[HN Gopher] Lockheed is now tracking phones and walkie-talkies f...
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Lockheed is now tracking phones and walkie-talkies from space
Author : ed-209
Score : 257 points
Date : 2023-11-18 18:48 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jackpoulson.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jackpoulson.substack.com)
| fatboy wrote:
| Can anyone explain how this works? Are these satellites in a
| similar orbit to GPS satellites? Do signals from cell phones etc
| include timestamps? Or is there a high resolution way of
| detecting the direction of a signal?
| Gare wrote:
| Maybe just plain old triangulation? The constellation consists
| of 21 satellites. If multiple satellites receive the same
| signal, the difference in arrival can be used to precisely
| locate the source.
| DenisM wrote:
| Iirc, SAR satellites in polar orbits measure Doppler effect of
| distress beacons to compute coarse latitude. It's been working
| for decades, so I imagine recent advances in signal processing
| might be able to significantly improve precision.
| livueta wrote:
| modern DoA algs like
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSIC_(algorithm) can use a
| small phase coherent array of antennas to estimate DoA by, in
| grossly simplified terms, measuring minute phase differences
| across the array as a signal arrives: https://www.diva-
| portal.org/smash/get/diva2:724272/FULLTEXT0...
| spoonfeeder006 wrote:
| You'd need unique signature of cell phone signal to separate it
| from other cell signals
|
| In terms of timestamp, when multiple satellites measure
| different times of receipt from same cell signal they could
| reverse compute the location
|
| Could probably incorporate differences in received signal
| strength as well
|
| At least thats my guess
|
| I don't think you'd wanna use timestamp info from the sender,
| since you have no control over the accuracy of that, even if it
| was available
| phero_cnstrcts wrote:
| > including satellite phones, walkie-talkies, cellular towers,
| and GPS.
|
| How can they track gps devices? I thought gps devices are passive
| in the sense that they don't emit any signals but only read
| signatures from satellites.
|
| Or am I reading the article wrong?
| Aloha wrote:
| Every radio has a local oscillator that can be detected at some
| distance - from space however? I am highly skeptical.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I think the gist of the article is that they are detecting
| active transmitters, not the IF of receivers.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| SMH. The majority of oscillators are shielded to prevent
| interference and to pass regulatory approvals. Civilian GNSS
| receivers are passive devices.
| jon_richards wrote:
| There are some dedicated GPS devices that phone home for things
| like tracking trucks.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Ah, but do they use cellular networks, which I presume is the
| standard, or some other technology?
| jon_richards wrote:
| Probably application-specific. Satellite for ships,
| cellular for commercial trucks, radio for remote mining
| trucks.
|
| There are also panic buttons for remote backpackers that
| collect gps coordinates and send them to a satellite. All
| things I wouldn't call satellite phones, even if they're
| basically just more rudimentary versions. Looks like the
| quote was referring to something else, though.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| This isn't a function of GNSS modules. It's a combination of
| a cell phone module, a GNSS module (or a combination) with an
| embedded controller comprising an element of a field
| force/fleet management system.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| GNSS jamming devices.
|
| > (U//PROPIN) Additionally, HawkEye 360 satellites can detect
| RF signals in the GPS bands, as well as other GNSS systems,
| e.g. GLONASS. If detected by all three spacecraft, the RF
| energy from a GNSS interference can be geolocated to its point
| of origin using an adaptation of the company's existing
| geolocation techniques. Due to the global coverage of the
| constellation, geolocation of GNSS jamming or spoofing can be
| conducted over denied areas without exposing airborne or
| terrestrial sensors or personnel to hostile conditions.
|
| So you can target these jamming devices with force projection
| and disable them to improve location services for local assets
| (force projection can typically switch to ring laser INS or
| terrain guidance when GNSS is degraded or unavailable during
| terminal phase).
| mrtksn wrote:
| The article claims:
|
| > HawkEye 360 satellites can detect RF signals in the GPS
| bands, as well as other GNSS systems, e.g. GLONASS
|
| Seems like a misunderstanding. They claim detection in that
| frequency, not GPS devices that listen to that frequency. So
| jammers, probably.
| jaynetics wrote:
| The text only mentions satellite phones, so the headline might be
| a bit click-baity.
|
| I assume tracking mobile phones from space would be way harder
| and more expensive, although the progressive addition of
| satellite connectivity to recent iPhone models might help with
| that?
| nyokodo wrote:
| > The text only mentions satellite phones
|
| iPhones 14+ are satellite phones to a limited degree. [1]
|
| 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213885
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _I assume tracking mobile phones from space would be way
| harder and more expensive_ "
|
| I dunno which way I'd bet on that; on one hand any cellphone
| signal sent upwards is wasted energy, wasted battery - the cell
| towers are sideways. And cell towers are local so phones will
| try to use as little power as possible to get to the closest
| mast also to save battery, 5G picocells can be down to 100
| meters. But you can't be sure to radiate sideways when phones
| are used at all sorts of angles, can you?
|
| On the other hand, signal going upwards has clear line of sight
| and rapidly thinning atmosphere. A Google result tells me that
| cellphone base towers can "typically reach up to 25 miles and
| sometimes up to 45 miles", and this article[1] says cellular
| macrocells can be up to 100 miles (diameter?). Wikipedia[2]
| says "Mobile phones are limited to an effective isotropic
| radiated power (EIRP) output of 3 watts" and Reddit[3] says you
| can reach the International Space Station as an amateur with
| 5-10 Watts and a good aerial.
|
| So ... maybe? a tuned sensitive receiver constantly listening
| for moments of phones doing a high power ping?
|
| [1] https://www.emnify.com/blog/5g-small-cell
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_device_radiation_and_...
|
| [3]
| https://old.reddit.com/r/HamRadio/comments/rvzj11/can_i_make...
| ianburrell wrote:
| Cell phones don't have directional antennas. It is impressive
| that they fit the anisotropic antennas. You can hold the
| phone in any orientation and move it around.
|
| The directionality of phone network comes from the towers
| which have arrays of antennas pointing in different
| directions.
|
| Also, the cell phone doesn't know where the towers are.
| Especially with all the smaller cells that may not know where
| they are.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Expensive, yes, but difficult, not as much as you think.
|
| I'm assuming they are operating in low earth orbit. Which means
| that the satellite could be around 200-300km above the earth.
| Apart from the atmosphere its direct line of sight.
|
| You have the advantage that you are not really trying to decode
| data, just figure out where something is, so you can use a
| large phased array antenna to electronically sweep an area.
| Because you're in orbit, you can localise a RF source as you
| fly over.
|
| in terms of RF power, GPS is transmitted at ~40 watts from
| ~20200km I haven't done the maths, but as its inverse square,
| I'd punt that GPS signal is weaker than a phone signal at 200km
| instagib wrote:
| SAR is nice for satellites too.
|
| https://www.mathworks.com/help/radar/ug/spaceborne-
| synthetic...
|
| How much POWER do the GPS Satellites output on the 1575mhz L1
| frequency?
|
| In the frequency allocation filing the L1 C/A power is listed
| as 25.6 Watts. The Antenna gain is listed at 13 dBi. Thus,
| based on the frequency allocation filing, the power would be
| about 500 Watts (27 dBW).
|
| Now, the free space path loss from 21000 km is about 182 dB.
| Take the 500 Watts (27 dBW) and subtract the free space path
| loss (27 - 182) and you get -155 dBW. The end of life spec is
| -160 dBW, which leaves a 5 dB margin.
|
| And if you really get into it, you'll discover ALL of the
| following represent the same approximate signal strength for
| GPS on the face of the earth (m stands for milliwatts and m2
| stands for meters squared):
|
| -160 dBW, -130 dBm, -135 dBW/m2, -105 dBm/m2, -223 dBW/Hz,
| -163 dBW/MHz, -193 dBm/Hz, -198 dBW/m2/Hz, -138 dBW/m2/MHz
|
| Once you figure out why they're all the same, you're well on
| your way to understanding power, power density, and power
| flux density as it relates to GPS. For those that wish to
| quibble, I am assuming an even distribution of power density
| over a 2 MHz C/A bandwidth.
|
| http://gpsinformation.net/main/gpspower.htm
| KaiserPro wrote:
| thanks for this, my maths is a bit weak and I last did this
| sort of calculations in 2008.
|
| I got around -79dbm for a phone at 200km, now I think thats
| probably a bit high. Even so even -90dbm is certainly
| something thats workable with
| Dumble wrote:
| A $10 MIO investment seems like nothing in that area.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > Lockheed is now tracking phones
|
| I get that the satellite can track the radio emissions from
| phones, but can they differentiate between different phones? -
| pick up the signal and track device by SIM IMEA/ICCID etc
| Sparkyte wrote:
| It is probably because even if the signal is within a certain
| band the band still has a frequency legenth longer than a
| simple decimal point. Channels operate in a range of frequency
| for example. Even if a device 5g and it needs to connect to a
| tower it will do its best to replicate the upstream /
| downstream signal with little noise as possible. However the
| noise is the difference between the devices, they are distinct
| and this is how they are probably determining the device.
|
| Also radio waves do not just go away. We are probably
| incredibly loud planet to any radio wave sensitive
| alien/creature.
| szundi wrote:
| Since 4g lots of devices talk on the same freq at the same
| time and they do math to decode separate logic streams of
| data - so freq in itself is not enough
| Sparkyte wrote:
| I imagine it is distinct enough if you're coned into a
| specific place. They are probably not looking at the global
| as a whole but like a radio telescope pointed back at
| Earth.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I think you're right here. To give a hypothetical from
| current events, the US/NATO forces may not have direct
| access to information from Russian cellular networks, but
| a bunch of cell signals in an unusual place could
| indicate a troop movement or something.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| Right, you could be able to see not only the number of
| cellphones but also the group.
| thewanderer1983 wrote:
| I have a outdoor air quality sensor that spikes for five
| minutes each day at certain times. I know each day when
| my neighbour goes out for a cigarette. On a similar note
| Strava data once gave away locations of military bases.
|
| If you aren't putting in any effort to obfuscate your
| data you are not doing enough. There is a reason why our
| VIPs and anti-censors both do it. Encryption and other
| privacy tools alone aren't enough. The IETF and others
| are putting great effort into encryption but not enough
| here. Recently Google announced MLS support, hopefully as
| that is adopted you'll see more effort with Pluggable
| transports and making it easy to hide data over more than
| TLS.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| With certain kinds of antennas you can differentiate distinct
| emitters on the same frequency if there is enough spatial
| separation between them.
|
| Just like with a single radio telescope you can simultaneously
| watch two closely located radio-galaxies emitting on the same
| frequency.
| sllabres wrote:
| If this [1] works, why shouldn't locating mobile phones from
| space work?
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/fcc-aims-to-
| help...
| solardev wrote:
| How does this work? Don't regular Starlink dishes use like
| 100W or so? How does a phone have enough power to do that?
|
| I can see text messages, maybe, like the iPhone... but real
| time voice too?
| sroussey wrote:
| I think these guys have explainers on their site:
|
| https://lynk.world/
| sllabres wrote:
| Yes, it was not for high bandwidth applications.
| Nevertheless when you can receive something like SMS it
| seems possible to locate you phone with similar technology.
| fedorino wrote:
| Real time voice and data downloads of about 14Mbps from LEO
| test satellite to unmodified phones by AST Spacemobile.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/19/23879527/att-cellular-
| sat...
| leoh wrote:
| It's not possible to track ordinary cell phones this way. They're
| tracking stuff that is much higher energy afaiu.
|
| Yes, "cell phones" but like, satellite ones.
| livueta wrote:
| They claim to be able to track FRS ptt radios, which implies a
| sensitivity to .5w transmissions, and iirc a phone will put out
| max .2w (on 4g). Lower, yes, but not massively so, so if it
| really does work on FRS I wouldn't be shocked if it worked on a
| conventional smartphone. The phone operating in a higher
| frequency range than ~470mhz frs/gmrs is admittently an
| additional challenge, but since the thing runs up to 15ghz I
| wouldn't count on it being unable to track a phone
| stackskipton wrote:
| Depends on radio but FRS are now allowed up to 2W on
| lower/GMRS channels.
| sroussey wrote:
| https://lynk.world/ And AST and Starlink are all working on it
| for consumers which is far more complex (actually pushing a 5G
| signal to the phone and getting a response back in orbit). Just
| identifying that there is a phone transmitting is far simpler.
| leoh wrote:
| This is just an incredibly confused comment. 5g _simply does
| not allow for transmission distances of 200+km_. Period.
|
| They might make some kind of addition to the 5g standard or
| something. Because yes, indeed, there are such things as
| satellite phones and satellite internet.
|
| Please consider being more technical here and instead of just
| believing a random website or parroting one of Elon's
| audacious claims (of which its hopefully become painfully
| clear that none can be taken as truth on face value).
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Ok, so some shit maths:
|
| assuming a phone transmits 0.5watts at 1m, inverse square
| law[1] says that it will be 0.0000000000125 watts at a distance
| of 200km.
|
| Thats -79dbm, so kinda shitty wifi level of signal. GPS by
| contrast is -125 dbm. (logarithmic scale) Your phone can pick
| out a GPS signal reliably with a tiny chip antenna. Imagine
| having a 4 meter phased antenna array.
|
| [1] https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/inverse-square-law
| leoh wrote:
| Yes, sure; but you're leaving out issues of signal fidelity
| due to noise.
| rightbyte wrote:
| How much power in the carrier spectrum does the tree next
| to you emit? That just makes it a question of sampling
| length and statistics.
| hammock wrote:
| I just learned about the SBIRS mission that Lockheed built, which
| is a constellation of far earth orbit satellites that are
| constantly scanning every inch of the entire globe with IR
| cameras with missile/plane/boat/person(?) level resolution. And
| has been for at least nine years now.
|
| Incredible.
|
| Here is a video that explains it.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDTnl4E9FiY
| H8crilA wrote:
| There are hundreds if not thousands of those up in the space.
| You can even rent one yourself as a civilian (order one to
| point the camera/SAR at a specific location).
| hammock wrote:
| Why was it so difficult to determine the MH370 flight path
| then?
| stirlo wrote:
| Because who is looking in the middle of the Indian Ocean at
| commercial airliners. There's far more important targets
| and areas for these systems to focus on
| H8crilA wrote:
| Yes indeed. You can see for example here what kind of
| lead times are we talking about:
| https://sar.iceye.com/5.0/productguide/ordering/
|
| Any serious military is tracking all known imaging/SAR
| satellites and uses their fly-by times (which are
| entirely predictable) for moving stuff covertly. I.e. you
| want to be out in the open in Area 51 testing a new
| RQ-180 derivative only when no one can be looking at you
| right now.
|
| Also, there are global ADS-B satellite relays, and
| frankly I don't know why this data wasn't logged for
| MH370 - it must be explained somewhere. There's a guy on
| Twitter who captures those on a custom antenna + BladeRF
| setups (this data is plugged into adsbexchange for
| oceanic routes coverage). AIS relies even more on
| satellite relays, as the curvature of the planet limits
| signal propagation much more than for airplanes. What you
| see on any AIS website is mostly from a satellite.
| sacheendra wrote:
| No satellite was pointed at the path when MH370 was flying.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| So it isn't actually true that it is "constantly scanning
| every inch of the entire globe with IR cameras with
| missile/plane/boat/person(?) level resolution" then, or
| it is true and they know exactly where the plane went
| down they just don't tell anyone about it for some
| reason. Its either or.
| losteric wrote:
| Constantly scanning != Constantly recording and storing
| in perpetuity.
| amelius wrote:
| I think "repeatedly scanning" would be a better phrase.
| closeparen wrote:
| Every inch of the globe is imaged every N hours, by
| satellites making continuous observations. Most of the
| earth is not under sensor coverage at any particular
| instant. Both are true.
|
| It's possible that NRO has a later observation of MH370
| than any that have been publicly disclosed, but it would
| be sheer luck to have, like, video of the disappearance.
| ar-jan wrote:
| Some say otherwise. I don't know what to make of it, but
| here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwaC4AXFqRI
| solardev wrote:
| The satellites were all too busy monitoring HN users.
| brookst wrote:
| Judging from this thread, yes.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Maybe there was much less of this in 2014?
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Assuming it was monitored by a classified system, would
| they release the information? Recall rumored IUSS role
| during the Titan implosion situation and consider
| Malaysia's position, geographically and geopolitically,
| between the US and China in the context of sharing
| monitoring capabilities. If those capabilities even exist.
| joering2 wrote:
| bingo. it either landed somewhere secretly or crashed. In
| both situation there was nothing aboard, secret cargo or
| important politicians, that would justify unveiling of
| their capabilities to track everything everywhere at all
| times.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Incredible.
|
| Incredibly dystopian. Since at least nine years ago, there
| hasn't a single place on the surface of the planet where you
| had any total and absolute privacy.
| constantly wrote:
| The "I should be able to personally launch intercontinental
| ballistic missiles without being detected" take isn't one I
| expected to see today! Less facetiously, this is like
| complaining you don't have privacy when turning on your house
| lights at night because optical satellites can see that there
| is light. It's a little silly and honestly you don't do any
| privacy causes any favors with this sort of unwarranted
| hyperbole.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > this is like complaining you don't have privacy when
| turning on your house lights at night because optical
| satellites can see that there is light.
|
| That scenario is _also worrisome_ if the _consequence_ of
| that observation becomes something like "Oh, the house of
| Citizen #DYSTO-48195812 had its lights on during the
| following intervals, click for footage and probable active
| occupants."
|
| "Privacy" isn't about the raw mechanics of observation or
| single data-points, it's about capabilities and powers and
| how those might be abused by other humans.
|
| > intercontinental ballistic missiles
|
| Well, if _allll_ someone needs is to detect giant missiles
| roaring into the edge of space on a pillar of fire, then we
| should be ultra-suspicious if they start building a system
| which goes beyond that into, say, following around the hot-
| spots of individual human heads.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Agreed. I often waffle about whether to blind a camera--
| not based on where it is pointing but based on where I
| think the data is going.
|
| If you want to be able to see in front of your business
| without going outside, fine.
|
| If you want to feed that data into a citywide network
| which the police can query to see who was where at which
| time, less fine.
| oivey wrote:
| > Well, if allll someone needs is to detect giant
| missiles roaring into the edge of space on a pillar of
| fire, then we should be ultra-suspicious if they start
| building a system which goes beyond that into, say,
| following around the hot-spots of individual human heads.
|
| I think you missed another possibility: that they make
| your head as hot as giant missile. Constant vigilance!
| Terr_ wrote:
| Hence the "tin"-foil hat: Reflective heatsink.
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| Not sure how people wanting some privacy means that someone
|
| "should be able to personally launch intercontinental
| ballistic missiles without being detected"?!
| constantly wrote:
| They're specifically complaining about their loss of
| privacy stemming from an infrared satellite system
| designed to detect missile launches.
| bear141 wrote:
| Drops in a bucket
| para_parolu wrote:
| If you are not criminal you have nothing to hide. Right?
| constantly wrote:
| Hide my infrared signature created from my missile
| launches? This second amendment thing has gone too far...
| bee_rider wrote:
| This is basically what the second amendment was intended
| for. It starts with a bit about militias and securing the
| state; the intention is clearly that we should be able to
| buy weapons of war. Nowadays that includes missiles.
|
| How are you going to secure a free state with a rifle?
| Any reasonable adversary to the US would have jets and
| stuff. We should at least be able to get together and buy
| a neighborhood SAM site.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Cameras are so cheap now, and prices will keep falling, that
| I think in the future pretty much everything will be filmed.
|
| I'm not saying it's good or bad. But it is inevitable, and we
| need to adjust to that reality.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| They are already flying over some big cities and constantly
| capturing everything in car-level resolution, then when a
| "crime" happens they can roll the tape back and see the
| where the car came from.
|
| https://radiolab.org/podcast/eye-sky-2306
|
| "Persistent Surveillance System" google blackholed of
| course
| Scoundreller wrote:
| This is why everyone should vinyl wrap their cars. Then
| if anything happens, just peel it off.
| brookst wrote:
| Also why you should wear a ski mask in every bank, in
| case "something happens"
| qball wrote:
| Perhaps the fact that it all of a sudden became
| acceptable (to put it mildly) to cover the lower half of
| one's face has some benefits after all.
|
| After all, who could object to a safety measure?
| bumby wrote:
| A big point from the podcast isn't that the goal is to
| identify you or your car later as you might think. It's
| that they can "rewind" the footage and trace where the
| offender came from and show up at their doorsteps within
| minutes/hours. It's as much about traceability as
| identification. A vinyl wrap won't help that.
| ianburrell wrote:
| David Brin has idea after thinking about future making
| surveillanace unavoidable. The solution is that everybody
| can spy on everybody else. The problem is that the
| government and corporations can spy on us, but are immune.
| I'm not sure if he means it as blueprint or inevitability
| with the price dropping.
|
| I think he is wrong that everybody spying will help, when
| everybody discussing online doesn't. But it is useful to
| think about what world will be like when everybody can
| surveil.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Cameras are already cheap enough that even fairly poor
| people can afford 24/7 cameras in and outside their home.
| 111111101101 wrote:
| The #MeToo movement made me realise that we will probably
| choose constant surveillance for our own protection, rather
| than have it imposed on us by some Orwellian government.
| asdff wrote:
| Its been that way since probably the 1960s and has yet to
| materially impact your life I imagine.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Bold claims require bold backing.
|
| It's also in the country's favor to overclaim their
| capabilities.
| sneak wrote:
| It may have materially impacted many people's lives by
| allowing western governments the required intel to sabotage
| WMD programs of governments who believe in first strike
| attacks.
|
| I am generally pro-situational-awareness of things in
| public spaces.
| huijzer wrote:
| In the 1960s, high resolution images were definitely
| possible (and taken daily from Russian territories), but
| only when the plane was overhead.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| This is benign compared to ubiquitous camera phones with
| unbelievable image resolution and location data, being
| uploaded for "free" to services with cutting-edge facial
| recognition capabilities, among others.
| xyst wrote:
| Only 9 years? Try 22 years. 9/11 changed the game. PATRIOT
| Act in the USA is still in effect. FISA courts rubber
| stamping any search order in the name of "national security".
|
| The idea of privacy disappeared a long time ago. FB/Cambridge
| Analytica/IG/TT/SC is just the surface.
| kbenson wrote:
| There are plenty of places. Under a forest canopy.
| Underground, under a large overhang from a cliff. And those
| are just the types of privacy you don't create for yourself,
| or you don't naturally get through large structures.
|
| They aren't necessarily convenient places, but it's not like
| you can't find any privacy just because there are cameras up
| high pointing down. It's actually probably far less intrusive
| and privacy destroying than the electronic device you likely
| carry everywhere with you that reports you location and could
| (if it doesn't already) keep track of when it can't report
| and relay it when it can again.
|
| If you think the trade-offs of that make it worthwhile most
| the time, consider that there may be trade-offs here that are
| positive that you are discounting with what we're discussing
| here.
| kazinator wrote:
| How about: walkie-talkie with decent crypto?
|
| Suppose we design walkie talkies such that two or more
| units can be hooked up together in a daisy chain. While the
| devices are daisy chained, a button can be pressed on the
| head walkie talkie which will generate a random symmetric
| key, like 256 bit AES or whatever. This is sent over the
| daisy-chained bus to all the others. They flash an LED or
| something to indicate they accepted the key. After that
| they can be split up and will all use that key.
| mike_d wrote:
| Everyone has a walkie-talkie with decent crypto in their
| pocket already. The problem is portable radios have
| limited transmission range, so you'd need some sort of a
| ... maybe network of towers that could pick up and re-
| broadcast the signal? Hmm.
| constantly wrote:
| SBIRS is the upgrade, previously it was DSP, since the 70s.
|
| https://missilethreat.csis.org/defsys/dsp/
| dylan604 wrote:
| What purpose does the highly elliptical orbits provide that a
| more circular orbit doesn't? Does it allow higher resolution
| when it swings in closer, and that the higher orbit is over
| parts of the globe of little interest?
| jon_richards wrote:
| I think it's usually the opposite. The satellite spends much
| more time observing interesting stuff in the higher part of
| the orbit and much less time zipping by uninteresting stuff
| in the lower part.
| dylan604 wrote:
| that does make sense. US targets of interests do tend to be
| northern hemisphere oriented.
| elteto wrote:
| Probably higher resolution over more desirable areas as well
| as more stable orbits.
| sheepshear wrote:
| Historically, it's for dwelling over the interesting long
| side and rushing past the uninteresting short side.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit
| agumonkey wrote:
| Says a thing or two about our medias that it's never mentioned.
| quietpain wrote:
| So every plane, train and automobile that went missing in the
| past 9 years did so without this system offering help?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| When have _trains_ gone missing?
| quietpain wrote:
| It sounded nice
| op00to wrote:
| There is a movie called closely watched trains which is
| humorous but not relevant.
| amelius wrote:
| Perhaps they went missing when it was cloudy?
| ehsankia wrote:
| wouldn't some IR go through clouds? I thought that was the
| point of using IR.
|
| That being said, the more important question is, how's the
| temporal resolution.
| bumby wrote:
| From the article: _" trained to locate the sources of
| electromagnetic emissions with wavelengths ranging from
| roughly 2 meters down to 2 centimeters"_
|
| These types of signals wouldn't be obscured by clouds,
| presumably.
| sneak wrote:
| Yes. These systems are for control, not general purpose law
| enforcement.
| bear141 wrote:
| Not yet
| 01100011 wrote:
| These systems are generally never used to solve low-level
| crimes. When they are, parallel-construction is used to avoid
| publicizing their existence. These systems are reserved for
| direct threats to national interests.
| xyst wrote:
| "...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not
| they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
| dataflow wrote:
| Do you have a link to something discussion the resolutions you
| mentioned? The video didn't seem to mention them when I watch,
| unless I missed it?
| joering2 wrote:
| At the end of this video: "We never forget who we're working
| for."
|
| If you have to put this disclaimer into your work, we already
| have a problem.
| 01100011 wrote:
| This is why I've said from the beginning that we absolutely
| know who hit Nordstream. We know the boat, and we probably know
| the operators by correlating the boat movement with
| communications records and financial surveillance.
|
| Whoever they were, they're enough on our side(i.e. the west)
| that we chose not to name and shame them.
|
| My guess is a Ukraine NGO but it could have been anyone with a
| couple hundred thousand dollars given the equipment required to
| accurately plant the explosives is so common now.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Wait until someone realizes what Starlink with cameras could
| do.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Pretty sophisticated surveillance technology - though it's worth
| remembering that you can't use it to look back in time and the
| footprint of each satellite is probably fairly small? I imagine
| that number is highly classified.
|
| The info on the foreign buyers is pretty spicy, though it's
| generally known that UAE's high-level relationship with the USA
| is built upon recycling a good chunk of their oil money back into
| the military industrial complex (Wikileaks Cablegate said $19
| billion/year as of 2010) - which is only one part of their
| overall Wall Street/London investment portfolio, but it does have
| a special significance.
|
| > "HawkEye's advisors have helped lead a large percentage of U.S.
| military and intelligence organizations -- including the Central
| Intelligence Agency's technical surveillance programs -- and have
| included two former members of Congress who pivoted into
| lobbying, Norm Coleman and Lamar Smith. And so one can only
| conclude that HawkEye's surveillance support for Gulf
| dictatorships is not an anomaly, but rather a corporate extension
| of official U.S. foreign policy."
|
| UAE is also known for buying Israel's NSO Group (Pegasus etc.)
| surveillance tech:
|
| https://gulfstateanalytics.com/pegasus-as-a-case-study-of-ev...
| leoh wrote:
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
|
| Can someone furnish evidence that ordinary cell phones are
| actually trackable... from space? When 5g is typically 200 ft, at
| best ~4km; LTE being ~100km at best... and the literal record for
| the lowest satellite orbit (Tsubame; which merely sustained it
| for 7d) being 2711.5km?
|
| Yes, sure, maybe at the obscenely low signal received in space,
| one could pick up some kind of signature as opposed to it being
| even marginally usable for tx. But to infer that some kind of
| high-fidelity tracking could be done with that? Come on.
| bagels wrote:
| Even with phased arrays, you think it's not possible? I didn't
| check link budgets on and off target or anything, just curious.
|
| Also, the ISS orbits at ~450km, so I'm not sure where you're
| getting that record lowest orbit from. Microsatellites will
| decay pretty quickly there, but these spy satellites are
| typically bigger with thrusters for orbit maintenance.
| mike_d wrote:
| > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
|
| The fact that every government in the world is stumbling over
| themselves to become customers?
| op00to wrote:
| I can communicate via a satellite using my amateur radio walkie
| talkie using a few watts. Imagine what's possible with nation
| state budgets.
| randcraw wrote:
| "HawkEye's current constellation of 21 satellites is trained to
| locate the sources of electromagnetic emissions with wavelengths
| ranging from roughly 2 meters down to 2 centimeters, with
| "Signals of Interest" including satellite phones, walkie-talkies,
| cellular towers, and GPS."
|
| Despite the headline, the system does NOT track individual
| cellphones or GPS receivers. Cellular signal from a personal
| cellphone isn't strong enough to register at satellite altitude.
| The same goes for non-milspec walkie-talkies.
| sneak wrote:
| Depends on the satellite and the altitude. SpaceX/Starlink have
| claimed their new satellites (in LEO) will be able to provide
| limited service to existing and unmodified mobile phones with a
| view of the sky.
| superkuh wrote:
| Amateur radio operators with just a moderate bit of gain (small
| uda-yagi antenna or the like) uplink to LEO satellites with ~5
| watts all the time. At peak power a cell phone can be about 3
| watts... but their antennas are not directional. So that loss
| of ~8dB of antenna gain has to be made up by increasing the
| sensitivity or gain of the satellites in LEO by increasing
| antena aperture or better front end low noise amplifiers. It's
| all very feasible given the clear line of sight.
|
| What's less feasible is having enough of these at good
| positions overhead of a single cell phone to multi-laterate
| it's position using shared timestamps on the downlinked
| spectrum from multiple satellites.
|
| I think it's entirely feasible with the budget of a medium
| space services corporation that can launch 21 satellites.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Civilian GPS receivers are passive reception devices.
|
| > Cellular signal from a personal cellphone isn't strong enough
| to register at satellite altitude.
|
| This isn't entirely true. A primary limiting factor is the
| frequency-specific gain of satellites' antenna arrays. With a
| big enough antenna and fast and sensitive enough ADCs, much
| more is possible. Sifting through TD-SCDMA is the fun part.
| op00to wrote:
| I can easily communicate with LEO satellites with a normal HT
| and a bit of gain on the antenna. It stands to reason that with
| better sensitivity receivers you would be able to pick up cell
| phones pretty easily, though identifying specific units is
| likely not yet possible.
| mike_d wrote:
| "That is impossible" is literally the bread and butter of
| signals intelligence.
|
| Measuring light bouncing off a window to hear conversations,
| using millimeter waves to see through walls, taking photos from
| space, and planes that could fly themselves were all the realm
| of science fiction at one point - while in the hands of
| intelligence agencies.
| dmix wrote:
| Still, the whole "this is what we have imagine what the gov
| has" is usually wayyy overrated of a take and IRL it's
| usually way more boring and incremental, closely tracking
| commercial industry.
|
| In most cases it's their ability to spend money to build
| large teams to employ tech, the complete scale of operations
| (XKeyscore+TEMPEST comes to mind), and the care they take is
| where things like the NSA dominate vs the average ability of
| the best hacker. Their unique advantages are only rarely in
| the individual technological leaps, which either a) industry
| has no match of or b) well informed technical experts are
| unaware of, like the things you reference.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Cellular signal from a personal cellphone isn't strong enough
| to register at satellite altitude.
|
| Sure it is. The iPhone can do that right now with emergency
| SOS.
| dieortin wrote:
| Starlink does not communicate with iPhones.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Yea it does: https://direct.starlink.com/
| bryancoxwell wrote:
| There are LTE-over-satellite systems, cellular signals
| absolutely can register at that altitude.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| This capability has existed at least 70 years and improved over
| time. See also: TRUMPET, Rhyolite, Magnum, Mercury, Orion.
| ipunchghosts wrote:
| This capability isn't new.
| wejjjo2 wrote:
| Hopefully aliens also have some powerful SIGINTs, so they could
| detect American military and exercise certain actions against the
| north American warmongers.
| matricaria wrote:
| I think the title is misleading and should be changed. Most
| phones don't have satellite capabilities.
| punnerud wrote:
| There are satellites now where 4G/5G phones can roam to them.
| This is just listening, not roaming. The title look correct.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Detecting GPS spoofing would be useful in Ukraine?
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