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What are they alleging it spied on? I hear about test operations and the targeting of international traffic. Was there domestic targeting for non-test purpose

What are they alleging it spied on? I hear about test operations and the targeting of international traffic. Was there domestic targeting for non-test purposes? Or even any domestic targeting at all?

marricks 10y ago
It sounds like you didn't read the article, what documents they have state it was getting heavy investments, and being tested. So no alleged operations as of yet. > The agency added in the document that it planned to conduct more tests with the Hover Hammer, and said it wanted to develop a larger version of the blimp that would be capable of flying at altitudes of 68,000 feet for up to six months at a time. It'll be hard to track when it's out though, flying at 70k feet and being impervious to infrared and a couple other items as the article stated.
mmjaa 10y ago
They are alleging that it spied on any and all electronic communications that occurred in the Long Island, New York area .. not just international shipping, though that was included, but potentially everything else as well. And that's really the point: we don't know. Unless someone investigates and pulls the evidence, we won't know, for sure, that this device isn't being used by the political elite in order to maintain their powers. Such is the nature of a nation run on secrets.
- deftnerd 10y ago
  The terminology made me think that they just had a VHF receiver up there and were listening to AIS traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste... It's similar to the ADS-B systems that airplanes use to report their location and altitude and heading. AIS has a built-in messaging system for ship-to-ship communications and to receive alerts. You can detect AIS traffic from satellite, but ground-based antennas are cheaper and more sensitive. Having a aerostat to increase range would be good for monitoring maritime traffic over a larger area. UPDATE: After reading some more, I think this is a perfect fit for AIS monitoring. Ground-based solutions have a horizon limitation of 46 miles. Satellite systems get overwhelmed with too many ships reporting in and data is lost. A balloon based system would be in a sweet spot where it would allow the US to extend the AIS monitoring a few hundred miles out from the borders while not having to put more satellites into orbit.
  - mdekkers 10y ago
    Global AIS traffic is publicly available: https://www.marinetraffic.com/ https://www.marinetraffic.com/
  - mmjaa 10y ago
    Nothing in the article indicates that they are 'only spying on AIS traffic' - this is an assumption, and a poor guess, possible diversion tactic, at best.
    - willstrafach 10y ago
      The source material linked in the article (SIDtoday newsletter) is what states it was used for AIS traffic. I am curious as to what else you believe it is used for?
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        I'd guess they were monitoring every signal from radio bands that have a line-of-sight or one-bounce range limitations, as they could get the rest of the spectrum from their ground-based antennas. They're experts in signals intelligence and have no practical budget limitations. They're recording everything, automatically processing to find the interesting bits, and assigning real life humans to look at those interesting bits. I'm guessing that in the NYC area, at the very least Russia, China, and Canada are sucking up the same EM signals, or trying to. We mere mortals tend to assume that such a tool would be used for one thing in particular, because don't have cults of patriotism or bottomless bank accounts.
      - 1001101 10y ago
        We've had these blimps over our landlocked midwestern city. The largest ships in our area are 24' Sea Rays on a lake, nowhere near the gross tonnage that mandates use of AIS. We may have to accept that the true nature of these blimps is shrouded under layers of state secrecy, and all we have left is speculation based on observation.
- rl3 10y ago
  >... we won't know, for sure, that this device isn't being used by the political elite in order to maintain their powers. As much as I'd love to agree with you, I don't realistically see how it would be practical to blackmail people with a blimp. For targeting the vast majority of people (politicians included), accessing the sum total of that person's digital life already sitting in storage is more than ample. Browsing history, chat logs, video calls, phone conversations, banking information, medical history, geolocation data. It's all there already.
  - lallysingh 10y ago
    You don't have to blackmail. When you know enough about a person, you can control them with just the right messaging (ref: the point of ad tech). Quick example: An incumbent could use this to have substantially better data on their voter's preferences and tune their campaign appropriately. Or generate just the right kind of fake news to push major policy changes against people's interests. The real potential here is how subtle these moves can be while also being quite effective.
    - rl3 10y ago
      I completely agree, my only point was that a blimp really can't add much to existing surveillance measures that essentially capture everything. A blimp might help you target extremely paranoid people, that's about it. Even then, having actual human tails would be more effective, especially in NYC. For foreign operations blimps are amazing though, since a place like Afghanistan doesn't necessarily have modern infrastructure or any shortage of people trying to hide.
      - lallysingh 10y ago
        This whole blimp thing is ridiculous. Perhaps they're worried about CB/Ham or the towers (or wiretap authorization) didn't support what they wanted. Are blimps threatened by AK-47s?
        rl3 10y ago
- strictnein 10y ago
  > "that it spied on any and all electronic communications that occurred in the Long Island, New York area" A blimp monitored communications that ran through buried fiber optic cables? Or were they just talking about wireless traffic? The former would, of course, be impossible. > "Such is the nature of a nation run on secrets." Every nation is run on secrets.
  - pdelbarba 10y ago
    I'm not really certain there is much to spy on. They mention cell phones but that traffic is encrypted and if you have the capability to capture it elsewhere (as we know they do) then why bother? There's nothing they could capture that the average joe with an RTL-SDR couldn't
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  If the NSA is targeting some legitimate and happens to intercept other traffic at a device level, then filters it out as not desired... What's the problem? That sounds like them doing their job. And so far as I can tell, any claim they did more than that is just mere allegation to sound scary. I'm sick of jumping at shadows every time a spy agency does anything. The NSA fucked up with overly broad collection, but at the same time, talking with people, it sounds like that's what the majority really wanted them to do at the time. The problem is political, and has more to do with the public wanting unreasonable things than some need to fear absolutely every thing they do. The spy agency stuck an antenna on a blimp! Oooooo, spooky!

What are they alleging it spied on? I hear about test operations and the targeting of international traffic. Was there domestic targeting for non-test purposes? Or even any domestic targeting at all?

marricks 10y ago

It sounds like you didn't read the article, what documents they have state it was getting heavy investments, and being tested. So no alleged operations as of yet. > The agency added in the document that it planned to conduct more tests with the Hover Hammer, and said it wanted to develop a larger version of the blimp that would be capable of flying at altitudes of 68,000 feet for up to six months at a time. It'll be hard to track when it's out though, flying at 70k feet and being impervious to infrared and a couple other items as the article stated.

mmjaa 10y ago

They are alleging that it spied on any and all electronic communications that occurred in the Long Island, New York area .. not just international shipping, though that was included, but potentially everything else as well. And that's really the point: we don't know. Unless someone investigates and pulls the evidence, we won't know, for sure, that this device isn't being used by the political elite in order to maintain their powers. Such is the nature of a nation run on secrets.

deftnerd 10y ago
The terminology made me think that they just had a VHF receiver up there and were listening to AIS traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_identification_syste... It's similar to the ADS-B systems that airplanes use to report their location and altitude and heading. AIS has a built-in messaging system for ship-to-ship communications and to receive alerts. You can detect AIS traffic from satellite, but ground-based antennas are cheaper and more sensitive. Having a aerostat to increase range would be good for monitoring maritime traffic over a larger area. UPDATE: After reading some more, I think this is a perfect fit for AIS monitoring. Ground-based solutions have a horizon limitation of 46 miles. Satellite systems get overwhelmed with too many ships reporting in and data is lost. A balloon based system would be in a sweet spot where it would allow the US to extend the AIS monitoring a few hundred miles out from the borders while not having to put more satellites into orbit.
- mdekkers 10y ago
  Global AIS traffic is publicly available: https://www.marinetraffic.com/ https://www.marinetraffic.com/
- mmjaa 10y ago
  Nothing in the article indicates that they are 'only spying on AIS traffic' - this is an assumption, and a poor guess, possible diversion tactic, at best.
  - willstrafach 10y ago
    The source material linked in the article (SIDtoday newsletter) is what states it was used for AIS traffic. I am curious as to what else you believe it is used for?
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      I'd guess they were monitoring every signal from radio bands that have a line-of-sight or one-bounce range limitations, as they could get the rest of the spectrum from their ground-based antennas. They're experts in signals intelligence and have no practical budget limitations. They're recording everything, automatically processing to find the interesting bits, and assigning real life humans to look at those interesting bits. I'm guessing that in the NYC area, at the very least Russia, China, and Canada are sucking up the same EM signals, or trying to. We mere mortals tend to assume that such a tool would be used for one thing in particular, because don't have cults of patriotism or bottomless bank accounts.
    - 1001101 10y ago
      We've had these blimps over our landlocked midwestern city. The largest ships in our area are 24' Sea Rays on a lake, nowhere near the gross tonnage that mandates use of AIS. We may have to accept that the true nature of these blimps is shrouded under layers of state secrecy, and all we have left is speculation based on observation.
rl3 10y ago
>... we won't know, for sure, that this device isn't being used by the political elite in order to maintain their powers. As much as I'd love to agree with you, I don't realistically see how it would be practical to blackmail people with a blimp. For targeting the vast majority of people (politicians included), accessing the sum total of that person's digital life already sitting in storage is more than ample. Browsing history, chat logs, video calls, phone conversations, banking information, medical history, geolocation data. It's all there already.
- lallysingh 10y ago
  You don't have to blackmail. When you know enough about a person, you can control them with just the right messaging (ref: the point of ad tech). Quick example: An incumbent could use this to have substantially better data on their voter's preferences and tune their campaign appropriately. Or generate just the right kind of fake news to push major policy changes against people's interests. The real potential here is how subtle these moves can be while also being quite effective.
  - rl3 10y ago
    I completely agree, my only point was that a blimp really can't add much to existing surveillance measures that essentially capture everything. A blimp might help you target extremely paranoid people, that's about it. Even then, having actual human tails would be more effective, especially in NYC. For foreign operations blimps are amazing though, since a place like Afghanistan doesn't necessarily have modern infrastructure or any shortage of people trying to hide.
    - lallysingh 10y ago
      This whole blimp thing is ridiculous. Perhaps they're worried about CB/Ham or the towers (or wiretap authorization) didn't support what they wanted. Are blimps threatened by AK-47s?
      - rl3 10y ago
strictnein 10y ago
> "that it spied on any and all electronic communications that occurred in the Long Island, New York area" A blimp monitored communications that ran through buried fiber optic cables? Or were they just talking about wireless traffic? The former would, of course, be impossible. > "Such is the nature of a nation run on secrets." Every nation is run on secrets.
- pdelbarba 10y ago
  I'm not really certain there is much to spy on. They mention cell phones but that traffic is encrypted and if you have the capability to capture it elsewhere (as we know they do) then why bother? There's nothing they could capture that the average joe with an RTL-SDR couldn't
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
If the NSA is targeting some legitimate and happens to intercept other traffic at a device level, then filters it out as not desired... What's the problem? That sounds like them doing their job. And so far as I can tell, any claim they did more than that is just mere allegation to sound scary. I'm sick of jumping at shadows every time a spy agency does anything. The NSA fucked up with overly broad collection, but at the same time, talking with people, it sounds like that's what the majority really wanted them to do at the time. The problem is political, and has more to do with the public wanting unreasonable things than some need to fear absolutely every thing they do. The spy agency stuck an antenna on a blimp! Oooooo, spooky!