71–80 of 114 posts
Some sleuths repaired/decoded a corrupted video file from (the first?) splashdown of a Falcon 9 in the ocean a few years ago [0], so maybe someone is able to tease out some information from the recorded binary data as well? They only searched for obvious string data so far. It's a different beast of course, as the structure and meaning of the data is basically unknown in contrast to the known format of a video file.…
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You don't need any buffering if you pick your encryption mode correctly. That is, use a stream cipher.
How much would that affect the ability to recover a partially-corrupted stream, though? I feel like that's part of this too— where the last few seconds might have an increasing amount of the content scrambled, and encryption would render that completely unusable, whereas having it in plaintext would still permit some degree of inference about the fragments you do have.
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The article would seem to indicate it helps, but certainly doesn't get you all the way there. > Modern stealth aircraft, such as the F-117 Nighthawk attack jet and B-2 Spirit bomber, are painted in matte black or dark grey and are flown at night to limit their visual signature. Can't really do that in space; you've got a day/night cycle ever 90 minutes or so.
Space is black. Even in daylight, the background behind an object in space is always black (except when passing in front of the sun). A black plane against a blue sky stands out. A black satellite against the black of space does not. Or a blue plane against a blue background. The F117 is black and only flew at night, at lower levels. The bottom of the B2 isn't actually black, more a dark grey with a bit of blue in it…
I feel that this data is trade secret - why it is not encrypted?
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How much would that affect the ability to recover a partially-corrupted stream, though? I feel like that's part of this too— where the last few seconds might have an increasing amount of the content scrambled, and encryption would render that completely unusable, whereas having it in plaintext would still permit some degree of inference about the fragments you do have.
It would not affect at all. Flipped bits / transmit errors have no avalanche effect, unless the bit was flipped in the encryption module.
Based on quick read about stream ciphers, it seems like the alignment of the key and data is pretty critical.
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I vaguely understand that modern high performance rf chipsets are largely software defined anyway, which is why they require binary firmware blobs. The modulations have gotten so complex that there's really no chance of a CPU or even a general purpose FPGA keeping up in real-time. Someone unencumbered by an NDA would need to be smart enough to design a specialty FPGA with the right sort of accelerators in silicon. Th…
Are patents a problem for software distributed in source code form? I don not think so. I remember something related to font hinting and apple patents that could be circumvented by simply uncommenting part of the code recompiling.
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People who code still make mistakes. There's got to be an override of some sort
The override is missing the droneship or blowing itself up. Why the hell does there "got" to be an override. Humans are generally not good at doing hypersonic/supersonic aerodynamic modeling in their heads, especially remotely
I would argue there has "got" to be an override precisely because humans make mistakes all the time and so there's no reason to think that an autonomous failsafe should work in all possible situations.
I don't know much about rocketry, but if it's true that there's no remote abort capability, that seems like a deeply misguided decision.
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Amateur astronomers are very good at spotting national security payloads after launch. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/mappi...
And if amateur astronomers can do it, a well-funded national space agency can do it even better. I'm 100% sure that any launch is picked up via radar and sattelites and the like when they happen, and various properties extracted and extrapolated to determine their target orbit. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if some known launches also contained some unknown payloads. Stealth technology on a satellite would proba…
I bet you could make a satellite look like a stray screw or fleck of paint with enough effort. Careful geometry and surface design can reduce the radar cross section to a tiny fraction; some ultrablack coating and judicious heat rejection could make it look effectively invisible to optical and IR. Power with an RTG to avoid glints and radar scatter from solar panels.
And I'm sort of geeking out thinking about how you could misdirect observers about the payload's path— release a very shiny dummy payload, and then release the real thing some time before or after. Or pull a Millennium Falcon gambit and release the actual payload from a disposed fairing or stage when no one's looking...
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And if amateur astronomers can do it, a well-funded national space agency can do it even better. I'm 100% sure that any launch is picked up via radar and sattelites and the like when they happen, and various properties extracted and extrapolated to determine their target orbit. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if some known launches also contained some unknown payloads. Stealth technology on a satellite would proba…
> Stealth technology on a satellite would probably thwart detection in space well enough. I bet you could make a satellite look like a stray screw or fleck of paint with enough effort. Careful geometry and surface design can reduce the radar cross section to a tiny fraction; some ultrablack coating and judicious heat rejection could make it look effectively invisible to optical and IR. Power with an RTG to avoid glin…
There was some speculation over that approach with the failed launch of the Zuma satellite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuma_(satellite)
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> Stealth technology on a satellite would probably thwart detection in space well enough. I bet you could make a satellite look like a stray screw or fleck of paint with enough effort. Careful geometry and surface design can reduce the radar cross section to a tiny fraction; some ultrablack coating and judicious heat rejection could make it look effectively invisible to optical and IR. Power with an RTG to avoid glin…
> Or pull a Millennium Falcon gambit and release the actual payload from a disposed fairing or stage when no one's looking... There was some speculation over that approach with the failed launch of the Zuma satellite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuma_(satellite)