China's Balloon Was Capable of Spying on Communications, US Says (bloomberg.com) 152
The alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over the US was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a broader People's Liberation Army intelligence-gathering effort that spanned more than 40 countries, a State Department official said Thursday. From a report: High-resolution imagery provided by U-2 spy planes that flew past the balloon revealed an array of surveillance equipment that was inconsistent with Beijing's claim that it was a weather device blown off course, the official said in a statement provided on condition of anonymity. The statement, released before State and Defense Department officials appeared before Congress in open hearings and closed briefings on Thursday, marks the fullest accounting yet for the Biden administration's insistence over the course of a week-long drama that the balloon was meant to spy on the US. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an interview with CBS News that the Pentagon acted to limit what the balloon could learn about US nuclear capabilities.
Now it starts to make sense (Score:2)
Why a balloon and not a satellite.
Re:Now it starts to make sense (Score:5, Informative)
Range and loitering.
Satellites orbit fast, so you need a bit of a constellation to keep up sustained surveillance on an area.
Being closer also means you can get more radio signal and easier visuals. Note that if you look at 'satellite' view of an urban area, you are getting aerial imagery. Go out to the boondocks and see how low-res things get to see what is more reasonable with satellite. You can do better than that, but broadly speaking the balloon is going to have a much easier time of it.
Re: (Score:2)
You can do better than that, but broadly speaking the balloon is going to have a much easier time of it.
There is a reason spy planes fly insanely fast at incredibly high, almost space like altitude instead of loitering...
Bear with me, I’m a bit slow here, but there must be some reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
And then it traversed the country before being shot down. After having multiple others traverse the country without any issues. So it sounds like this worked out really well for China.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes... for no apparent reason, unless you count the funds laundered through 'rent' payments.
The claim of multiple others traversing the country seems to be completely fabricated. Everyone in the previous administration in a position to know confirms Trump's assertion there were no previous balloons detected; even those who don't get along with Trump anymore. So either there were no previous detected balloons or someone in the DoD/military is guilty of treason. I suspect there were no balloons.
Re: Now it starts to make sense (Score:2)
The current details are that the military didn't detect and track those three under Trump. They found them via other means after the fact. They are known to cross Texas and Florida.
Why not just use a light aircraft? (Score:2)
America is a free county, you can generally fly a small plane anywhere except a very few restricted sites.
Re: (Score:2)
> No, they didn't. The balloons under Trump where suddenly "detected" after the liar in Chief made up some bullshit on the spot about balloons under Trump.
"At least three suspected Chinese spy balloons flew over the US undetected during the Donald Trump presidency, defence officials have said ... The US has since classified them as surveillance balloons, based on additional intelligence. Gen VanHerck, the Pentagon official responsible for US airspace defence, said on Monday there was a gap in military in
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect someone has an agenda against President Biden here. The stories jibe fine.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean? I'm curious to know before I specify my thoughts on the ongoing balloon narrative.
Re: Now it starts to make sense (Score:2)
The brazen attitude towards territorial airspace made it hard to depend on common sense limitations of the payload, who knows what else was on board waiting to be spread across the US?
"Oh it's not our fault the exploded sensor spread heavily radioactive debris, it was just a sealed scientific instrument honest." They couldn't believe they could get away with that right? But the balloon is already a crazy level of stupid to begin with, so best to just shoot it down over the ocean. Now begins the process of c
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if it had stingray like capabilities and could launch MITM attacks.
Re: (Score:2)
The downside is that your balloon is easily detectable and trackable, can be shot down and investigated, and whatever intel transmits back to you can be monitored.
China has a constellation of spy satellites, a mixture of various camera and signal intelligence models. Given China's leadership in those things (Huawei developed most of the key technology behind 5G, for example) it seems unlikely that they would need a balloon, and if they did they wouldn't want to risk whatever high tech signal gathering equip
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Technically correct, but think about what you're actually saying...
How would one balloon hope to gather anything of importance? It's all encrypted and you'd have to be damn lucky to be in just the right spot at the right time to get anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
China can't afford to park a half dozen of these [wikipedia.org] in orbit? Yet.
Re: (Score:2)
What was the real point of the "weather balloon" ? (Score:3)
Was it really collecting intel or was it about poking the bear to see how it would react ? Also: how state of the art was the surveillance tech ? Floating over stuff that is out of date could give the USA a false sense of security.
All speculation.
Re:What was the real point of the "weather balloon (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Originally he also had a pellet gun, but unfortunately he dropped it early into the flight.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Was it really collecting intel or was it about poking the bear to see how it would react ? Also: how state of the art was the surveillance tech ? Floating over stuff that is out of date could give the USA a false sense of security.
All speculation.
Were I China (yeah the whole country...) I wouldn't have wanted something packed with state of the art surveillance equipment going over the USA where they could potentially capture it and learn all sorts of stuff.
Also, if it was really an advanced weather balloon, and if this was held up by the evidence gathered from its remains, theres NO WAY the USA would admit to that. It MUST be a spy balloon in order to help the propaganda narrative.
Re: (Score:2)
Were I China (yeah the whole country...) I wouldn't have wanted something packed with state of the art surveillance equipment going over the USA where they could potentially capture it and learn all sorts of stuff.
I would've painted Rick Astley's face on the side and filled it entirely with glitter. Now that's how you troll the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
Was it really collecting intel or was it about poking the bear to see how it would react?
More likely, poking the elephant [wikimedia.org] ...
Re: (Score:2)
He got an Incomplete.
Re: What was the real point of the "weather balloo (Score:2)
China leveling up (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
At least they have WWI tech now.
Actually, China is developing all kinds of cool tech. I read about their experiments with rail guns. Apparently they discovered that if they drastically increase the rate of fire this actually reduces wear but reduces the range. Sort of like a short range plasma blaster. You'd be fools to underestimate them. Oh wait.. USA...
Re: (Score:2)
paywalled. - Slashdot Feature Request? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Kudos for being the one who actually RTFA!
I couldn't read the paywalled article but... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They Invoked Balloon Law (Score:2)
Re:They Invoked Balloon Law (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, there are a lot of laws. Basically, the airspace above a country belongs to the country. No aircraft - balloon, glider, airplane, whatever, can overfly another country's airspace without permission. So just like how the world revoked permission for Russian aircraft to fly over their airspace in 2022, a country can prohibit overflight of its airspace (like Russia did to the world - everyone has to route around Russian airspace too). Now traditionally you don't want to shoot down another aircraft not permitted in your airspace because well, people. But you can, as it can be a form of invasion.
Balloons fall into the same thing as well - they're not allowed to fly into another country's airspace without permission, and that permission has to be obtained before lifting off. The only exception are weather balloons, which are defined as a balloon carrying a payload under 4kg whose instruments are only for collection meteorological data. (The wording is rather exact - it must be for meteorological use only - it can't do anything else). But anything else well, it's fair game and can be shot down.
If you observe China's wording, you'll see they're being extremely careful with their words trying to play a little fast and loose (remember where I said it was only for meteorological use? China said it had the capability of collecting meteorological data). China knows they violated the law and they know the US is completely within its right to shoot it down. And the US is within its right to examine what it shot down, too, so China can't claim the US is spying on its classified technology.
Of course, I think a good reason it was left up there was because the government knew about it, and was basically feeding it fake information - you have a direct line into Chinese intelligence, so it's a perfect opportunity to screw with them.
Re: (Score:2)
That's presumably why the CCP tried to say that it was a weather balloon (not that anyone believed them); but this one was *way* over the weight limit for that in any case, so it's moot: even if it *had* been used mainly, or even exclusively, for meteorological purposes, it would still not be protected under the Chicago convention. Nor should it be: that agreement is primarily intended to cover airline flights, which is absolutely NOT what thi
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
magic tech! (Score:2)
was capable of collecting communications signals and was part of a broader People's Liberation Army intelligence-gathering effort that spanned more than 40 countries
and they know all that thanks to a couple of high resolution images. so they say with a straight face. these fucking muppets don't even pretend to be serious anymore ... :O)
I trust both of them as far as u can throw the (Score:2)
Definately the best way to do this. (Score:2)
If this was some kind of spy mission, this was definitely the best way to do it.
A slow-moving, very visible balloon.
No possible way a person on the ground could acquire whatever the balloon is attempting. Nope. /facepalm
Re: (Score:2)
If they were after high frequency radio signals being that high would give a much better horizon. Drifting slowly gives much more time over an area than a satellite pass.
It's not as facepalmy as you think.
Re:No matter what should have been taken out earli (Score:5, Insightful)
A fair argument to be made to downing it before coming over land.
Once over land though, it wasn't a hazard to air travel, it was over 20k feet over the service ceiling of any non-military plane. It would have been a hazard to ground on being shot down though. For all I know, downing over water may have made for more likely recovery, which may have been valued more than downing the balloon.
Looks like it came in from the north, and therefore maybe tricky for US to intercept over water gracefully. Waiting for east coast might have been the best shot at having the equipment be recoverable.
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Unsafe to shoot down is the dumbest argument I've heard. The path went right over Wyoming and Nebraska, would have been all kinds of safe empty space to drop that thing. Maybe kill a cow or smash some corn.
Shot down over land, it'd hit the ground and smash to smithereens. Nothing much to examine. Waiting for it to pass over water and shooting it down you get much better intel.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought of that as well but the military has parachutes for large cargo and payloads. If retrieval was the concern they could have airborne special forces who could have and would have jumped onto the thing and rigged up chutes. Then they just pop the balloon and wouldn't risk damage to electronics from sea water.
Combined with the since debunked claim that balloons like this came through under the Trump administration made by Biden and the documentation showing Hunter/Biden had under the table dealings wi
Re: (Score:3)
I thought of that as well but the military has parachutes for large cargo and payloads. If retrieval was the concern they could have airborne special forces who could have and would have jumped onto the thing and rigged up chutes. Then they just pop the balloon and wouldn't risk damage to electronics from sea water.
Combined with the since debunked claim that balloons like this came through under the Trump administration made by Biden and the documentation showing Hunter/Biden had under the table dealings with the CCP in the past; the most likely thing is that China paid for the stalling.
Biden dumped all the top brass and replaced them with personally loyal stooges. We can't count on whistleblower like we might have had in the past.
Hilarious. Special forces jump onto this balloon, attach parachutes, so it can be dropped safely. That is just precious. I'm sure you should have been put in charge of such an operation.
Re: (Score:3)
Hey, it's happened before. They made a documentary even. I think JJ Abrams directed it.
Re: (Score:2)
You seriously underestimate our special forces units.
Army paratroopers do plane to plane to jumps by the end of their standard training and halo jumps from 50k+ feet are just par for the course for these guys where they free fall until as low as 800ft before deploying chutes to slow and dropping those shoots to avoid tangling at the end.
The balloon would be moving so slowly in comparison that it is effectively a stationary target.
And no, I'm no paratrooper who should be put in charge of an operation of that
Re: (Score:2)
You seriously underestimate our special forces units.
Army paratroopers do plane to plane to jumps by the end of their standard training and halo jumps from 50k+ feet are just par for the course for these guys where they free fall until as low as 800ft before deploying chutes to slow and dropping those shoots to avoid tangling at the end.
The balloon would be moving so slowly in comparison that it is effectively a stationary target.
And no, I'm no paratrooper who should be put in charge of an operation of that sort. But I've known some... they are easy to identify by the sound of their balls clanking when they walk.
Its a ridiculous plan and if you can't see that, well... your Murcan aren't you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That might be the typical flight ceiling because the fighter still has plenty of buffer for tactical maneuvering and dogfighting at that altitude without hitting the paper rating of 65k but even 65k isn't the real limit for the craft. But we also still have F-4's and F-18's which have records in the mid to upper 90's.
There is nothing unreachable about 60-65k feet for our military.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Ok, then lake McConaughey in Nebraska, it's monstrous. Or the Missouri River. Think creatively.
Its going to fall from a very high altitude. With winds and cross winds. And it has a large deflated envelope thats very good at catching the wind. Think creatively about the path its going to follow on the way down and the inability to predict accurately where its going to hit.
Re: (Score:2)
Plus even if you could put it down into freshwater, you may prefer to put it in the Ocean rather than a water supply if you don't know what materials it may contain...
Re: No matter what should have been taken out ear (Score:2)
You obviously have no idea just how much empty space there is in Nebraska
Re: (Score:2)
This thread was a speculation of wanting to target a *water* landing specifically. There's the risk of damage not only to it landing on something important, but damage to the equipment you'd rather study if you can keep it as intact as possible.
Besides, there's a good chance it comes down on *someones* property, whether it has structures, human, livestock, or just an awkward place to recover it from even if the others are low probability.
If a 60k balloon you see coming days in advance can glean actionable
Re: (Score:2)
It went right over our nuclear missile silos then right over Offutt Air Force Base. (Home of stratcom, not just yet another air base)
I guess you think that's just fine?
Am I talking to a ChinaBot?
Re: (Score:2)
It went right over our nuclear missile silos then right over Offutt Air Force Base. (Home of stratcom, not just yet another air base)
I guess you think that's just fine?
Am I talking to a ChinaBot?
More likely you’re a Putinbot, trolling to stir up discord. The poster you are responding to wrote something entirely reasonable, and you started name calling.
Of course, there is also the point that a balloon flying over a nuclear missile base is hardly a threat. As has been pointed out many, many times in these threads, Chinese satellites do the same.
Personally, I’d have preferred they shot it down sooner rather than later, but I can’t fault the logic that has seemingly led to waiting.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess you think that's just fine?
Open Skies treaty.
US Missile Silos and military bases were photographed from much lower planes with likely better cameras from directly above by our geopolitical adversaries up until 2020- and we allowed them. On purpose.
Who gives a fuck?
You think MAD relies on those missiles working? MAD isn't about ground-based weaponry. It's about the unknowable location of all your SLBMs.
If those missile silos mattered, then we'd be engaged in the great nuclear arms race still.
Re: (Score:2)
Discord? Sir, this is a Slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, so you be not smrt
Re: (Score:2)
If you'd care to try to back up your assertion though, I'd love to engage with your ignorant ass.
Re: (Score:3)
Now you are just being dumb. There is no way in hell to shoot down a balloon and guarantee it lands in a lake or river. It was high up and had a huge balloon which, even deflated, would catch the wind.
If this were a republican administration, I bet you'd be saying how genius this all was.
Re: (Score:2)
What's all this about republican'ts? You got the wrong guy to pull that shit on, try harder, troll.
Re: (Score:2)
Murphy's Law decrees that, in that situation, the entire thing would've fallen on the Wyoming Statehouse.
Re: (Score:2)
Murphy's Law decrees that, in that situation, the entire thing would've fallen on the Wyoming Statehouse.
Or someone's house. Doesn't Liz Cheney have one in Wyoming? Figures (R)s might want to down it there... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
I can see the Fox News headlines now... "Biden recklessly hurls unknown Chinese material onto Nebraska farmer"
NORAD definitely tracked it way before it entered US airspace. They track everything. Obviously, the assessment was that it wasn't any more dangerous than the satellites up there, nor the previous balloons, and decided the same course of action (not blowing them up) was appropriate.
When the Facebook video went viral, it was already in the middle of the US. It was at that point the mad scramble to ma
Re: (Score:2)
"More interesting to me is how they will handle balloons going forward. Perhaps scrambling jets to shoot them down will become a routine occurrence, even in situations where it is a wayward weather balloon."
Good, cause the current way is a complete fail.
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
What does that mean?
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
And what if it was transmitting data back home the entire time? Via satellites in space?
Re: (Score:2)
How does being beneath the balloon help you capture what it's transmitting to satellites above?
Re: (Score:2)
Recording encrypted communications won't help. Neither will jamming work well when the aircraft is 10000+ feet below the balloon, which may have its broadcast antenna pointed up and not down.
And then there's the possibility of balloon-to-space laser data links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In February 2016, Google X announced to have achieved a stable laser communication connection between two stratospheric balloons over a distance of 100 km (62 mi) as part of Project Loon. The connection was stable over many hours and during day and nighttime and reached a data rate of 155 Mbit/s.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No matter what should have been taken out earli (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if it was just a weather balloon it's inexcusable letting a balloon traverse the whole of the U.S. before taking it down.
It posed a hazard to air travel, and to people on the ground if the balloon had suddenly collapsed for some reason.
Obviously it was for spying though, so it's insane we let it complete the entire mission before dispatching it.
The big reason (aside from the small risk but potentially disastrous PR of damage to people or property) was the advantage of monitoring the Chinese vehicle and gathering military intelligence about the vehicle in operation in addition to a post mortem study after collecting the debris. That is, the US military felt that it had more intelligence about the balloon to gather than the Chinese balloon had to gather about the US targets (beyond what was already available via satellites and other means).
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I expect that this was a serious part of the calculus as to when to shoot down. We jammed its communications as we wished, or performed well-practiced hide 'n' seek when it floated over, as we do when an opponent's satellite is overhead. I'm sure their devices had plenty of storage for data that they couldn't or didn't want to transmit. I imagine there were a few over there getting really excited when they saw that they might get to retrieve their recordings, only to have their hopes popped.
Re: (Score:2)
There was no PR risk - the thing could have come down on bus load of school children and the public would have been fully accepting as it being the unfortunate consequences of a necessary response to Chinese aggression. Hell the public does not even care when the government responds with stupid levels of force to domestic-non-threats like at Ruby Ridge.
I am with you the major calculus was the Chinese were not going to learn much in terms of visual or signals intelligence they could not get and probably have
Re: (Score:3)
There was no PR risk - the thing could have come down on bus load of school children and the public would have been fully accepting as it being the unfortunate consequences of a necessary response to Chinese aggression.
Uhh, that would have been a major, major PR disaster possibly resulting in Biden not even running for a second term.
And the risk, while small, was hard to manage. The balloon was at 60,000 ft, you start it coming down and there's no predicting exactly where it will hit the ground.
Hell the public does not even care when the government responds with stupid levels of force to domestic-non-threats like at Ruby Ridge.
Ruby Ridge was a major overreaction by law enforcement and yes, people definitely care. But people understand there's a certain unavoidable risk when you enter into an armed standoff with law-enforcement. A completely avoidable dea
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's more likely, the Pentagon wanted to monitor the balloon doing it's thing and then wanted the better odds at salvaging Intel from it from shooting it down over water for a bit of a lighter landing or the Pentagon are such blithering idiots they can't figure what to do about a balloon and Darkox has actually made any kind of intelligent point?
Gotta disagree with you and the Ox on this, our military command isn't staffed by those goobers in Doctor Strangelove.
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
At 60,000-80,000 ft, it was drifting well above any (conventional) aircraft. The chance of it hitting a plane after bursting is about as high as two bullets colliding midair.
As for hazard to people on the ground after a sudden collapse, you are suggesting the solution is to...shoot it down? Granted, it may have been better to shoot it down over some sparsely populated area, but that's ha
How did we detect this thing? (Score:2)
A balloon is invisible to radar, and at 60,000' invisible generally. A tiny slow moving pod would not be detectable if properly protected. Maybe the Chinese were sloppy and broadcast from it while over the USA?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
" They are generally one of our allies..."
China is a business partner, not an ally.
Re: (Score:3)
We've been at war with China since 1950.
Re: (Score:2)
How's the air quality in China, comrade?
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It did not pose any hazard for any types of airplanes, commercial or otherwise.
That is because it was in an layer of the atmosphere that is higher up than any range of airplanes. Even the plane that shot it down did not go to the same altitude as the balloon.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh for crying out loud, it was the smart thing to do. What if it had something deadly onboard?
And please, you right wingers only try to second guess our intelligence services when a Democrat is in the White House. If it was a Republican, you'd be crowing about how smart it was.
Did you ever think maybe we knew it was there all along? There are two other very good reasons not to shoot it down: first, we might want the Chinese to know our nuclear weapons systems are fully up to date and operational. Second, we
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
Re: No matter what should have been taken out earl (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Russia doesn't seem capable of stealing anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How pathetic the US is (Score:5, Insightful)
Did the balloon make the news, yes. Was it one of the more trending topics for a week or two, yes. Was there mass hysteria about the balloon, not anywhere I saw.
Of course a few political blow hards got their 2 cents worth of media sound bytes in.. but overall it was nothing crazy in my opinion.
And if this was all a lie by the US gov't, China should very easily be able to release the specs of the weather balloons they've been releasing and show documentation of the studies these balloons were doing.
It's like claiming the moon landings are fake. Russia could have easily disproved it long ago... unless they are part of the conspiracy too!
Re: (Score:2)
Was there mass hysteria about the balloon, not anywhere I saw.
Define the "masses". Was it a significant portion of the population of the USA? No. Was it a significant portion of the house of representatives? Absolutely.