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Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

theguardian.com

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Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#161

Post by MayeulC »

maze-le wrote: post #128
mgamache wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total novice here, but a drone locked onto the balloon transponder? You could pre-program the drone hours or days in advance. Use all 3D printed parts with reclaimed batteries? Assembled in a clean room? (just a thought experiment)

Unless it is a jet-powered drone, it won't reach the altitude. Rotors stop creating uplift at some height, because the air to create uplift is far too thin. And if you are able to build a jet-engine -- well you could basically call it a guided missile system. You'd need a launch facility, lots and lots of fuel and you'd be detected by ATC once you launch (if you haven't already been detected procuring resources to bu…

The conclusion is easy, then: you should probably use a balloon (/dirigible) to take down the balloon.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#162

Post by nosianu »

bamboozled wrote: post #154
alex_duf wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a french person I don't see that going very well or being very effective. Now our police force (CRS) are just military and dress like robocop for any confrontation. People get hurt, the news outlets take the government side and the problems stays the same.

This is why many Americans won’t give their guns away. Imagine (not saying it would be a good outcome), but what Hong Kong would be like right now if all citizens hard arms? Well maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have even started. But wow, it would be a very different scene. Instead it’s more a case of if the military wants to walk in and shutdown the place, it’s going to be a lot easier. Not entirely a gun rights advo…

Can't tell if the comment is satire. I guess it's best to assume it is and move on, since any discussion based on the assumption that it's not satire has already taken place many times, following predictable paths. Except that I can't keep myself from pointing out the orders of magnitude of difference in effectiveness between a cohesive, trained and organised force and a bunch of individuals, even if they were equally armed, so I don't even get the point of this idea if it's made as a joke.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#163

Post by Tharkun »

jgtrosh wrote: post #144
taurath wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a new deal here. If everyone with power is allowed to just follow their incentives, we end up with an awful place for everyone. What is the contract between people, government and corporations that we can make that allows for the freedom in society that we value? It seems like both the corps and gov are teaming up against team people here.

In France we have a contract: if people are unhappy they rise against. If there's no risk of revolting, the fox is fearless in the chicken hen.

I've heard something similar said about the US, as a sort of justification for their right to bear arms...the government should apparently fear its people, and its people should be armed and able to overthrow said government. I wish you the best of luck with that, in an age of mass surveillance, armed-to-the-teeth governments and unparallelled propaganda machines.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#164

Post by Tharkun »

ip26 wrote: post #108
mgamache wrote: post #82

I am not advocating this in the US or anywhere, but how would one disable a surveillance balloon as an act of civil disobedience if necessary (without ending up in jail)?

The point of civil disobedience (often) is to wind up in jail. Civil disobedience doesn't mean "no consequences", it means enduring the consequences as a form of protest to illustrate how absurd they are.

That might be a consequence of civil disobedience, but it's certainly not the point of it. The point is to expose, condem & ultimately change a wayward government's shitty behaviour.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#165

Post by boomboomsubban »

antpls wrote: post #152
ctrl-j wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Devil’s advocate here. Who’s to say they won’t use it strictly to deter drug trafficking and terrorism? Couldn’t they take steps to be transparent about what data is collected, and where it goes? What systems would you put into place to prevent abuse? What about bad cops who would misappropriate the intel? What would prevent them from tracking non-terrorist/drug related individuals? How do you prevent citizens from…

I can think of a system : at the next election, vote for a president with a program about systemic transparency and openness for all the agencies and organizations.

What do you do if the president doesn't implement that plan after they are elected? Not vote for then again in four years and hope your next choice follows through?

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#166

Post by Tharkun »

MiroF wrote: post #37

At what point do we just start a non violent movement of taping over cameras wherever we see them?

There was a camera-spotting movement in Belgium some years ago. Basically people started marking all known cameras on a map. I think people gave up once they realized the sheer impossible scope of it.

Most cameras are too high up to reach anyway. A can of spray paint on a stick might be more effective, but that will almost certainly lead to vandalism charges.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#167

Post by nxpnsv »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #145
quickthrower2 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With umbrellas and parasols. Everyone should walk around with an umbrella to make the surveillance useless. Parasols on your balcony or in your garden.

That doesn't make the surveillance useless. So they see a parasol come out of your house at one time and walk to your workplace. They still have 100% of the information that they had if you didn't walk to work with a parasol.

Finally a project for my purchased and forgotten raspberry pi and robot parts - dronebrella.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#168

Post by Tharkun »

jackvalentine wrote: post #109
MiroF wrote: post #37

At what point do we just start a non violent movement of taping over cameras wherever we see them?

I have a roll of black circle stickers in my bag and I regularly put them over small cameras in public (such as the ones hidden in video advertising screens). They're purposefully non-destructive and I've even made the effort to select a sticker type where the adhesive doesn't leave a residue when peeled off.

Got a link for those? I'm liking this!

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#169

Post by paganel »

bob7834 wrote: post #67
apo wrote: post #49

> The new balloons promise a cheap surveillance platform that could follow multiple cars and boats for extended periods. And because winds often travel in different directions at different altitudes, the balloons can usually hover over a given area simply by ascending or descending. Stepping back from the details of this story reveals a striking pattern that most public discussions on mass surveillance miss entirely.…

I’ve maintained for a long time that the only reason we have a “war on terror” is that the ability of the “war on drugs” to strip us of our civil liberties had mostly run its course by 2001. These are the political issues I care most about. I really hoped Obama would curtail the surveillance state. For 8 years I thought “soon, he will try to rollback the patriot act.” That never happened. Instead, we got assisinated…

Reguarding Hollywood and the show business generally speaking, there are two exceptions (that I know of) that reinforce the rule: the TV series “Person of Interest” [1] which started airing in 2011 and of which I’m reminded every time when I read articles like these (they stopped it in 2016, probably what had started out as an almost SF show had gotten too close to real life) and the excellent “Enemy of the State” [2], by Tony Scott, filmed in 1998, just about as the dot-com craze was beginning to take shape and when the Western governments didn’t know exactly what to do about this Internet world.

But ignoring these exceptions you’re totally right, of course.

[1] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/

[2] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#170

Post by maxheadroom »

bamboozled wrote: post #154
alex_duf wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a french person I don't see that going very well or being very effective. Now our police force (CRS) are just military and dress like robocop for any confrontation. People get hurt, the news outlets take the government side and the problems stays the same.

This is why many Americans won’t give their guns away. Imagine (not saying it would be a good outcome), but what Hong Kong would be like right now if all citizens hard arms? Well maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have even started. But wow, it would be a very different scene. Instead it’s more a case of if the military wants to walk in and shutdown the place, it’s going to be a lot easier. Not entirely a gun rights advo…

>This is why many Americans won’t give their guns away..

...but the way the U.S. laws are written, it's quite illegal to take up arms against or try to depose/overthrow the United States Government - no matter how totalitarian and authoritarian it might get.

In fact, nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Consitution or the U.S. Code guarantees such right[s].

This is not to mention the reality that the arms controls would make it seem like the citizens are bringing paper swords to gunfights nor how catastrophic those casualties might be.

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