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U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

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Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#111

Post by mardifoufs »

beebmam wrote: post #13
jxf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That setup is wild. It's pretty ridiculous to claim this was a civilian balloon.

Even if it can attributed to a "civilian" company, China is not a free country under Xi Jin Ping's rule. The CCP has many mechanisms to control the Chinese private sector as an arm of the state. Xi Jin Ping exercises more control over Chinese society than Stalin could have dreamed of in the Soviet Union, with the various coercive systems put into place in the last few decades.

This is a bit absurd, xi absolutely wouldn't be able to go ahead with purges similar to those of Stalin in 1937, even if he wanted to. He simply doesn't have the authority to do so. The chinese politburo is a much much more complicated beast than the usual stereotype of a powerless puppet of an all powerful dictator, that tons of people in the west seem to think it is.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#112

Post by flangola7 »

mmaunder wrote: post #58
jpgvm wrote: post #30

Pretty interesting platform. Looks to have around 16x300W solar panels, so roughly 4.8KW. A lot but no unreasonable given it has 4 electric turbines and it would take a lot of grunt to influence a balloon of that size especially given air density altitude. If it is a civilian craft it's either government or maybe one of the big Chinese universities. Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks t…

For RF SIGINT anything the ionosphere absorbs, scatters or reflects isn’t observable by satellites but may be from this balloon.

What could this balloon collect that any regular jet couldn't? I don't think the government is transmitting secrets over such a wide open medium. Anything broadcast over radio should be assumed to be public knowledge.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#113

Post by can16358p »

dan_linder wrote: post #94
nonethewiser wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of attack? Like stealing data? Or something else that you wouldn’t pick up on? Because attack sounds like you are degrading performance or something, in which case we (or someone) would know about it.

One attack could be a RF receiver in any of the Huawei cell towers or networking equipment to accept a signal to start someone. it sounds like an outrageous opening scene from an 80's movie...

Still better plot than coding a GUI in Visual Basic to trace an IP address.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#114

Post by lardo »

evan_ wrote: post #27

Was this "selfie" literally taken handheld with a cell phone by the person in the shot? Surely they wouldn't bring personal phones into the cockpit- and wouldn't they be wearing gloves anyway?

The resolution on the photo [1] released matches the sensor used in the Sony Alpha 7R and Nikon D800.

[1] https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7644960/u-2-pilot-over-centra...

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#115

Post by kube-system »

dmix wrote: post #93
Alupis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall details of this story as it was breaking - there was an emphasis that the US tried repeatedly to communicate with counterparts in China to discern the nature of the balloon and cool the situation. From memory, the Chinese side refused to engage on any level... which ultimately led to the balloon being shot down. The Chinese are advanced - there's no chance they couldn't/didn't monitor a balloon of this si…

Didn't some analysis say the balloon likely deployed from Latin America? If it was a Chinese university it's strange we don't have a 3rd country involved yet. Unless it came off a warship or Cuba or something.

This balloon was launched from Hainan Island in southern China.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#116

Post by beebmam »

mardifoufs wrote: post #111
beebmam wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it can attributed to a "civilian" company, China is not a free country under Xi Jin Ping's rule. The CCP has many mechanisms to control the Chinese private sector as an arm of the state. Xi Jin Ping exercises more control over Chinese society than Stalin could have dreamed of in the Soviet Union, with the various coercive systems put into place in the last few decades.

This is a bit absurd, xi absolutely wouldn't be able to go ahead with purges similar to those of Stalin in 1937, even if he wanted to. He simply doesn't have the authority to do so. The chinese politburo is a much much more complicated beast than the usual stereotype of a powerless puppet of an all powerful dictator, that tons of people in the west seem to think it is.

Let's not forget that Xi just publicly purged any remaining factions in the politburo that could have opposed him. Xi has more power in China than Mao ever had. Even under Mao, it took years before opposition factions had the ability to end the cultural revolution. Xi could easily crush any opposition to his rule, and already has. There's no need for a cultural revolution or a mass assassination campaign, he's already won. There is no opposition faction of any significant size.

And Chinese society is actively being sculpted using modern propaganda techniques on social media to be hyper nationalistic and hate the US/west. This is far more powerful than what Stalin ever had at his disposal.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#117

Post by kube-system »

flangola7 wrote: post #112
mmaunder wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For RF SIGINT anything the ionosphere absorbs, scatters or reflects isn’t observable by satellites but may be from this balloon.

What could this balloon collect that any regular jet couldn't? I don't think the government is transmitting secrets over such a wide open medium. Anything broadcast over radio should be assumed to be public knowledge.

> Anything broadcast over radio should be assumed to be public knowledge.

Are you suggesting that encryption is useless against a superpower? If that’s what you’re saying, the same applies to anything transmitted on a cable.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#118

Post by libertyhouse »

travisjungroth wrote: post #66
hotpotamus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt a U-2 camera could focus on another plane; I'd assume it's quite specialized for ground observation.

It has a replaceable pod for a variety of equipment. They’ve been flying these for 67 years. I’d bet pretty strongly they were prepared.

This looks like it was the two seat trainer version of the U-2 which doesn't carry mission equipment like the SYERS sensor or a data-link.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#119

Post by libertyhouse »

jpgvm wrote: post #30

Pretty interesting platform. Looks to have around 16x300W solar panels, so roughly 4.8KW. A lot but no unreasonable given it has 4 electric turbines and it would take a lot of grunt to influence a balloon of that size especially given air density altitude. If it is a civilian craft it's either government or maybe one of the big Chinese universities. Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks t…

Most likely using the Chinese TIANLIAN satcom for C2 and data backhaul.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#120

Post by scheme271 »

pixl97 wrote: post #97
dmix wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't some analysis say the balloon likely deployed from Latin America? If it was a Chinese university it's strange we don't have a 3rd country involved yet. Unless it came off a warship or Cuba or something.

On the path over Missouri coming from the west coast... I don't think prevailing winds work that way in the US.

The jetstream goes from west to east so depending on the particular path the jetstream takes a balloon could easily go from alaska to missouri.
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