That Chinese Spy Balloon Used an American ISP to Communicate, Say US Officials (nbcnews.com) 74
NBC News reports that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. in February "used an American internet service provider to communicate, according to two current and one former U.S. official familiar with the assessment."
it used the American ISP connection "to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation." Officials familiar with the assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.
The Biden administration sought a highly secretive court order from the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect intelligence about it while it was over the U.S., according to multiple current and former U.S. officials. How the court ruled has not been disclosed. Such a court order would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it flew over the U.S. and as it sent and received messages to and from China, the officials said, including communications sent via the American internet service provider...
The previously unreported U.S. effort to monitor the balloon's communications could be one reason Biden administration officials have insisted that they got more intelligence out of the device than it got as it flew over the U.S. Senior administration officials have said the U.S. was able to protect sensitive sites on the ground because they closely tracked the balloon's projected flight path. The U.S. military moved or obscured sensitive equipment so the balloon could not collect images or video while it was overhead.
NBC News is not naming the internet service provider, but says it denied that the Chinese balloon had used its network, "a determination it said was based on its own investigation and discussions it had with U.S. officials." The balloon contained "multiple antennas, including an array most likely able to collect and geolocate communications," according to reports from a U.S. State Depratment official cited by NBC News in February. "It was also powered by enormous solar panels that generated enough power to operate intelligence collection sensors, the official said.
Reached for comment this week, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told NBC News that the balloon was just a weather balloon that had accidentally drifted into American airspace.
it used the American ISP connection "to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation." Officials familiar with the assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.
The Biden administration sought a highly secretive court order from the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect intelligence about it while it was over the U.S., according to multiple current and former U.S. officials. How the court ruled has not been disclosed. Such a court order would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it flew over the U.S. and as it sent and received messages to and from China, the officials said, including communications sent via the American internet service provider...
The previously unreported U.S. effort to monitor the balloon's communications could be one reason Biden administration officials have insisted that they got more intelligence out of the device than it got as it flew over the U.S. Senior administration officials have said the U.S. was able to protect sensitive sites on the ground because they closely tracked the balloon's projected flight path. The U.S. military moved or obscured sensitive equipment so the balloon could not collect images or video while it was overhead.
NBC News is not naming the internet service provider, but says it denied that the Chinese balloon had used its network, "a determination it said was based on its own investigation and discussions it had with U.S. officials." The balloon contained "multiple antennas, including an array most likely able to collect and geolocate communications," according to reports from a U.S. State Depratment official cited by NBC News in February. "It was also powered by enormous solar panels that generated enough power to operate intelligence collection sensors, the official said.
Reached for comment this week, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told NBC News that the balloon was just a weather balloon that had accidentally drifted into American airspace.
Yeah? Why wouldn't it? (Score:3)
Is this surprising to non-Chinese people? The American internet has no centralized border firewall, there really isn't a way to detect and stop such a thing if they are using approved cellular or other internet infrastructure, and that's good! Even if it carries some less than ideal outcomes like our rivals can also use it.
Wouldn't it be a bigger story if they were able to use a Chinese ISP over the domestic US?
Re: (Score:3)
Why suffer with the low bandwidth, under the control of still American companies when you have all 3 cell providers and WISP providers on top of that? It's not like any of those companies are gonna stop your traffic until they find out who the modem belongs to, and even then trivially easy to have someone in the states make the account
Re: (Score:3)
Even with a Great Firewall this thing would likely just look like a phone. Surprising they wouldn't use satellite though, surely it would be more covert to aim their transmitter upwards than down.
Either way it doesn't matter how it phoned home, what matters is what information it gathered and for what purpose.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if someone is watching and listening.
Since nobody expected a spy balloon, nobody had any detectors out to watch out for spy balloons. This may work another time or three, after that, they'll probably have to go for orbital communications.
Until then, why fix what ain't broken?
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be surprised if nobody was expecting a spy balloon. Rather, nobody important was expecting a spy balloon. There were probably a dozen different operations people in a dozen different sites and specialisations saying "I think this is a real, credible threat", and having it cut out of their reports by their managers, supervisors etc with a warning "stop wasting people's time on your crazy concerns, or you'll get the sack". And the manager got a 4-figure bonus each year
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe because it's a fucking weather balloon and they just used an off the shelf international roaming SIM. Like every other weather balloon operator.
Re: Yeah? Why wouldn't it? (Score:1)
Found the CCP shill
Stupid government (Score:1, Insightful)
More important question is why did you allow it to cross into the US air space, traverse through half the shitty/empty parts of the country, and only shoot it down AFTER it left the country off the coast of North Carolina?
Re: (Score:2)
Kinda hard to learn about it after shooting it down.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean to tell me its hard to impossible to shoot only 10% of the ballons? With an F-22.. at a pretty much stationary object?
Controlled descend of over land vs water is worse?
Yea, they should just open up on the balloon part with the guns to create some holes so it falls but the fabric is still there to slow the decent somewhat. Done over much of its path it would be very unlikely to damage someone’s property or hurt anyone then you can recover the hardware and learn exactly what it’s capabilities are. Better than a missile which could just as easily explode the balloon payload and disperse it over many square miles.
Re: (Score:2)
Kinda hard to learn about it after shooting it down.
When you just shoot the balloon part and recover the hardware it’s the best way to learn about it, after shooting it down and examining the hardware. That’s exactly what happened, we learned the most by shooting it down.
Re: (Score:3)
More important question is why did you allow it to cross into the US air space, traverse through half the shitty/empty parts of the country, and only shoot it down AFTER it left the country off the coast of North Carolina?
WHAT? We can't just hastily shoot down things sent by (squints), er, slightly off-white people!
Re: (Score:3)
More important question is why did you allow it to cross into the US air space, traverse through half the shitty/empty parts of the country, and only shoot it down AFTER it left the country off the coast of North Carolina?
WHAT? We can't just hastily shoot down things sent by (squints), er, slightly off-white people!
You can't call them 'squints". That's racist.
They prefer the term differently eyelidded.
Re: (Score:3)
More important question is why did you allow it to cross into the US air space, traverse through half the shitty/empty parts of the country, and only shoot it down AFTER it left the country off the coast of North Carolina?
WHAT? We can't just hastily shoot down things sent by (squints), er, slightly off-white people!
You can't call them 'squints". That's racist. They prefer the term differently eyelidded.
Wild, didn't even occur to me that anyone would read it that way, lol
I meant that I would need to squint to even be able to see anything different. The joke is that it's the Left that is obsessed with race, and who very obviously thinks that the off-white can do no wrong.
Of course if you have to explain a joke ... sigh :)
Re: (Score:3)
Of course if you have to explain a joke ... sigh :)
We prefer the term "differently funny".
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
the shitty/empty parts of the country
Found the elitist coastal dweller.
Found the Fascist red-neck.
Re: (Score:3)
the shitty/empty parts of the country
Found the elitist coastal dweller.
You can drive for hours through Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Iowa, to name just a few, and not see any signs of civilization other than another vehicle on the road.
It's not elitist pointing out the truth.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I went from Grand Island to Wall (SD) a few years back, and I distinctly remember going just north of Grand Island and making a left toward Broken Bow and not seeing anything resembling civilization for at least an hour aside from the road I was on. Once I came to the intersection which has the description of the Sand Hills, I started to see power lines, but even then that was the only thing I saw. I even took pictures to show folks back home how undulating and barren it was (barren meaning no people).
The
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Stupid government (Score:2)
Yeah, but according to city dwellers, farmland is unimportant and doesnâ(TM)t require any engineering, so all they see is rugged country, because someone may have to actually perform work.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Stupid government (Score:4, Informative)
Same reason 9/11 worked: It's never been done before and there was no procedure in place to deal with it.
It won't work again. Neither of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody was looking, and it's far more expensive to down one of those balloons than to build and release one. The altitude puts them well beyond the reach of inexpensive solutions currently available.
Though honestly, I think a counter-balloon could do the job. A few steering vanes and props and some explosive payload, and you're good. It's not like the target can rapidly avoid anything, so a long slow ascent isn't a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
It was recently disclosed that they've been tracking these for several years.
This was the first one imaged and tracked by the People. The previous incursions were covered up.
Re: Stupid government (Score:1)
Fortunately Biden failed at covering up the last one. Too bad he didnâ(TM)t fail faster so it could have been shot down before it completed its mission.
Re: (Score:2)
It was being done all the time. Thousands of weather balloons are launched every single day.
If it was a spy balloon then it was trying to blend in with the thousands of other balloons. More likely though, it was just a weather balloon using an off-the-shelf international roaming SIM card, designed for this kind of application.
Come in. We have had nothing about the capabilities of this thing. No sample images or recorded spy data. Not even any photos of the spy gear, which they normally love to show off.
Re:Stupid government (Score:5, Informative)
So when the simpletons say "just shoot it down", there is a much, much bigger picture and better play to be made than ogre mentality..
Re: (Score:2)
o when the simpletons say "just shoot it down", there is a much, much bigger picture and better play to be made than ogre mentality..
And they shot it down over water which meant when it fell to the ground it didn't go splat as much so more of the equipment was recoverable.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
> hence no new intel could be gained.
The article /. linked is a limited hangout.
Other reporting discloses that the phone-home payload was geotagged cell phone numbers.
Cross-referencing with the OPM hack, CPC now has a list of deployments at the silos.
Cross-referencing with the 23nMe hack, CPC now has a list of family members of men deployed at the silos.
There are good reasons to repel incursions, especially since the unknown may be riskier than anticipated.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Silos are unmanned. No one is there, except when people go out to do maintenance (rarely). There are control centers that are a long distance from the silos, and they are underground heavily shielded facilities. So the notion that the balloon was getting cell phone signals from soldiers manning the missile system is just fantasizing.
Re: (Score:2)
and gained more intel on the inner workings of Chinese spy technology and who runs it. This was a major US espionage breakthrough and a highly stupid move by the Chinese.
This just highlights the failures of the CIA spying regime, completely failing to get agents inside the government.
Re: (Score:2)
Because they are mentally deficient? That would be my guess.
Re: (Score:2)
More important question is why did you allow it to cross into the US air space, traverse through half the shitty/empty parts of the country, and only shoot it down AFTER it left the country off the coast of North Carolina?
Because "...they got more intelligence out of the device than it got as it flew over the U.S."
All else follows from that.
Um, ok? (Score:3)
Is this so we can get mad at the American ISP (which is totally coincidentally a lot easier and safer) instead of getting mad at China?
What exactly did you expect them to use, a really long copper wire?
Re: (Score:2)
What exactly did you expect them to use, a really long copper wire?
Well, since Chinese satellites aren’t up to the task, swallows?
Re: Um, ok? (Score:1)
African or European?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Um, ok? (Score:2)
Why are we mad?
Re: (Score:2)
Why are we mad?
Well apparently we are supposed to be, since the article makes a point of it.
I mean sure, if the ISP was giving them a "Chinese Espionage discount", I suppose we could get mad about that. Otherwise?
Re: (Score:1)
Some anonymous intel guy says this... vs... (Score:1)
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Now, seven months later, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells "CBS News Sunday Morning" the balloon wasn't spying. "The intelligence community, their assessment – and it's a high-confidence assessment – [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon," he said."
"After the Navy raised the wreckage from the bottom of the Atlantic, technical experts discovered the balloon's sensors had never been activa
Re: (Score:2)
He's technically correct. The balloon wasn't spying because the equipment was activated. But what else would you call it?
One of Iridium's Partners? (Score:2)
Zoleo's product description fits the bill, but has only been on the market since 2020. It uses the Iridium satellite network, lists AerisWeather forecasts as a feature, and is used by some professional ballooners. Their bidirectional short burst messages function like old school text messages. As a government China likely has a very long list of Iridium IMEI/IMSI/Serials that they could choose from and rotate through.
Secret courts (Score:2)
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect intelligence about it while it was over the U.S., according to multiple current and former U.S. officials. How the court ruled has not been disclosed
Ah yes, secret courts... A hallmark of true democracies.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Where can I get ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I bet your phone didn't have the antennas that this thing did.
What a load of bullshit (Score:1)
The Biden administration sought a highly secretive court order from the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect intelligence about it while it was over the U.S., according to multiple current and former U.S. officials. How the court ruled has not been disclosed. Such a court order would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it flew over the U.S. and as it sent and received messages to and from China,
Uh.. No... You don't need a court order to intercept the data traffic of a foreign spy balloon. It wasn't mystery where this thing originated... You use a National Security Letter and you get the data.. End of Story.
The NSA has listening devices inside of every single major telecom / ISP interchange. They've admitted to this one:
Room 641 [wikipedia.org]
China is worried about being humiliated? (Score:1)
I'm sorry, but fuck China's feelings about anger and humiliation over a weather balloon. The Wuhan Lab is the elephant in the room, and they haven't faced any consequences for it. Why? Well, because our government would be angry and humiliated too, because they were also involved. Angry and humiliated governments conquer, eliminate or imprison those who make them feel that way.