaotickingdoms.com
So, this entire thread is essentially just a bait for idle speculation and conspiracy theories. Art Bell would be proud.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
that we are preparing for a strike, counterstrike situation w/ N. Korea or Iran.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
If the military believed that, given the meteor information, a black hat could deduce not only the capabilities of the satellites, but their actual orbits, that would certainly give them cause to discontinue the program.
...that, since the satellites are looking TOWARDS Earth and not AWAY from it, it'll only see objects that are actually IN Earth's atmosphere, which is FAR too late to actually GUARD anything.
My sig can beat up your sig.
CHIEF KORETZ: Sir, I have flash traffic at 24-18. Repeated calls for ID go unanswered. And it's not in the orbital or suborbital inventory.
MALE OFFICER #2: 24-18. Isn't that where...
CHIEF KORETZ: Same exact spot, sir. Although I am reading a much larger craft his time.
MALE OFFICER #2: Meteor, Ms. Koretz.
CHIEF KORETZ: A much larger meteor, sir. Hold on a second. (Putting hand to earpiece) We have a confirm. Whitmarsh Air Force Base is tracking...
MALE OFFICER #2: Where is it?
CHIEF KORETZ: Well, sir. The - meteor - seems to be hovering over a small town in Eastern Wisconsin.
Ezekiel 23:20
I think it is probable that the military has re-assigned the satellites so that more are looking in the direction of North Korea and possibly Iran. It would make a lot of sense to point the satellites in that direction and keep it secret.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Even worse two MiBs will meet him in the carpark and shoot him dead with a laser pistol.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Reply from scientists: Get your own damned neutrino detectors.
Have gnu, will travel.
... Military satellites stop transmitting information about incoming meteor and space objects... Alien craft move in around the planet, setting up positions over major cities and military bases... Are they friend? Are they foe?... Duke Nukem Forever... the Live Action Game!!!
to the Monsanto Corporation. /Moon Whaler
It seems likely to me that our enemies have teamed up with aliens to defeat us. The military must being trying to hide it for our own good.
Obviously they heard the Decepticons are coming and they don't want them to know the the capabilities of our space surveillance system.
The satellites were picking up data on meteors as they hit the atmosphere. This has nothing to do with the search for large objects that may or may not hit the earth.
This is technically made clear by the use of the word meteor, as opposed to asteroid, but I only remembered that as I type this so I expect I am not the only one that could have used a clarifying sentence in the summary.
My webcomic
Given that we, and the world, know that meteors striking the atmosphere cause these infrared satellites to go off, what stops a rogue nation from figuring out when the Perseids or Leonids would be impacting above their country and using that as a launch window? I mean, what's an extra blip in all that noise?
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
if( object.type=TYPE_METEOR ) {
object.isClassified = false;
} else {
object.isClassified = true;
}
You just declassified EVERYTHING, including nuclear missiles.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
We paid for them.
"Classified" is too often abused, that includes things that perhaps should automatically belong to the General Public. Public funds used to pay for things that end up privately patented or copyrighted is also another form of stealing from the public.
Besides, if you have to hide it then you must be doing something wrong is a fairer assumption on a government then it is on a free person.
Are you arguing that the satellites that detect foreign missile launches and nuclear tests aren't actually related to national security, and their results should be publicly available to other nations?
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Said function would only be needed for a real-time system. The meteor data was being gleaned from old data.
Congratulations, you just failed your NSA cert because you attempted to mix classified and non-classified processing in the same processor. If you want to handle classified data, a processor can only handle classified data, you cannot mix and match. In devices that are forced to mix and match (edge devices, like encryptors typically) you have to build your device in two halves and minimize the contact between the halves (typically they will be in separate metal boxes inside of the device, with a single wire connecting them. That single wire will eat up pages and pages of documentation when you try to get your device certified explaining how there is no possible way to leak information out of it (even in cases like slamming the crypto with bad traffic on the red side to cause it to slow down in some pattern that could be identified on the black side). Does this mean I'm fired? Your failure in design just cost your company a million dollars and several man-years of effort.
Does this mean I'm fired?
AnimePapers.org: Anime Wallpapers Handled With Care
A meteor will not have a speed less than 11 kps outside of a capture orbit (not likely). No terrestrial-sourced object is going to reach that sort of speed with the expectation that it is going to land again.
I am a science fantasy fan
Your failure in design just cost your company a million dollars and several man-years of effort.
Does this mean I'm fired?
Nah, you've fulfilled government criteria for promotion.
Unless you object, you will be bumped up a level your salary will now increase by 1.5x.
Remember that size, temperature and speed will be variable within each type.
Mod this post up - interesting.
My girlfriend told me that just the other day (although I think she was sparing my feelings)
Come on, if the government has the software to sift through fathomless amounts of e-mail traffic and random data, only accessing it when it was intended for a party for which they have a fully cleared warrant, then surely they have the expensive software and know how to give us the locations of a few meteors?
SBIRS, can't kill it, can't make it live.
I'm guessing that a defense contract that's 4 times it's initial budget and 10 years late doesn't have the time to worry about filtering out the non-classified data to give to scientists. IR data is very very noisy so it's pretty difficult to separate out the parts you care about vs the noise.
I had a girl tell me something similar once. I proved to her that it doesn't matter near as much as she thought.
Here is what you do, get a bunch of old Maxim mags, actually read the articles, get some playboys, hustler, and barely 18 mags- don't concentrate too much on the articles. Attempt to skip online porn because it will have the opposite effect and either make you impotent or premature.
Now, after a while of this, think of some corny plan to where she is the center of attention, use the force with what you have learned, and remember, each woman is unique and often changes to this uniqueness happen during the course of a relationship. The goal is to start off treating a whore like a queen then a queen like a whore. By the time your done, she will be telling her friends that it isn't the size of the pen, it's all in how you write your name.
BTW, if you meet her friends, sister, or in some close families her mother and they blush slightly when you first speak to them, you will know she was bragging about you. Sometimes they will roll over and start calling these people right after sex to talk about it, if this happens act embarrassed as if it's something that just clicked between the two of you. When you ready to move on to another girl, just grab her sister or friend that she talks to all the time and get caught.
Once touched by a classified process, the non-classified data becomes classified, until you painstakingly prove that it is not.
Why does a Canadian professor expect free access to the byproduct of an organization funded by the American taxpayers?
Not that I'm an Intelligence expert, nor I'm from the USA, but I allways tought that it is better to control the information that you give than to simply stop giving it. I mean, I can give them the info that I want and then controlling the situation becouse I CAN know what they know and act acordingly and even possibly make them act the way I want. Now they (USA) just don't have any idea about what the others ( the usual suspects ) might know and they (USA) can't influence the other countries (the usual suspects) in theyr weapons devolopment. What happens if the other country (your favourite evil empire, kingdom, country...) just goes overkill and excedes the USS spy tech, who knows?, USA is not what used to be, becouse they (the usual suspects) don't think (information control) that they know that les advanced tech would suffice? Kind of mind blowing isn't it?
That's no moon. It's a ...
I first heard about this from Richard C. Hoagland on the Wed. June 10, 2009 Coast to Coast show -
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/06/10
where Hoagland claims that there is a space war going on among the ETs, and that the military blocked further acquisition of meteor data to prevent the public learning of this space war.
Of course, I believe none of it ... I just provide it for your amusement, and that you can glean some nuggets of information from questionable sources.
Or...it could be we finally are going to have a crashing asteroid hit our planet, as everybody has been to the movies has seen already.
This is it, the end is coming, the end is coming....quick, where is my umbrella?
The dumber and more embarrassing the various bits of conspiracy nonsense in evidence, the bigger and more remarkable the secret being covered up by the dissemination of said ridiculous bits of conspiracy nonsense. . .
The best way to make people look the other way is to make them cringe.
Psyche 1 oh 1.
-FL
Or it could be that the military does not wish to give the civilian bureaucrats over at DHS/NAO (National Applications Office) any excuse to wrest further control over military satellites from the DOD. As conditioned as we are to give facile short shrift to the military establishment's motives in these kinds of secret matters, it may be that this is very definitely the lesser of two evils. The loss to science, or even to national security, is regrettable. Perhaps, esp. in light of the latter, this data is at least being archived for possible scientific analysis at some future date.
I don't guess you can get any more circumspect than that.
Wow, that's some firewall. Is this like some sort of asteroid based network?
Don't apologize to them; they're already Texans.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling