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EDIT: The source article is a much better, longer, read and does actually indicate new information - suggest the link is updated: https://theintercept.com/2016

EDIT: The source article is a much better, longer, read and does actually indicate new information - suggest the link is updated: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targete... Not sure how much mystery there was - Duncan Campbell revealed most of this (the Engadget summary anyway) in the 80s.

tjpd 10y ago
One of the interesting things from the slide shown in the article is that they're extracting the azimuth and elevation of roof based satellite dishes from aerial imagery presumably to cross correlate with the satellite orbits and whatever comms they're eavesdropping on.
- sbierwagen 10y ago
  Which is, of course, the reason the dishes at Menwith are in radomes in the first place. (So other intelligence agencies can't tell which satellites the NSA is snooping on) Kinda funny the article didn't bring it up.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Can't you bounce radar off the radome at a distance to reverse engineer the interior reflector's positioning?
dboreham 10y ago
20-odd years ago I lived a few miles from Menwith and drove past it on the way to work. A few years before that I had worked on hardware for massively parallel systems, much of which ended up in black projects. As I drove by, I would muse as to how much of my gear was whirring away in that place.. fwiw everyone in the local tech industry knew the real mission for the base in 1993 so I'm also not sure how much of the article is "new news". In those days I would frequent a village pub close to the base that run a quiz one night every week. The pub had a public bar and a smaller back dining room / saloon bar. I quickly learned that only certain people were allowed to frequent the back room on quiz night (I never saw them); that they were very very good at quizzes; and by custom the pub banned any questions specific to the USA in the quiz.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  A pub that was probably really easy to spot as a haunt of Menwith Hill by having a car park full of US cars. Used to surprise me driving past at how many big US cars you'd see driving on and off base. I'd wonder how it was worth shipping them across the pond instead of using something local for duration of their posting.
  - dingaling 10y ago
    The most puzzling example of a shipped car I saw was a Geo Prizm going in to the USAF airbase at RAF Lakenheath. I could understand the big Crown Vics imported by the USAF police to patrol the nearby roads, but to import a small car based on the Toyota Corolla that was common on UK roads...?
  - dboreham 10y ago
    Perhaps a fear of British car electrics?

tjpd 10y ago

One of the interesting things from the slide shown in the article is that they're extracting the azimuth and elevation of roof based satellite dishes from aerial imagery presumably to cross correlate with the satellite orbits and whatever comms they're eavesdropping on.

sbierwagen 10y ago
Which is, of course, the reason the dishes at Menwith are in radomes in the first place. (So other intelligence agencies can't tell which satellites the NSA is snooping on) Kinda funny the article didn't bring it up.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Can't you bounce radar off the radome at a distance to reverse engineer the interior reflector's positioning?

dboreham 10y ago

20-odd years ago I lived a few miles from Menwith and drove past it on the way to work. A few years before that I had worked on hardware for massively parallel systems, much of which ended up in black projects. As I drove by, I would muse as to how much of my gear was whirring away in that place.. fwiw everyone in the local tech industry knew the real mission for the base in 1993 so I'm also not sure how much of the article is "new news". In those days I would frequent a village pub close to the base that run a quiz one night every week. The pub had a public bar and a smaller back dining room / saloon bar. I quickly learned that only certain people were allowed to frequent the back room on quiz night (I never saw them); that they were very very good at quizzes; and by custom the pub banned any questions specific to the USA in the quiz.

anexprogrammer 10y ago
A pub that was probably really easy to spot as a haunt of Menwith Hill by having a car park full of US cars. Used to surprise me driving past at how many big US cars you'd see driving on and off base. I'd wonder how it was worth shipping them across the pond instead of using something local for duration of their posting.
- dingaling 10y ago
  The most puzzling example of a shipped car I saw was a Geo Prizm going in to the USAF airbase at RAF Lakenheath. I could understand the big Crown Vics imported by the USAF police to patrol the nearby roads, but to import a small car based on the Toyota Corolla that was common on UK roads...?
- dboreham 10y ago
  Perhaps a fear of British car electrics?