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France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

lemonde.fr

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Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#161
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran has their own satellites. They are also allied with Russia that has satellites and launch capabilities.

> Iran has their own satellites. It's probably safe to say they have been destroyed, jammed, or spoofed since the war started.

That is not safe to say at all. There is not reason to suspect that without any sources. Messing with satellites is a taboo approaching that of nuclear, every time someone test or mention anti-satellite capabilities it has made for international condemnation.

So please don't make unlikely claims up without any evidence.

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can rent access to nearly real-time custom satellite targeting for <$3k per image. That means while you're correct that not all countries can afford it, most can.

What if US government bans US-based companies from selling pictures within area where carrier operates? (of all "national security" reasons these is one of more reasonable ones)

Figure out where you can't buy pictures to narrow it down, if you want a more exact match, pay for pictures from that area from non US providers.

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#163
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Break out the pocket book and pay Planet Labs to do it. You could do it with much less frequent visits than this probably the search area for it every 2 hours isn't very large and image recognition systems are pretty good. The big threat is cloud cover. https://www.planet.com/pulse/12x-rapid-revisit-announcement/

What if US government bans US-based companies from selling pictures within area where carrier operates? (of all "national security" reasons these is one of more reasonable ones)

The problem then is the black out zones themselves reveal a lot as well if adversaries can find their bounds. That narrows the search area for their own observation satellites immensely even if it's too large to respond to IRL.

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#164
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Break out the pocket book and pay Planet Labs to do it. You could do it with much less frequent visits than this probably the search area for it every 2 hours isn't very large and image recognition systems are pretty good. The big threat is cloud cover. https://www.planet.com/pulse/12x-rapid-revisit-announcement/

What if US government bans US-based companies from selling pictures within area where carrier operates? (of all "national security" reasons these is one of more reasonable ones)

Well in that case congratulations. You've just made it easier. Now you don't even have to track them. You just have to look for the blacked out box, the "error we can't show you this", reused imagery from their long running historical imagery dataset, or improperly fused/healed imagery after alteration.

So now you don't have to do the tracking, just find the hole.

And then you can use a non-US provider to get direct imagery now that you know exactly where to look.

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#165
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial image providers can delay their images. See for example https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260310-us-satellite-... : “American firm Planet Labs PBC on Tuesday said it now imposes a two-week delay for access to its satellite images of the Middle East because of the US-Israeli war against Iran.”

Do you seriously think they were referring to commercial image providers when they mentioned nation-states being able to buy images/tracking?

Yes. https://www.satellitetoday.com/imagery-and-sensing/2025/05/1...:

“BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole echoed “strong momentum” from international government customers, saying these governments want to move faster with commercial capabilities.

[…]

Motoyuki Arai, CEO of Japanese synthetic aperture radar (SAR) company Synspective said that he sees “huge demand” from the Japan Ministry of Defense

[…]

Speaking to commercial imagery’s role in Ukraine, Capella Space CEO Frank Backes said Ukraine showed the value of Earth Observation (EO) data from a military tactical perspective and not just an intelligence perspective — driven by speed of access.”

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#166
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Charles de Gaulle turns off AIS, how does North Korea find it?

Track not the ship itself but the planes that take off and land on it. Many sites will expose their paths, you'll see the planes circling in a pattern around "some void" - that's the ship.

If de Gaulle is turning off AIS, it stands to reason that it's also turning off the transponders in the air wing.

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#168
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Ukraine, but only when it comes to the first two or so years of the war, by now most of those that didn’t respect those rules (I’m talking both sides) are either dead or missing some limbs. With that told, just recently the Russian MOD has started applying heavy penalties to its soldiers close to the frontlines who were still using Telegram and/or the Ukrainian mobile network (?!), so it looks like there…

It's also a morale issue. It's easier to get people to huddle in a cold and damp hole if they can play video games and watch anime.

It's not a "cold, damp hole", it's called my basement, and there's also Dr. Pepper.

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit I'm incredibly naive on this subject, but what makes it so hard to track an object as large as an aircraft carrier when starting from a known position such as a naval port?

Clouds occasionally happen

SAR is not blocked by clouds.

Re: France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app

#170
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Charles de Gaulle turns off AIS, how does North Korea find it?

Track not the ship itself but the planes that take off and land on it. Many sites will expose their paths, you'll see the planes circling in a pattern around "some void" - that's the ship.

Many sites? Can you show me any De Gaulle aircraft currently in-flight?
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