17 ms·

Small, cheap spy satellites mean there’s no hiding place

348 points by known 6y ago

Zenst 6y ago
The whole aspect of facial recognition upon satellites will sure open up some messy legal cases in the future I feel.
- walrus01 6y ago
  Unless something dramatic changes in the field of optics, lenses and how to deal with atmospheric blur at those distances, resolving features smaller than 15-20cm from low earth orbit remains a low probability. Take a look at some youtube videos of a Nikon P1000 at maximum zoom looking through ordinary atmosphere at some distance away for an example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA
  - IceWreck 6y ago
    > Take a look at some youtube videos of a Nikon P1000 at maximum zoom looking through ordinary atmosphere at some distance away for an example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA This is unbelievable.
    - giantrobot 6y ago
      While that's an impressive zoom, the camera is moving much slower relative to the targets (~0km/s) than if it were in even a low orbit. It's also imaging people at the extent of its zoom at only a few km away. In orbit it would be hundreds of km from its targets. CubeSats and other small satellites can capture useful imagery but they're not spy satellites. There's optical limits to their capabilities because of their size.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    I think the more likely use is supplementing existing facial recognition. Recognize a face on a security camera, then be able to track their movements out and about after that. Before, too, if you store the satellite footage. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christianstork/spy-planes-over-american-cities https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christianstork/spy-plan..., but at scale.
    - walrus01 6y ago
      Pattern of life analysis correlated with ground based intelligence, where your car goes, where it usually parks in the day and at night, etc. You would need a lot of LEO satellites to approach anything like persistent coverage, however, current sun synchronous things have very long revisit times for any particular site.
      - JulianMorrison 6y ago
        Also clouds kind of get in the way of anything optical - unless it's a drone lower than the cloud level.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    Atmospheric distortions are worse when looking horizontally though the atmosphere (think marriage on the horizon). It's also only the bottom few miles of atmosphere that is really thick. Looking vertically from 400km up, there actually isn't too much distortion. The limiting factor is making high enough quality lenses and getting enough light onto your sensor without too much diffraction.
    - pintxo 6y ago
      But hard to get a face shot from a 90 deg angle, as people tend to focus their attention on the ground rather the sky.
      - saberdancer 6y ago
        You don't need to look from 90 deg angle. Satellites often times scan ahead/behind so they don't always scan at 90 deg angle. Look at this image that is probably from a spy satellite. It's almost at 45 degree angle. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29634/trump-tweets-intelligence-image-after-irans-rocket-explosion-and-offers-them-best-wishes https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29634/trump-tweets-int...
        pintxo 6y ago
        The previous post argued that the influence of the air is less severe looking straight down. If we now go back to looking at an angle, we are back to square one, the problem of distortion due to the amount of air between the observer and the observed.
      - ta988 6y ago
        If you need that you can send a drone though.
    - andreareina 6y ago
      If I'm running the numbers right, then using the Hubble's maximum theoretic angular resolution of 2.8e-7 rad[1], something 400km up would still not resolve features smaller than 11.2cm. That's the absolute best, diffraction-limited case. Don't know how close we are to that on real-world optics. [1] https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv3openstax/chapter/circular-apertures-and-resolution/ https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv3openstax/chapter/ci...
  - helsinkiandrew 6y ago
    Presumably, orientation is also an issue - satellites will tend see tops of heads more than faces full on.
    - jl6 6y ago
      The obvious solution: pivot face-recognition algorithms into top-of-head-recognition algorithms.
      - yuliyp 6y ago
        People can comb their hair quite differently
- james-bcn 6y ago
  Do you need facial recognition when nearly everyone carries a mobile phone?
  - SamuelAdams 6y ago
    Not to mention RFID is being added to state ID's, driver's licenses, and passports. [1]: https://www.dhs.gov/enhanced-drivers-licenses-what-are-they https://www.dhs.gov/enhanced-drivers-licenses-what-are-they
    - gruez 6y ago
      You mean the ones that can only be read from a few feet away at most, and can be blocked by putting them in easily accessible "rfid blocker" wallets?
      - deepgrave4 6y ago
        How many people are out buying RFID wallets to protect themselves from spy devices they don't know exist?
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  Faces no, as other people have said - except, what about integrated systems that combine ground based CCTV with satellites, or drones? You might only be able to see someone's head and shoulders, but that's good enough to follow them as they walk through a crowd, and you can use that to decide which CCTV to use. Presuming it's all networked and accessible, but that might be the case at some future point.
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    I wonder how gait recognition from space would work, if it all.
    - JulianMorrison 6y ago
      Feet would be single pixels if they were visible at all. And they don't project much in front or behind when walking.
- simonh 6y ago
  The highest resolution images we know are possible in theory max out at around the 10cm level due to atmospheric effects. It seems we can get quite close to this with the big spy satellites the Hubble Space Telescope was based on. Fortunately we have a really great example available to examine. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...
  - baybal2 6y ago
    It's known that the latest spy satellites have some kind of folding mirrors, and adaptive optics - things not being sci-fi anymore for a few decades at least.
  - ramraj07 6y ago
    The “theory max” is not that hardcoded, superresolution is a field and we don’t know what all they are up to with billions to burn. There were reports at some point about high altitude drones stationary above cities that can read license plate level data (not license plates themselves) at video rates over the entire city so who knows!
- duxup 6y ago
  Or just another state that you have no legal recourse in doing whatever they want. How is your foreign social credit score anyway?
williesleg 6y ago
Ha! Satellite are so 1950's
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Is there a good history of spy satellites anywhere? It ought to be amazing - I remember watching Ice Station Zebra as a kid, where super-spies fought to the death over a canister of film, and now Google gives away better resolution photos. The US downgraded moon photos to prevent Russians getting an idea of the quality, Russian subs were analysed with one photo and a scratch on the titanium plating. It would be great to see that playing out - technology, analysis and politics shown together.
- arethuza 6y ago
  I had assumed that US missile infrastructure would be hidden in Google Maps, but apparently not: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/07/31/336847318/to-find-america-s-nukes-try-google-maps https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/07/31/336847318...
  - swiley 6y ago
    That would require publishing a set of polygons covering all of it: literally a directory. I'm not sure that's a great idea.
  - implements 6y ago
    There’s a treasure trove of related material on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=minuteman+missile+silo+tour https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=minuteman+missi...
    - cronix 6y ago
      My dad was a Capt. in the USAF in the mid 60's. He was stationed at Minot AFB, ND., and launched a new test Minuteman, but of course he didn't know it was a test at the time he and his partner were ordered to turn their keys during the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union. I have a plaque with the key he turned (the teeth were filed off though) along with a poster-sized color photo of the missile coming out of the ground and his issued 38 special S&W revolver. Since he was locked away underground with 1 other person for days at a time with no contact with the outside world, I was wondering why they had guns. He said it was in case your partner didn't turn their key after ordered to do so... One thing he got a kick of before he passed away, was using google earth to check out the old base. He was surprised at how much you could see.
mhh__ 6y ago
The stories of NRO uniform patches giving away classified information never cease to make me chuckle.
- simonh 6y ago
  This one's my favourite. It's rare you get a good look at some of the best classified satellite imagery available anywhere (there are some doubts whether this was actually a satellite image, but it seems likely). https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...
  - hooloovoo_zoo 6y ago
    Startup idea #42123: Tactical Sombreros
- EMM_386 6y ago
  More information here for anyone curious: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/g2728/best-spy-mission-logos/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/g2728/best...
rexreed 6y ago
And yet, MH370 is still missing. Yes I know satellites can't see under water but the earth can still hide mysteries.
- BelenusMordred 6y ago
  Reading about the two nacro subs captured in the last year it's pretty clear you don't even need to go deep. For a long time I was under the impression that diesel subs stand out like a sore thumb on sat photos and nation states watch them all like hawks, but apparently not and drug cartels can just roll around as they please in them.
  - JulianMorrison 6y ago
    It's probably less about hiding and more about a needle in a haystack. Narco subs are small.
  - CapitalistCartr 6y ago
    Diesel subs at 30 meters become nearly invisible. They're hell to find. And if they stop, they're really, truly silent. The best way to find one is don't lose it in the first place. Track it from base it's entire trip.
    - BelenusMordred 6y ago
      Pardon my layman ignorance on this, but they still need to surface pretty often right? And the diesel engines leave a distinct signature when they surface to recharge the batteries? Watched countries argue a bit over diesel vs nuclear submarines and this is where I've been imprinted with the idea that nuclear subs are the only actual true stealth subs you can build. I may be wrong here, but the evidence seems overwhelming based on usage. Diesel subs are for homeland defense purposes and don't worry about the enemy knowing their whereabouts, nuclear subs go silent for months and everyone is completely clueless as to where they actually are.
      - 6y ago
ImprovedSilence 6y ago
Paywalled?
longsword 6y ago
You can disable the Paywall by disabling JavaScript. (You can spot it, because the site initially loaded and then paywalled itself)
- jpm_sd 6y ago
  Or by quickly hitting Esc: ---------- In the middle of last year, Ecuadorians watched with concern as 340 foreign boats, most of them Chinese, fished just outside the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around their country’s westernmost province, the Galapagos Islands. The law of the sea requires such vessels to carry GPS-based automatic identification systems (AIS) that broadcast where they are, and to keep those systems switched on. Some boats, however, failed to comply. There were more than 550 instances of vessels not transmitting their locations for over a day. This regular radio silence stoked fears that the boats concerned were sneaking into Ecuador’s waters to plunder its fish. Both local officials and China’s ambassador to Ecuador denied this, and said all the boats were sticking to the rules. In October, however, HawkEye 360, a satellite operator based in Virginia, announced it had detected vessels inside Ecuador’s EEZ on 14 occasions when the boats in question were not transmitting AIS (see map). HawkEye’s satellites could pinpoint these renegades by listening for faint signals emanating from their navigation radars and radio communications. HawkEye’s satellites are so-called smallsats, about the size of a large microwave oven. They are therefore cheap to build and launch. HawkEye deployed its first cluster, of three of them, in 2018. They are now in an orbit that takes them over both of Earth’s poles. This means that, as the planet revolves beneath them, every point on its surface can be monitored at regular intervals. Initially, the data the satellites collected were downloaded to a tracking station on Svalbard, a Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean. But business has since boomed. HawkEye now counts a dozen governments among its customers, as well as private clients. The firm has therefore recruited the services of a second ground station, in Antarctica, and it put a second cluster into orbit on January 24th. It plans three more such launches this year, and also intends to widen its network of ground stations yet further. Given this success, it is hardly surprising that at least six other companies are operating or developing similar systems. Quilty Analytics, a research firm in Florida, expects the number of radio-frequency (RF) intelligence satellites of this sort in orbit to multiply from a dozen at the beginning of January to more than 60 by the end of next year. Unmixed signals RF-intelligence satellites detect where a transmission is coming from in two ways. One, trilateration, relies on measuring minute differences in a signal’s arrival time at each member of a cluster. The other uses the Doppler effect—the shift in a signal’s frequency if the transmitter is moving relative to the receiver. Together, according to HawkEye, these can pinpoint a signal’s source to within 500 metres of its true origin. Kleos Space, a Luxembourgeois company that launched its first cluster in November and hopes to put two more up later this year, says its accuracy ranges between 3,000 and 200 metres. A cluster sweeps a band of territory 2,000km wide so, circling the planet every 90 minutes or so, it can revisit many areas several times a day. Moreover, unlike spy satellites fitted with optical cameras, RF satellites can see through clouds. Their receivers are not sensitive enough to detect standard mobile phones. But they can pick up satellite phones, walkie-talkies and all manner of radar. And, while vessels can and do illicitly disable their ais, switching off their communications gear and the radar they use for navigation and collision-avoidance is another matter entirely. “Even pirates don’t turn those things off,” says John Beckner, boss of Horizon Technologies, a British firm that plans its first launch in August. RF data are also cheap to collect. Satellites fitted with robotic high-resolution cameras are costly. Flying microwave ovens that capture and timestamp radio signals are not. Horizon says that building, insuring and launching its August mission should cost no more than about $1.4m. America’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), one of that country’s numerous spying operations, is a big user of RF intelligence. It employs HawkEye’s data to find guerrilla camps and mobile missile-launchers, and to track both conventional warships and unconventional ones, like the weaponised speedboats sometimes deployed by Iran. Robert Cardillo, a former director of the agency who now advises HawkEye, says dozens of navies, Russia’s included, spoof AIS signals to make warships appear to be in places which they are not. RF intelligence is not fooled by this. Mr Cardillo says, too, that the tininess of RF satellites makes them hard for an enemy to destroy. Beside matters military, the NGA also uses RF data to unearth illicit economic activity—of which unauthorised fishing is merely one instance. Outright piracy is another. And the technique also works on land. In 2019, for example, it led to the discovery of an illegal gold mine being run by a Chinese company in a jungle in Gabon. And in 2020 the managers of Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo began using HawkEye data to spot elephant poachers and dispatch rangers to deal with them. There are commercial uses, too. Andy Bowyer, Kleos’s boss, reports interest among telecoms firms keen to locate rogue transmitters, such as unlicensed ham radios, that are operating within their domains. Regulators, meanwhile, would like the firm to create “heat maps” of shifting patterns of legitimate transmissions. These would help them select sites for mobile-phone towers and also give them a better idea of the value in particular places of licences to use parts of the radio spectrum that are going up for auction. Some charities, too, have an interest in Kleos’s data. RF information can, for example, flag up routes taken by migrants likely to need food and other aid. Declustering Using satellite clusters to gather RF intelligence is clever. But engineers at Unseenlabs, a firm in Rennes, France, reckon it is already outdated. At the moment, Unseen has three satellites in orbit and sells data to about ten navies, including France’s, as well as to maritime insurers and a handful of big defence contractors. But its satellites operate independently, rather than as a cluster, for Unseenlabs’ engineers have devised a detection system, which they claim is accurate to within 5,000 metres, that requires but a single satellite. How this system works remains a secret—and one that, according to Clément Galic, Unseenlabs’ boss, is protected by the French state. After several attempts were made to steal it, he says, the defence ministry’s Directorate General of Armaments offered its assistance in defending the details from cybertheft. Secret or not, though, Unseenlabs may soon have competitors in the single-satellite-RF-intelligence market, for Horizon, too, says that it has worked out how to perform the trick—a claim backed up by the fact that its launch in August will loft but a single device. Shortly after it filed an application for a patent in America on the wizardry involved, the government there classified it. Even so, Mr Beckner drops a hint. The method involves assessing differences in the angles at which a target’s signals arrive during the satellite’s arc across the sky. Horizon says its system will be accurate to within 3,000 metres. By the middle of next year, it, too, plans to operate three satellites in different orbits—enough to scan most of the planet every two hours or so. Horizon also plans to compile a library of unique radar-pulse “fingerprints” of the world’s vessels, for the tiny differences in componentry that exist even between examples of the same make and model of equipment mean that signals can often be linked to a specific device. It will thus be able to determine not merely that a vessel of some sort is in a certain place, but which vessel it is, and where else it has been. Unseenlabs, for its part, has already catalogued the radar fingerprints of many thousands of vessels, several hundred of which have, subsequent to the events of last summer, spent time in the Galapagos EEZ with their AIS beacons switched off. It remains to be seen what Ecuador’s authorities will do with that information. But no one can say they weren’t told.
neilshevlin 6y ago
On a good note, getting access to really high quality Earth observation data is really good for geophysics and geoscience research.
known 6y ago
https://archive.is/IerJ9 https://archive.is/IerJ9
hnedeotes 6y ago
"One day the magic was finally gone. There was no more wonder. What before would make you question what sit beyond the veil, and its impossibility in a linear universe, no longer did. Everything was catalogued, every inch of soil, wrinkles around the corners of your mouth, the reflection on your iris when you were happy, or sad, circumstances you found yourself in. All of that had a rational thread that could be followed back to the big silent eye, data point by data point. There was nothing else to question, no possibility of impossibles, of something unseen. Just this never ending stream of letters that told you that's all there is, all that you are"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- superzamp 6y ago
  Quoted from you, just now?
  - DiggyJohnson 6y ago
    I just pasted it into my futureculture novel I'm going to not finish in a decade or so.
    - dandellion 6y ago
      It could even be one of those gpt3-generated replies. It's getting hard to tell these days...
- mckirk 6y ago
  What is the source of that quote?
  - dandellion 6y ago
    I don't know the source, but it made me think of Gattaca. I should probably re-watch it.
GnarfGnarf 6y ago
Kessler syndrome here we come: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
- EGreg 6y ago
  Human manufacturing seems to pollute everything. Plastic in the bodies of water etc. It’s the tragedy of the unmanaged commons! People don’t care about exponential growth issues until it’s a few seconds to midnight. Except in the case of Kessler syndrome, it’s even worse because it grows AFTER you stopped. Bitcoin mining electricity use is another big example.
  - astrange 6y ago
    On the other hand, we can solve Bitcoin mining heat output by putting it in orbit with solar panels.
- ansible 6y ago
  I am worried about many things. And I think we are already in serious trouble with regards to pollution and climate change. For this one thing, spy satellites in low Earth orbit, I am not so worried. Without active re-boosts, these orbits tend to degrade quickly, and the junk gets dragged out on a relatively quick timescale. Medium orbits, however, can last a super long time, and junk up there is a very serious concern. BTW, as the average global temperature rises, the atmosphere expands, which will degrade the orbits of the lower satellites even quicker!
- Symmetry 6y ago
  A lot of these are in orbits as low as possible to maximize resolution. Orbital debris is less of a concern there because it tends to de-orbit quickly. In contrast to SSO where debris stick around like with that NOAA satellite just broke up. https://spacenews.com/decommissioned-noaa-weather-satellite-breaks-up/ https://spacenews.com/decommissioned-noaa-weather-satellite-...
xwdv 6y ago
Just go inside a building.
- EGreg 6y ago
  Where your gait can be analyzed, and wifi analysis can correlate you by your heart beat and other things. The thing is that after connecting all those databases, an AI can quickly figure out where everyone has been and what they’re up to. And as the Five Eyes shares info, you can ask friendly countries to spy on your own citizens.
  - xwdv 6y ago
    Both can be defeated by a long dress and a bottle of water.
  - ZanyProgrammer 6y ago
    How will a spy satellite tell me what's going on inside a building or underground?
Symmetry 6y ago
I listen to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast and they often go into open source analysis of North Korean or Saudi or whoever's current projects based on finding test sites with pictures from this sort of commercial satellite imagery. Recommend if you think that sounds interesting. https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/
- phrotoma 6y ago
  That sounds interesting, are there specific episodes you could suggest which dig into that topic?
  - zerkten 6y ago
    Wollo-Ri (https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1209730/the-wollo-ri-suspected-nuclear-warhead-manufacturing-facility/ https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1209730/the-wollo-ri...) is one episode, but their descriptions are helpful for finding others.
    - phrotoma 6y ago
      Awesome, thank you!
nonameiguess 6y ago
This is fundamentally wrong. I doubt the NGA is actually lying to these writers and more likely just not saying anything and leaving people to guess, but we have long had the ability to see the entire earth and commercial imagery is still a tiny, insignificant part of the national geointelligence enterprise with capabilities dwarfed by the state-sponsored tech this writer doesn't know about. Private companies gaining the ability to track vessels that turned off their transponders is cute and all, but this is not a new capability by any stretch.
- splistud 6y ago
  The significance of the proliferation of such technology is that there will actually be people and processes 'watching' the screen. To my mind this is fundamentally different than the knowledge that a few state actors had the capability but not the manpower (or desire) to do so.
  - nonameiguess 6y ago
    Sort of and sort of not. I keep typing up long comments all over this post and then deleting them and I better just stay away. I'm not at all comfortable pushing the limits of what I can actually say without getting in trouble, even if it isn't technically classified. If you mean data like this isn't already being collected on every vessel on earth and accessible from a terminal somewhere, that is incorrect. Creating the system that does that was exactly my job five years ago. If you mean the Navy largely doesn't care what you're doing and isn't really paying attention if you're not a drug runner, pirate, or state actor, then yes, that is true.
  - closetohome 6y ago
    Exactly. Focusing on capability gives you a very myopic view of the situation. Capabilities are a moving target, with very few truly revolutionary leaps between the first film-based spy satellites and whatever we've got today. Proliferation is huge. I can buy a high-resolution satellite photo of my neighbor's property every day if I feel like spending the money. That's something that wouldn't have been available at any cost a decade or two ago.
broooder 6y ago
Have you tried the caves?
- LinuxBender 6y ago
  and mines. With mines you would already have a good idea of the rock composition and layers. I wanted to put a literal "man cave" in a mine by parking an RV in one, but I can't find any good documentation on restrictions per state on personally owned mines vs. claims.
ble 6y ago
I see a few comments where people refer exclusively to satellite imagery despite the fact that this story is about RF-detection satellites. Has Hacker News ever flirted with a "commenter did not read the linked story / page but is pretending they did" vote feature? There's obviously room for abuse even if it were limited to "reputable" users but I would use it on some comments on this item.
- cj 6y ago
  From HN guidelines: > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- simlevesque 6y ago
  Those of us with over 500 karma can and do downvote. But right now you can try to explain to them that they are wrong.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  I think that for a lot of regular commenters, it's more about the discussion than the article that started it. Fealty to the original content is secondary to conversation.
  - ble 6y ago
    I suppose you're right, though I'd call it less "fealty" and more "relevance". In this case, it looks like the discussion in the comments flies to a subject that people feel they have familiarity with (satellite imagery) instead of what is actually contained in the article (satellite RF detection) and thus the conversation on the article strongly suggests that the community is _not_ assimilating any information from the article. I suppose I should be the "candle" and just talk about RF detection rather than "cursing the darkness".
ble 6y ago
Interesting that ships turning off their AIS transponders can still be picked up from their radio or naval radar signals from orbit. It seemed a bit extreme that the single satellite RF detection and localization technique referenced in the article would get classified by the U.S. government -- it's presumably a beamformed angle & doppler measurement going into a detection algorithm which is aware of the motion of the satellite platform, which is cute but not groundbreaking -- but at the same time it's probably a very inexpensive technology for space-based surveillance of RF emitters, which has obvious national security ramifications. smallsat = cheap cheap = affordable for smaller nation states RF emitters = many military assets
WhyKill 6y ago
Underground. Under the sea. Under the ground under the sea. Pfffft. The sun was already trying to kill you that's why living underground is smart anyway. Frankly there should be no expectation of privacy for things you can observe from space...
calibas 6y ago
This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, it's all in how we respond. This could lead to greater transparency, openness, and accountability, or it can be abused by a small group of people for their own power and profit. Nothing hypothetical about it either, both cases are already true.
williesleg 6y ago
Oh, the economist, this should be good!
intrasight 6y ago
Very excited to hear that they'll be able to track these bad actors who are damaging the commons. Also VERY cool that they can discriminate and therefore identify ships based on small variations in the electronics even for a specific model of radio. Also - curious how the French govt is going to keep this tech under wraps.
- edrxty 6y ago
  The author is a lay person, they're just trying to report what they've been told. In reality, single satellite detection with the described resolution is extremely simple and the tech has been flying since the 60s. There isn't a lot of magic new tech in RF, just advances in processing.
  - angry_octet 6y ago
    I wouldn't say that, track before detect for example. Also multiple antenna synthetic aperture systems are almost magic.
geuis 6y ago
Where’s the article? On mobile it just cuts off at “ HawkEye’s satellites could pinpoint these renegades by listening for faint signals emanating from their navigation radars and radio communications”.
- nfriedly 6y ago
  There's a paywall, but you can read the full thing at https://archive.is/T8XtA https://archive.is/T8XtA
csteubs 6y ago
Revisit is getting better and satellites have an edge when it comes to total coverage of the earth, but the 120,000 flights around the world each day typically fly predictable routes at low altitudes near urban centers (takeoff and landing). This presents a massive opportunity to leverage all of that "free energy" and use aircraft for earth observation. Coverage can be supplemented with satellites, but revisit of aircraft is far greater for many terrestrial locations. 2x/day revisit for most of the world is probably sufficient for the majority of use cases, but that assumes good weather (for images). On the other hand, LAX for example sees hundreds of takeoffs and landings each day, so if you were interested in modeling retail foot traffic by parking lot volume, pace of urban development, rate of containers moving in and out of port, etc. you could get a massive boost in temporal resolution using aircraft and far cheaper than launching + maintaining a satellite constellation.
- edrxty 6y ago
  Maybe, but aircraft tend to follow much stricter paths than one would normally believe. Particularly around urban centers (airports) they queue up and only really fly a few routes through the area. On clear nights you can often see the lines of nav and landing lights forming as aircraft approach the city.
humbleMouse 6y ago
There is a limited amount of orbit space and limited amount of satellites that can be launched. Building too much infrastructure around them is risky and not a good idea for long term stability.
idclip 6y ago
Yeha thats gonna get regulated pretty fast. Israel is VERY uptight about its airspace and the drones here are basically sharks with lasers. Good luck, comrad.
dfilppi 6y ago
Unless they are indoors, no true.
sandworm101 6y ago
Lots of little cameras up there. Ok. They can see ships. That is a far cry from total surveillance. There are countless physical limitations that prevent the concept of total space surveillance, from lens diameter to the atmosphere's absorption of certain frequencies. I remain far more concerned by the cameras in my apartment building, or taps on my internet/cell connections, than I am about space cameras. Be more worried about your local police operating airborne camera systems. Drones hovering over cities are far far cheaper than any space-based surveillance scheme.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
coretx 6y ago
Focal length + wave length = you can calculate where they must be if they see you.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Hi. I'm adding my usual PSA that the threat to the non-powerful is less from surveillance than from disproportional surveillance. What enables bulk, civil harm is that we lack the data about those in power, that they have about us.

348 points by known 6y ago

Zenst 6y ago

The whole aspect of facial recognition upon satellites will sure open up some messy legal cases in the future I feel.

walrus01 6y ago
Unless something dramatic changes in the field of optics, lenses and how to deal with atmospheric blur at those distances, resolving features smaller than 15-20cm from low earth orbit remains a low probability. Take a look at some youtube videos of a Nikon P1000 at maximum zoom looking through ordinary atmosphere at some distance away for an example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA
- IceWreck 6y ago
  > Take a look at some youtube videos of a Nikon P1000 at maximum zoom looking through ordinary atmosphere at some distance away for an example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQlwKX3LQA This is unbelievable.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    While that's an impressive zoom, the camera is moving much slower relative to the targets (~0km/s) than if it were in even a low orbit. It's also imaging people at the extent of its zoom at only a few km away. In orbit it would be hundreds of km from its targets. CubeSats and other small satellites can capture useful imagery but they're not spy satellites. There's optical limits to their capabilities because of their size.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  I think the more likely use is supplementing existing facial recognition. Recognize a face on a security camera, then be able to track their movements out and about after that. Before, too, if you store the satellite footage. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christianstork/spy-planes-over-american-cities https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christianstork/spy-plan..., but at scale.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    Pattern of life analysis correlated with ground based intelligence, where your car goes, where it usually parks in the day and at night, etc. You would need a lot of LEO satellites to approach anything like persistent coverage, however, current sun synchronous things have very long revisit times for any particular site.
    - JulianMorrison 6y ago
      Also clouds kind of get in the way of anything optical - unless it's a drone lower than the cloud level.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  Atmospheric distortions are worse when looking horizontally though the atmosphere (think marriage on the horizon). It's also only the bottom few miles of atmosphere that is really thick. Looking vertically from 400km up, there actually isn't too much distortion. The limiting factor is making high enough quality lenses and getting enough light onto your sensor without too much diffraction.
  - pintxo 6y ago
    But hard to get a face shot from a 90 deg angle, as people tend to focus their attention on the ground rather the sky.
    - saberdancer 6y ago
      You don't need to look from 90 deg angle. Satellites often times scan ahead/behind so they don't always scan at 90 deg angle. Look at this image that is probably from a spy satellite. It's almost at 45 degree angle. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29634/trump-tweets-intelligence-image-after-irans-rocket-explosion-and-offers-them-best-wishes https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29634/trump-tweets-int...
      - pintxo 6y ago
        The previous post argued that the influence of the air is less severe looking straight down. If we now go back to looking at an angle, we are back to square one, the problem of distortion due to the amount of air between the observer and the observed.
    - ta988 6y ago
      If you need that you can send a drone though.
  - andreareina 6y ago
    If I'm running the numbers right, then using the Hubble's maximum theoretic angular resolution of 2.8e-7 rad[1], something 400km up would still not resolve features smaller than 11.2cm. That's the absolute best, diffraction-limited case. Don't know how close we are to that on real-world optics. [1] https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv3openstax/chapter/circular-apertures-and-resolution/ https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv3openstax/chapter/ci...
- helsinkiandrew 6y ago
  Presumably, orientation is also an issue - satellites will tend see tops of heads more than faces full on.
  - jl6 6y ago
    The obvious solution: pivot face-recognition algorithms into top-of-head-recognition algorithms.
    - yuliyp 6y ago
      People can comb their hair quite differently
james-bcn 6y ago
Do you need facial recognition when nearly everyone carries a mobile phone?
- SamuelAdams 6y ago
  Not to mention RFID is being added to state ID's, driver's licenses, and passports. [1]: https://www.dhs.gov/enhanced-drivers-licenses-what-are-they https://www.dhs.gov/enhanced-drivers-licenses-what-are-they
  - gruez 6y ago
    You mean the ones that can only be read from a few feet away at most, and can be blocked by putting them in easily accessible "rfid blocker" wallets?
    - deepgrave4 6y ago
      How many people are out buying RFID wallets to protect themselves from spy devices they don't know exist?
JulianMorrison 6y ago
Faces no, as other people have said - except, what about integrated systems that combine ground based CCTV with satellites, or drones? You might only be able to see someone's head and shoulders, but that's good enough to follow them as they walk through a crowd, and you can use that to decide which CCTV to use. Presuming it's all networked and accessible, but that might be the case at some future point.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  I wonder how gait recognition from space would work, if it all.
  - JulianMorrison 6y ago
    Feet would be single pixels if they were visible at all. And they don't project much in front or behind when walking.
simonh 6y ago
The highest resolution images we know are possible in theory max out at around the 10cm level due to atmospheric effects. It seems we can get quite close to this with the big spy satellites the Hubble Space Telescope was based on. Fortunately we have a really great example available to examine. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...
- baybal2 6y ago
  It's known that the latest spy satellites have some kind of folding mirrors, and adaptive optics - things not being sci-fi anymore for a few decades at least.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  The “theory max” is not that hardcoded, superresolution is a field and we don’t know what all they are up to with billions to burn. There were reports at some point about high altitude drones stationary above cities that can read license plate level data (not license plates themselves) at video rates over the entire city so who knows!
duxup 6y ago
Or just another state that you have no legal recourse in doing whatever they want. How is your foreign social credit score anyway?

williesleg 6y ago

Ha! Satellite are so 1950's

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

Is there a good history of spy satellites anywhere? It ought to be amazing - I remember watching Ice Station Zebra as a kid, where super-spies fought to the death over a canister of film, and now Google gives away better resolution photos. The US downgraded moon photos to prevent Russians getting an idea of the quality, Russian subs were analysed with one photo and a scratch on the titanium plating. It would be great to see that playing out - technology, analysis and politics shown together.

arethuza 6y ago
I had assumed that US missile infrastructure would be hidden in Google Maps, but apparently not: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/07/31/336847318/to-find-america-s-nukes-try-google-maps https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/07/31/336847318...
- swiley 6y ago
  That would require publishing a set of polygons covering all of it: literally a directory. I'm not sure that's a great idea.
- implements 6y ago
  There’s a treasure trove of related material on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=minuteman+missile+silo+tour https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=minuteman+missi...
  - cronix 6y ago
    My dad was a Capt. in the USAF in the mid 60's. He was stationed at Minot AFB, ND., and launched a new test Minuteman, but of course he didn't know it was a test at the time he and his partner were ordered to turn their keys during the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union. I have a plaque with the key he turned (the teeth were filed off though) along with a poster-sized color photo of the missile coming out of the ground and his issued 38 special S&W revolver. Since he was locked away underground with 1 other person for days at a time with no contact with the outside world, I was wondering why they had guns. He said it was in case your partner didn't turn their key after ordered to do so... One thing he got a kick of before he passed away, was using google earth to check out the old base. He was surprised at how much you could see.

mhh__ 6y ago

The stories of NRO uniform patches giving away classified information never cease to make me chuckle.

simonh 6y ago
This one's my favourite. It's rare you get a good look at some of the best classified satellite imagery available anywhere (there are some doubts whether this was actually a satellite image, but it seems likely). https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-twe...
- hooloovoo_zoo 6y ago
  Startup idea #42123: Tactical Sombreros
EMM_386 6y ago
More information here for anyone curious: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/g2728/best-spy-mission-logos/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/g2728/best...

rexreed 6y ago

And yet, MH370 is still missing. Yes I know satellites can't see under water but the earth can still hide mysteries.

BelenusMordred 6y ago
Reading about the two nacro subs captured in the last year it's pretty clear you don't even need to go deep. For a long time I was under the impression that diesel subs stand out like a sore thumb on sat photos and nation states watch them all like hawks, but apparently not and drug cartels can just roll around as they please in them.
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  It's probably less about hiding and more about a needle in a haystack. Narco subs are small.
- CapitalistCartr 6y ago
  Diesel subs at 30 meters become nearly invisible. They're hell to find. And if they stop, they're really, truly silent. The best way to find one is don't lose it in the first place. Track it from base it's entire trip.
  - BelenusMordred 6y ago
    Pardon my layman ignorance on this, but they still need to surface pretty often right? And the diesel engines leave a distinct signature when they surface to recharge the batteries? Watched countries argue a bit over diesel vs nuclear submarines and this is where I've been imprinted with the idea that nuclear subs are the only actual true stealth subs you can build. I may be wrong here, but the evidence seems overwhelming based on usage. Diesel subs are for homeland defense purposes and don't worry about the enemy knowing their whereabouts, nuclear subs go silent for months and everyone is completely clueless as to where they actually are.
    - 6y ago

ImprovedSilence 6y ago

Paywalled?

longsword 6y ago

You can disable the Paywall by disabling JavaScript. (You can spot it, because the site initially loaded and then paywalled itself)

jpm_sd 6y ago
Or by quickly hitting Esc: ---------- In the middle of last year, Ecuadorians watched with concern as 340 foreign boats, most of them Chinese, fished just outside the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around their country’s westernmost province, the Galapagos Islands. The law of the sea requires such vessels to carry GPS-based automatic identification systems (AIS) that broadcast where they are, and to keep those systems switched on. Some boats, however, failed to comply. There were more than 550 instances of vessels not transmitting their locations for over a day. This regular radio silence stoked fears that the boats concerned were sneaking into Ecuador’s waters to plunder its fish. Both local officials and China’s ambassador to Ecuador denied this, and said all the boats were sticking to the rules. In October, however, HawkEye 360, a satellite operator based in Virginia, announced it had detected vessels inside Ecuador’s EEZ on 14 occasions when the boats in question were not transmitting AIS (see map). HawkEye’s satellites could pinpoint these renegades by listening for faint signals emanating from their navigation radars and radio communications. HawkEye’s satellites are so-called smallsats, about the size of a large microwave oven. They are therefore cheap to build and launch. HawkEye deployed its first cluster, of three of them, in 2018. They are now in an orbit that takes them over both of Earth’s poles. This means that, as the planet revolves beneath them, every point on its surface can be monitored at regular intervals. Initially, the data the satellites collected were downloaded to a tracking station on Svalbard, a Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean. But business has since boomed. HawkEye now counts a dozen governments among its customers, as well as private clients. The firm has therefore recruited the services of a second ground station, in Antarctica, and it put a second cluster into orbit on January 24th. It plans three more such launches this year, and also intends to widen its network of ground stations yet further. Given this success, it is hardly surprising that at least six other companies are operating or developing similar systems. Quilty Analytics, a research firm in Florida, expects the number of radio-frequency (RF) intelligence satellites of this sort in orbit to multiply from a dozen at the beginning of January to more than 60 by the end of next year. Unmixed signals RF-intelligence satellites detect where a transmission is coming from in two ways. One, trilateration, relies on measuring minute differences in a signal’s arrival time at each member of a cluster. The other uses the Doppler effect—the shift in a signal’s frequency if the transmitter is moving relative to the receiver. Together, according to HawkEye, these can pinpoint a signal’s source to within 500 metres of its true origin. Kleos Space, a Luxembourgeois company that launched its first cluster in November and hopes to put two more up later this year, says its accuracy ranges between 3,000 and 200 metres. A cluster sweeps a band of territory 2,000km wide so, circling the planet every 90 minutes or so, it can revisit many areas several times a day. Moreover, unlike spy satellites fitted with optical cameras, RF satellites can see through clouds. Their receivers are not sensitive enough to detect standard mobile phones. But they can pick up satellite phones, walkie-talkies and all manner of radar. And, while vessels can and do illicitly disable their ais, switching off their communications gear and the radar they use for navigation and collision-avoidance is another matter entirely. “Even pirates don’t turn those things off,” says John Beckner, boss of Horizon Technologies, a British firm that plans its first launch in August. RF data are also cheap to collect. Satellites fitted with robotic high-resolution cameras are costly. Flying microwave ovens that capture and timestamp radio signals are not. Horizon says that building, insuring and launching its August mission should cost no more than about $1.4m. America’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), one of that country’s numerous spying operations, is a big user of RF intelligence. It employs HawkEye’s data to find guerrilla camps and mobile missile-launchers, and to track both conventional warships and unconventional ones, like the weaponised speedboats sometimes deployed by Iran. Robert Cardillo, a former director of the agency who now advises HawkEye, says dozens of navies, Russia’s included, spoof AIS signals to make warships appear to be in places which they are not. RF intelligence is not fooled by this. Mr Cardillo says, too, that the tininess of RF satellites makes them hard for an enemy to destroy. Beside matters military, the NGA also uses RF data to unearth illicit economic activity—of which unauthorised fishing is merely one instance. Outright piracy is another. And the technique also works on land. In 2019, for example, it led to the discovery of an illegal gold mine being run by a Chinese company in a jungle in Gabon. And in 2020 the managers of Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo began using HawkEye data to spot elephant poachers and dispatch rangers to deal with them. There are commercial uses, too. Andy Bowyer, Kleos’s boss, reports interest among telecoms firms keen to locate rogue transmitters, such as unlicensed ham radios, that are operating within their domains. Regulators, meanwhile, would like the firm to create “heat maps” of shifting patterns of legitimate transmissions. These would help them select sites for mobile-phone towers and also give them a better idea of the value in particular places of licences to use parts of the radio spectrum that are going up for auction. Some charities, too, have an interest in Kleos’s data. RF information can, for example, flag up routes taken by migrants likely to need food and other aid. Declustering Using satellite clusters to gather RF intelligence is clever. But engineers at Unseenlabs, a firm in Rennes, France, reckon it is already outdated. At the moment, Unseen has three satellites in orbit and sells data to about ten navies, including France’s, as well as to maritime insurers and a handful of big defence contractors. But its satellites operate independently, rather than as a cluster, for Unseenlabs’ engineers have devised a detection system, which they claim is accurate to within 5,000 metres, that requires but a single satellite. How this system works remains a secret—and one that, according to Clément Galic, Unseenlabs’ boss, is protected by the French state. After several attempts were made to steal it, he says, the defence ministry’s Directorate General of Armaments offered its assistance in defending the details from cybertheft. Secret or not, though, Unseenlabs may soon have competitors in the single-satellite-RF-intelligence market, for Horizon, too, says that it has worked out how to perform the trick—a claim backed up by the fact that its launch in August will loft but a single device. Shortly after it filed an application for a patent in America on the wizardry involved, the government there classified it. Even so, Mr Beckner drops a hint. The method involves assessing differences in the angles at which a target’s signals arrive during the satellite’s arc across the sky. Horizon says its system will be accurate to within 3,000 metres. By the middle of next year, it, too, plans to operate three satellites in different orbits—enough to scan most of the planet every two hours or so. Horizon also plans to compile a library of unique radar-pulse “fingerprints” of the world’s vessels, for the tiny differences in componentry that exist even between examples of the same make and model of equipment mean that signals can often be linked to a specific device. It will thus be able to determine not merely that a vessel of some sort is in a certain place, but which vessel it is, and where else it has been. Unseenlabs, for its part, has already catalogued the radar fingerprints of many thousands of vessels, several hundred of which have, subsequent to the events of last summer, spent time in the Galapagos EEZ with their AIS beacons switched off. It remains to be seen what Ecuador’s authorities will do with that information. But no one can say they weren’t told.

neilshevlin 6y ago

On a good note, getting access to really high quality Earth observation data is really good for geophysics and geoscience research.

known 6y ago

https://archive.is/IerJ9 https://archive.is/IerJ9

hnedeotes 6y ago

"One day the magic was finally gone. There was no more wonder. What before would make you question what sit beyond the veil, and its impossibility in a linear universe, no longer did. Everything was catalogued, every inch of soil, wrinkles around the corners of your mouth, the reflection on your iris when you were happy, or sad, circumstances you found yourself in. All of that had a rational thread that could be followed back to the big silent eye, data point by data point. There was nothing else to question, no possibility of impossibles, of something unseen. Just this never ending stream of letters that told you that's all there is, all that you are"

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
superzamp 6y ago
Quoted from you, just now?
- DiggyJohnson 6y ago
  I just pasted it into my futureculture novel I'm going to not finish in a decade or so.
  - dandellion 6y ago
    It could even be one of those gpt3-generated replies. It's getting hard to tell these days...
mckirk 6y ago
What is the source of that quote?
- dandellion 6y ago
  I don't know the source, but it made me think of Gattaca. I should probably re-watch it.

GnarfGnarf 6y ago

Kessler syndrome here we come: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

EGreg 6y ago
Human manufacturing seems to pollute everything. Plastic in the bodies of water etc. It’s the tragedy of the unmanaged commons! People don’t care about exponential growth issues until it’s a few seconds to midnight. Except in the case of Kessler syndrome, it’s even worse because it grows AFTER you stopped. Bitcoin mining electricity use is another big example.
- astrange 6y ago
  On the other hand, we can solve Bitcoin mining heat output by putting it in orbit with solar panels.
ansible 6y ago
I am worried about many things. And I think we are already in serious trouble with regards to pollution and climate change. For this one thing, spy satellites in low Earth orbit, I am not so worried. Without active re-boosts, these orbits tend to degrade quickly, and the junk gets dragged out on a relatively quick timescale. Medium orbits, however, can last a super long time, and junk up there is a very serious concern. BTW, as the average global temperature rises, the atmosphere expands, which will degrade the orbits of the lower satellites even quicker!
Symmetry 6y ago
A lot of these are in orbits as low as possible to maximize resolution. Orbital debris is less of a concern there because it tends to de-orbit quickly. In contrast to SSO where debris stick around like with that NOAA satellite just broke up. https://spacenews.com/decommissioned-noaa-weather-satellite-breaks-up/ https://spacenews.com/decommissioned-noaa-weather-satellite-...

xwdv 6y ago

Just go inside a building.

EGreg 6y ago
Where your gait can be analyzed, and wifi analysis can correlate you by your heart beat and other things. The thing is that after connecting all those databases, an AI can quickly figure out where everyone has been and what they’re up to. And as the Five Eyes shares info, you can ask friendly countries to spy on your own citizens.
- xwdv 6y ago
  Both can be defeated by a long dress and a bottle of water.
- ZanyProgrammer 6y ago
  How will a spy satellite tell me what's going on inside a building or underground?

Symmetry 6y ago

I listen to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast and they often go into open source analysis of North Korean or Saudi or whoever's current projects based on finding test sites with pictures from this sort of commercial satellite imagery. Recommend if you think that sounds interesting. https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/

phrotoma 6y ago
That sounds interesting, are there specific episodes you could suggest which dig into that topic?
- zerkten 6y ago
  Wollo-Ri (https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1209730/the-wollo-ri-suspected-nuclear-warhead-manufacturing-facility/ https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1209730/the-wollo-ri...) is one episode, but their descriptions are helpful for finding others.
  - phrotoma 6y ago
    Awesome, thank you!

nonameiguess 6y ago

This is fundamentally wrong. I doubt the NGA is actually lying to these writers and more likely just not saying anything and leaving people to guess, but we have long had the ability to see the entire earth and commercial imagery is still a tiny, insignificant part of the national geointelligence enterprise with capabilities dwarfed by the state-sponsored tech this writer doesn't know about. Private companies gaining the ability to track vessels that turned off their transponders is cute and all, but this is not a new capability by any stretch.

splistud 6y ago
The significance of the proliferation of such technology is that there will actually be people and processes 'watching' the screen. To my mind this is fundamentally different than the knowledge that a few state actors had the capability but not the manpower (or desire) to do so.
- nonameiguess 6y ago
  Sort of and sort of not. I keep typing up long comments all over this post and then deleting them and I better just stay away. I'm not at all comfortable pushing the limits of what I can actually say without getting in trouble, even if it isn't technically classified. If you mean data like this isn't already being collected on every vessel on earth and accessible from a terminal somewhere, that is incorrect. Creating the system that does that was exactly my job five years ago. If you mean the Navy largely doesn't care what you're doing and isn't really paying attention if you're not a drug runner, pirate, or state actor, then yes, that is true.
- closetohome 6y ago
  Exactly. Focusing on capability gives you a very myopic view of the situation. Capabilities are a moving target, with very few truly revolutionary leaps between the first film-based spy satellites and whatever we've got today. Proliferation is huge. I can buy a high-resolution satellite photo of my neighbor's property every day if I feel like spending the money. That's something that wouldn't have been available at any cost a decade or two ago.

broooder 6y ago

Have you tried the caves?

LinuxBender 6y ago
and mines. With mines you would already have a good idea of the rock composition and layers. I wanted to put a literal "man cave" in a mine by parking an RV in one, but I can't find any good documentation on restrictions per state on personally owned mines vs. claims.

ble 6y ago

I see a few comments where people refer exclusively to satellite imagery despite the fact that this story is about RF-detection satellites. Has Hacker News ever flirted with a "commenter did not read the linked story / page but is pretending they did" vote feature? There's obviously room for abuse even if it were limited to "reputable" users but I would use it on some comments on this item.

cj 6y ago
From HN guidelines: > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
simlevesque 6y ago
Those of us with over 500 karma can and do downvote. But right now you can try to explain to them that they are wrong.
rootusrootus 6y ago
I think that for a lot of regular commenters, it's more about the discussion than the article that started it. Fealty to the original content is secondary to conversation.
- ble 6y ago
  I suppose you're right, though I'd call it less "fealty" and more "relevance". In this case, it looks like the discussion in the comments flies to a subject that people feel they have familiarity with (satellite imagery) instead of what is actually contained in the article (satellite RF detection) and thus the conversation on the article strongly suggests that the community is _not_ assimilating any information from the article. I suppose I should be the "candle" and just talk about RF detection rather than "cursing the darkness".

ble 6y ago

Interesting that ships turning off their AIS transponders can still be picked up from their radio or naval radar signals from orbit. It seemed a bit extreme that the single satellite RF detection and localization technique referenced in the article would get classified by the U.S. government -- it's presumably a beamformed angle & doppler measurement going into a detection algorithm which is aware of the motion of the satellite platform, which is cute but not groundbreaking -- but at the same time it's probably a very inexpensive technology for space-based surveillance of RF emitters, which has obvious national security ramifications. smallsat = cheap cheap = affordable for smaller nation states RF emitters = many military assets

WhyKill 6y ago

Underground. Under the sea. Under the ground under the sea. Pfffft. The sun was already trying to kill you that's why living underground is smart anyway. Frankly there should be no expectation of privacy for things you can observe from space...

calibas 6y ago

This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, it's all in how we respond. This could lead to greater transparency, openness, and accountability, or it can be abused by a small group of people for their own power and profit. Nothing hypothetical about it either, both cases are already true.

williesleg 6y ago

Oh, the economist, this should be good!

intrasight 6y ago

Very excited to hear that they'll be able to track these bad actors who are damaging the commons. Also VERY cool that they can discriminate and therefore identify ships based on small variations in the electronics even for a specific model of radio. Also - curious how the French govt is going to keep this tech under wraps.

edrxty 6y ago
The author is a lay person, they're just trying to report what they've been told. In reality, single satellite detection with the described resolution is extremely simple and the tech has been flying since the 60s. There isn't a lot of magic new tech in RF, just advances in processing.
- angry_octet 6y ago
  I wouldn't say that, track before detect for example. Also multiple antenna synthetic aperture systems are almost magic.

geuis 6y ago

Where’s the article? On mobile it just cuts off at “ HawkEye’s satellites could pinpoint these renegades by listening for faint signals emanating from their navigation radars and radio communications”.

nfriedly 6y ago
There's a paywall, but you can read the full thing at https://archive.is/T8XtA https://archive.is/T8XtA

csteubs 6y ago

Revisit is getting better and satellites have an edge when it comes to total coverage of the earth, but the 120,000 flights around the world each day typically fly predictable routes at low altitudes near urban centers (takeoff and landing). This presents a massive opportunity to leverage all of that "free energy" and use aircraft for earth observation. Coverage can be supplemented with satellites, but revisit of aircraft is far greater for many terrestrial locations. 2x/day revisit for most of the world is probably sufficient for the majority of use cases, but that assumes good weather (for images). On the other hand, LAX for example sees hundreds of takeoffs and landings each day, so if you were interested in modeling retail foot traffic by parking lot volume, pace of urban development, rate of containers moving in and out of port, etc. you could get a massive boost in temporal resolution using aircraft and far cheaper than launching + maintaining a satellite constellation.

edrxty 6y ago
Maybe, but aircraft tend to follow much stricter paths than one would normally believe. Particularly around urban centers (airports) they queue up and only really fly a few routes through the area. On clear nights you can often see the lines of nav and landing lights forming as aircraft approach the city.

humbleMouse 6y ago

There is a limited amount of orbit space and limited amount of satellites that can be launched. Building too much infrastructure around them is risky and not a good idea for long term stability.

idclip 6y ago

Yeha thats gonna get regulated pretty fast. Israel is VERY uptight about its airspace and the drones here are basically sharks with lasers. Good luck, comrad.

dfilppi 6y ago

Unless they are indoors, no true.

sandworm101 6y ago

Lots of little cameras up there. Ok. They can see ships. That is a far cry from total surveillance. There are countless physical limitations that prevent the concept of total space surveillance, from lens diameter to the atmosphere's absorption of certain frequencies. I remain far more concerned by the cameras in my apartment building, or taps on my internet/cell connections, than I am about space cameras. Be more worried about your local police operating airborne camera systems. Drones hovering over cities are far far cheaper than any space-based surveillance scheme.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

coretx 6y ago

Focal length + wave length = you can calculate where they must be if they see you.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

Hi. I'm adding my usual PSA that the threat to the non-powerful is less from surveillance than from disproportional surveillance. What enables bulk, civil harm is that we lack the data about those in power, that they have about us.