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China Communications

That Chinese Spy Balloon Used an American ISP to Communicate, Say US Officials (nbcnews.com) 74

Posted by EditorDavid from the transcontinental-cable dept.
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.
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That Chinese Spy Balloon Used an American ISP to Communicate, Say US Officials More

That Chinese Spy Balloon Used an American ISP to Communicate, Say US Officials

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  • Yeah? Why wouldn't it? (Score:3)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Saturday December 30, 2023 @11:31AM (#64116865)

    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)

      by GrahamJ ( 241784 )

      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.

      • 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?

        • Since nobody expected a spy balloon,

          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)

        by dbialac ( 320955 )
        Starlink? It just indicates a US based ISP. It doesn't say if it's ground based or satellite base.
        • Starlink won't work in motion unless you're paying for one of the plans like maritime or aviation. Maritime wouldn't work over land so they would probably have to go with an avaition plan and the red tape that likely comes with it. I doubt they would let a starlink contractor "professionally" install it on their spy balloon. Perhaps get it installed on a normal plane and have it covertly transferred to the balloon.
          • Starlink even the original generation dishes were capable of working in motion on normal service plans. I remember seeing a video of a guy that disassembled the original round dish, mounted the array to the roof of his car and was getting connectivity while going 80mph down the interstate. Shortly after starlink disabled in software the ability to use it in motion unless you're under specific significantly more expensive plans than the standard residential plan

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      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.

  • Stupid government (Score:1, Insightful)

    by boulat ( 216724 )

    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)

      by GrahamJ ( 241784 )

      Kinda hard to learn about it after shooting it down.

      • 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.

    • 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!

      • 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.

        • 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 :)

      • Squints? I thought you called people in NC 'Inbreds'?

    • Re:Stupid government (Score:4, Informative)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday December 30, 2023 @12:17PM (#64116947)

      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.

      • 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.

      • 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: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        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)

      by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Saturday December 30, 2023 @12:27PM (#64116975)
      You completely missed it. The 1st thing Biden wanted to do was shoot it down. He was talked out of that by CIA & NSA leaders. The balloon was on course to drift over missile silos ~ with doors closed ~ hence no new intel could be gained.. The US Govt parked a spy planes over the top and a spy helicopter under it and recorded every single whisper that came out of it. We tracked the C&C back to the unique computer operating it, hacked it, 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. And by the way, we shot it down anyway so we ended up with the code, infrastructure and hardware.
      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..

      • 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.

      • > 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.

        • not quite: Security procedure does not allow personal electronics in the silo. And, being 60-70 underground, cell signals don't work anyway. https://www.defense.gov/News/F... [defense.gov]

        • 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.

      • 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.

    • 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)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Saturday December 30, 2023 @11:49AM (#64116885) Journal

    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?

    • What exactly did you expect them to use, a really long copper wire?

      Well, since Chinese satellites aren’t up to the task, swallows?

    • You could use this to demand more oversight of American ISPs, particularly telco companies. Somehow, you could implement a policy that would keep people from using a cellphone connection for illegal purposes if the government was involved.

    • Why are we mad?

      • 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?

    • Why are we going to get mad at an american internet provider. They likely had no clue their services were being used in this manner. My likely guess is it was an american cellular provider. Way too easy for anyone to just walk into a corner gas station, drugstore, walmart, target etc and pick up a prepaid sim card or phone and extract the sim and stick it in some cellular modem device.

  • 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

    • He's technically correct. The balloon wasn't spying because the equipment was activated. But what else would you call it?

  • Pretty long list: https://www.iridium.com/where-... [iridium.com] , but none sound like an "ISP".

    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.

  • 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.

  • ... wireless coverage that's this good? Now I'm surprised that I didn't see a Chinese balloon standing on my front lawn, trying to get one bar of 5G signal.

  • 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]

  • 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.

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