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Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

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Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#131
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's not necessarily the same, but also think that it's bad to have any social media in a top secret context. That said, it's pretty obvious the bias the source has: - "and posted it to the Chinese government-affiliated platform." - "social media platform tied to America’s top adversary" The problem here is people sharing stuff publicly which they are obviously not supposed to. The rest is just theater, even…

As a non-american, it's always interesting to see the point of view of the major military power. Why is China "America's top adversary"? Aside from the OPSEC issue, which is understandable, why does the author - and I guess it's a widespread view - considers China as America's utmost adversary? Can't there exist two rich and prosperous countries? Why does the author uses such jingoist terms? How should other countrie…

Everyone is an expert on the Internet, this is some guy's opinion, not a statement of official US government policy.

Also makes it sound more dramatic, especially with the Air Force General "looking impressed" hot take. The fact of the matter is that it would be a bigger problem if a top secret aircraft was sitting outside exposed to the sky in full daylight in the first place, where Gen. Kelly's and presumably everyone else's surveillance satellites could count the rivets on the thing.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#132
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Publicly posting confidential information is definitely bad. Bringing a device that can covertly collect information for adversaries is even worse.

> I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Publicly posting confidential information is definitely bad. Bringing a device that can covertly collect enemies for adversaries is even worse. If you aren't posting top secret data, you also aren't sharing it with enemies on accident .

I don't think you're understanding what the person you're replying to is saying.

If the app is made by an adversary, you don't need to post it publicly for there to be a problem. The app has the ability to send it directly without you even knowing.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#133
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's not necessarily the same, but also think that it's bad to have any social media in a top secret context. That said, it's pretty obvious the bias the source has: - "and posted it to the Chinese government-affiliated platform." - "social media platform tied to America’s top adversary" The problem here is people sharing stuff publicly which they are obviously not supposed to. The rest is just theater, even…

As a non-american, it's always interesting to see the point of view of the major military power. Why is China "America's top adversary"? Aside from the OPSEC issue, which is understandable, why does the author - and I guess it's a widespread view - considers China as America's utmost adversary? Can't there exist two rich and prosperous countries? Why does the author uses such jingoist terms? How should other countrie…

Because of this chart: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_militar...

And because China (as far as I know?) is the only country threatening to invade a US ally (Taiwan).

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#134

Reminds me of the American's reaction to Soviets spies stealing shuttle plans to copy it with the Buran. Long story short, they made sure the soviets found "updated schematics" with hidden flaws and design defects. [0] Maybe someone is playing the same game here... [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18686550#.WFF7CqIrKuU

The main design defect of the Shuttle was burying rocket engines inside the Shuttle itself, making each refurbishment an engine rebuild.

But the Soviets didn't make that mistake. Also they mounted Buran higher on the launch vehicle, so avoided tile issues.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#135
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they don't share, it is a piece of spyware they have on their phone, called Google Android. I believe PLA uses its assets within Google, and other American dotcoms to the fullest extend, and they already pulled every info they can through their Android Store accounts on them. Even a running meme of spy agency, the Saudi Army intel wing managed to have their men operate within Google for years. Imagine now wha…

> the Saudi Army intel wing managed to have their men operate within Google for years. Do you have a source for this? I spent a while searching, but I couldn't find anything that would corroborate your claim

This is the case that I can recall, it was at Twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/technology/twitter-saudi-...

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume that once a photo hits any social media, the Chinese and other adversaries (and allies) have already scraped it.

> I would assume that once a photo hits any social media, the Chinese and other adversaries (and allies) have already scraped it. Don't all the social media companies make it hard to scrape their sites, especially in bulk? It's definitely impossible to contain something once it's all over a bunch of blogs like this, but it might be possible to contain some things if caught early enough. There's also the private messa…

Every large US social media site has employees who are Chinese intelligence assets.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#137

The area where the video was taken looks like it was from a construction site (trenches, rebar, and 2x4s visible). Was it taken by a contractor that was part of a crew pouring concrete and saw something cool? Also, given it was out in the open in broad daylight, I'm assuming a spy satellite could have gotten a picture. I wonder if one way to deal with this is just make a lot of plausible cool-looking decoys.

> Also, given it was out in the open in broad daylight, I'm assuming a spy satellite could have gotten a picture.

Yeah, not even a tarp covering it.

Am I the only one that think it looks fake, like CG-fake?

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I heard on reddit that some thought it could potentially be the fuselage for the new B-21 Raider, the replacement for the B-2 bomber that already kinda looks like a pretty futuristic aircraft. I thought the B-21 was going to be a pretty conservative program, so it's design will mostly follow the B-2's. It's a weird angle, but this doesn't really look like that to me.

Not to mention, the thing on the trailer is tiny. The B-2 is not.

That doesn't necessarily mean much. It could be a scale model.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#139
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-american, it's always interesting to see the point of view of the major military power. Why is China "America's top adversary"? Aside from the OPSEC issue, which is understandable, why does the author - and I guess it's a widespread view - considers China as America's utmost adversary? Can't there exist two rich and prosperous countries? Why does the author uses such jingoist terms? How should other countrie…

Everyone is an expert on the Internet, this is some guy's opinion, not a statement of official US government policy. Also makes it sound more dramatic, especially with the Air Force General "looking impressed" hot take. The fact of the matter is that it would be a bigger problem if a top secret aircraft was sitting outside exposed to the sky in full daylight in the first place, where Gen. Kelly's and presumably every…

You know they do have to fly these things for real testing. Only so much can be simulated with computers and wind tunnels. It's not a matter if it's exposed, it's a matter of when and where it's exposed. Security through obscurity is very much still a legitimate thing for a lot of aspects.

We're not quite to a point yet where you have continuous ultra high resolution satellite imagery of the ground where you could feasibly record these things and eventually find them. Chances are you just don't have the data unless you know all the places to look. In the not too far off future it might be a bit more difficult. We're getting closer to that point for sure given export controls on AI software used in geospatial imagery analysis:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/06/2019-27...

Part of this I suspect is geared at stifling an adversary from utilizing lower resolution imagery data to identify targets of interest to point higher resolution imagery or other sensors and agents at to collect intel.

Re: Secret military aircraft possibly exposed on TikTok

#140
post #69

But in these (dis?)information games, it wouldn't be difficult to setup a fake scenario like this just to make one's opponents feel really underpowered. Imagine the fun of building a nice cool futuristic mockup, putting in on a trailer, and then leaking it to tiktok. It would cost so little and be so fun. This is obviously comical speculation, but anything is possible.

North Korea has done it, and I assume many others have but have the resources to seem more convincing: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-17867174 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/north-korea-re...

The hilariously fake Iranian Qaher F-313:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/what-became-irans-qah...

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