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Catfish Charlie, the CIA’s Robotic Spy
- azalemeth 6y agoInteresting article. I think it's overwhelmingly likely that these surveillance robots are obtaining detailed information about water salinity and temperature, possibly as well as acoustic noise. They are also oddly beautiful. Salinity and temperature are of critical importance in computing the location of natural waveguides that occur when a reversal of the sound speed gradient occurs at depth in the thermocline, corresponding to the minimum sound speed at that vertical position for a very large horizontal distance. In temperate waters, this can be quite close to the surface -- i.e. within the comfortable range of military submarines -- leading to the so-called Deep Sound Channels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channel) where any sound can be readily detected.
- gnatman 6y agoMy first thought was that obviously they’d be used for detecting radioactive isotopes for gauging nuclear activity.
- PicassoCTs 6y agoI assumed making any river a easy physical data drop location for spies. Load it upon a regular USB-drive, drop it into the river at location.. all locations lead to the ocean.. Creating a data-transport
- hanniabu 6y agoMy first thought was if they had this in 90s what type of stuff do they have now.
- dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 6y agoVery cool. I've worked with underwater robots and radio comms are very difficult due to water's propensity to absorb so much of the RF energy. I'd be curious to know the technical details of the radio system.
- skunkworker 6y agoIt's crazy to think this was produced in the 90s. https://youtu.be/lEeb72ZJKAk https://youtu.be/lEeb72ZJKAk
- malux85 6y agoThat was a lot cooler in my head
- curiousllama 6y agoI can’t be the only one who thought the CIA was tricking foreign scientists or something on Tinder
- riekus 6y agoIf the CIA was involved, it must have been for something fishy.