Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic -- Clarke's three laws
HOWEVER, sometimes, if a technology is sounded like a magic too much, then maybe it just is, without any technology in it.
Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
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Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#22If they can detect the faint signal of a heartbeat from so far away, why not instead deliberately transmit a weak, wider-bandwidth pseudorandom magnetic signal? Such a signal would be even harder to detect than a heartbeat without prior knowledge, yet easier to identify and track using a matched filter.
They want to lie about how they found the soldier, and potentially have China spend a few billion trying to copy technology that can never work.
Militaries and their disinformation units are like this.
There are at least 5 different narratives about how the US found Osama bin Laden, which contradict each other:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Alt...
When a military achieves something and there's intense speculation on how they did it, they will want to obfuscate how they did it. One of the best ways to do that is to give a range of different explanations, some fanciful, some plausible, none of which are completely accurate, leaked to a range of credible and non-credible people. A disinformation campaign.
Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#23Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
They want to lie about how they found the soldier, and potentially have China spend a few billion trying to copy technology that can never work.
Why are we assuming China is too gullible to know this technology can never work, when it's so obvious to the lay HN commentariat?
Presumably we're cunningly exploiting specifics of their world view.
Despite the authoritarian rule, PRC still values education highly in quite a few contexts where it doesn't interfere too much with the authoritarianism, and the country not only has plenty of physics graduates who will have learned about the Josephson effect, but might well listen to them and give them adequate grants for R&D.
Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#25There are so many easier ways to detect a person that I don't understand why they chose going with this charade
It is more plausible than most of the stuff said publicly by the administration and makes Americans feel like the trillions are worth it.
Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#26More likely, the story is designed to make the public believe that US propaganda is actually aimed at the "foreign adversary" rather than at the US population. The emotionally appealing bit is the idea that even if the story is fake, Iran is now thinking it is dealing with an adversary that has and is using tech that is right out of science fiction. In reality, it's all aimed at us, the people. All of the "tough talk…
The us did recently announce that it has technology that can manipulate space and time or something.
It's very likely a psyop like you said. "You don't know how advanced we really are! When we come for you you better just give up!"
I bet the us does have some secret weapons technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are sci fi adjacent. But I think their biggest asset is likely intelligence, and channels to mass manipulate people via the Internet and boots/agents on the ground. Fortunately for other countries that power is more effective domestically. Unfortunately for us citizens there are trillions of dollars developing technologies to destroy us and not enemies.
The shift in us politics is directly related to feeding this. Defense/offense companies need to make more money. So they need to use these tools. Us citizens are the likely next targets beyond things like software exploits and taking over a few countries seemingly randomly.
Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is everyone debating some theoretical advanced heartbeat or otherwise people detection tech rather than the absolutely obvious answer - some kind of advanced, specialized transmitter that's designed to be hard to detect and simply transmits the encrypted GPS coordinates of the pilot?
Because the NY Post ran an article that said "The CIA used a futuristic new tool called “Ghost Murmur” to find and rescue the second American airman who was shot down in southern Iran, The Post has learned. The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic signal of a human heartbeat" Note, I agree that it was probably some novel beacon technology. Just answering your question abo…
We literally know what beacon device was used: Boeing CSEL
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/in...
Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#28We know it's simple to detect someone's heartbeat from just colour changes of ones skin in a regular video taken with a phone camera. Wouldn't this be trivial with military level IR tech? Sounds way more likely than some amazing new top secret technology that is somehow filtering out every other magnetic field and can detect a heartbeat through mountains.
There were commercially available lidar/ladar sensors that can do basic spectroscopy at a great distance. Specifically, the public specification showed it was able to pinpoint C02 or nitrate levels over 14km away. Keep in mind this was published over a decade ago, and I'm sure they have systems with better specs these days. Too bad these were too cost prohibitive for FSD automotive platforms. There are magnetic senso…
There are also dirt cheap human presence sensors that use millimetre wave radar that can detect if a person is in the room even if they’re sitting still. If I can buy these for a couple dollars then what could the military do with a few billion dollars and reaper drone platforms? With a big enough array you might be able to pinpoint everything alive within the area under surveillance.
Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is everyone debating some theoretical advanced heartbeat or otherwise people detection tech rather than the absolutely obvious answer - some kind of advanced, specialized transmitter that's designed to be hard to detect and simply transmits the encrypted GPS coordinates of the pilot?
Because the NY Post ran an article that said "The CIA used a futuristic new tool called “Ghost Murmur” to find and rescue the second American airman who was shot down in southern Iran, The Post has learned. The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic signal of a human heartbeat" Note, I agree that it was probably some novel beacon technology. Just answering your question abo…
Almost all of those words could be true if the beacon is disguised as an implanted medical device that creates some EM "interference" on each heartbeat, or every X heartbeats. From the outside it would look like sloppy design or a minor malfunction, in reality the signal is designed to be highly trackable
Not that I believe any of those words are true beyond the code name. The incident is exactly the kind of thing you'd want to create false rumors about
Re: Debunking the CIA's “magic” heartbeat sensor [video]
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is everyone debating some theoretical advanced heartbeat or otherwise people detection tech rather than the absolutely obvious answer - some kind of advanced, specialized transmitter that's designed to be hard to detect and simply transmits the encrypted GPS coordinates of the pilot?
Because the NY Post ran an article that said "The CIA used a futuristic new tool called “Ghost Murmur” to find and rescue the second American airman who was shot down in southern Iran, The Post has learned. The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic signal of a human heartbeat" Note, I agree that it was probably some novel beacon technology. Just answering your question abo…
it just sounds like the submarine communication technology, very low baud rate, used to transmit the pilot's location and liveness, using quantum magnetometry to measure a magnetic field without huge coil areas.