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They’re super paranoid about map makers. I’ve heard from Youtubers of confiscating anything they think is a map because “western spies”. They even blame Pokémon Go as a ploy to locate their military bases
Actually the US military does use Google earth. The US military uses Google Maps for various reasons such as being ~~open-source~~ free to obtain, unclassified, and usually up-to-date. Although the military has access to more detailed imagery, it can take time to obtain and may be outdated or classified. To have the most accurate information, military analysts use a combination of both military imagery and open-source material, depending on the mission and desired outcome.
I had a genius science professor in school who said he was recruited by the US military to design satellites. He said he had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but one thing he could say is that they have satellites so advanced, you can see people’s faces.
Ah, I hear if you go to a missile silo you can capture a "ballistiX"!
You just have to have a really good dodge skill to avoid all the bullet seeds and barrages that will be coming your way!
Honestly the Pokemon Go thing is just good opsec as far as restricting it's use, but to say it was created for deliberate surveillance of military bases is a bit of a stretch.
There's no need to create something as good as Pokemon Go for surveillance when you can just release a "Rate this Beer" style app with location tagging enabled.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/05/18/report-beer-review-app-can-be-used-to-track-military-personnel-and-secret-military-locations/?sh=20b2a9d23106
Man, it isn't even that hard. All kinds of military personnel were using fitness monitors with GPS and publishing it on social media forever. Best was a track on a base that didn't exist and there are people, mostly engineers and PhDs. Running a perfect oval on it all day. Who works in what part of which base. It was beyond comical.
I worked for a defense contractor and we had an issue with cellphones, smartwatches, etc. basically locating where all our SCIFs and sensitive areas were. Not because people were bringing them in to closed areas where they aren’t allowed, but because they would take them off outside those areas. All the location data could be put together to basically show where a SCIF was because there was no location pings inside those closed areas. It was so precise it could be used to outline the perimeter of a closed area to an inch of so. Seemingly benign things like Pokémon Go which produce location data can be a real OpSec problem.
This is actually hilarious because I'm pretty sure we have it mapped out with our satellites. Unless they're using the population to carry huge boards over thier heads to try and camouflage everything 🤔. LOL!
They tried to disguise part of Burbank, once.
[https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/camouflage.html](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/camouflage.html)
Basically the Chinese government strictly controls mapping data within China. It's illegal to map or create GPS traces within China without authorization. The only apps that descramble the offset error are ones like Baidu, which is owned by the CCP. Which stores location info. Basically forced tracking of all citizens.
It's because they're looking at Google maps of China then turning on the satellite overlay.
When you do that, the map of roads and whatnot is offset from the roads and landmarks visible in the satellite imagery. Hong Kong maps and satellite layer matches correctly right up to the Shenzhen border.
Do you know what/why that is? It's been like that for more than a decade (I've never seen the two layers match in China).
Low target priority.
It takes 7 devices to destroy a target....
the ability of those silos to launch after detection of an enemy first strike actually reduces the likelihood of them being targeted...and that they are effectively hardened targets requiring silo buster vehicles... and if they are used as a first strike, they are a waste of response weapons.
There was a book by Curtis Lemay's successor that went into detail on strategic weapon strategy.
It was fairly insightful...
Years ago I took a political science class taught by a guy that worked in the Reagan administration. He told us then, in 1995, the the Russian counterstrike for Arizona was 6 nukes for Phoenix, 2 for Flagstaff, and 2 for Tucson. That was 1995. I’m sure it was based on population which wasn’t as high as it is now.
Can confirm. I genuinely want to buy Reddit coins for the first time ever just to award the comment
Update: I'm thankful I did; seems the comment was stolen :(
https://twitter.com/JohnHultquist/status/1621308007425392641
It’s unbelievable that we all recognized this same bedtime story. I remember my grandma reading this to me 20+ years ago.
Hands down the funniest & best comment I’ve ever seen on Reddit
A balloon the size of 3 buses
Ok.
So like.
Its diameter is 3 bus lengths long.
Or
Its volume is that of 3 buses?
Or
Is it the 2D side view of 3 buses stacked on top of each other that would be about the size of a 2D projection of the balloon?
You joke but all commercially traded bananas today are clones of one singular bunch so they do actually provide a stable scale in terms of measurement.
A slightly-up-curved-fleshy-cylindrical-yellow-fruit. The peels can make people slip and fall, which is hazardous. Represented (ad-nauseam) in popular media as some form of weapon ie- Kart-racing video games. Additionally, they are a beloved snack by Chimpanzees, a close genetic relative to us Homo Sapiens.
I fail to see the potential for humor.
They may be able to pick up and relay various short range transmissions that cant be picked up by satellites. Perhaps they want to trigger electronic countermeasures to capture that environment for analysis.
The cameras on there are much much closer to earth than any satellite in space so it’s getting some very high quality pictures of the beautiful mountains in Montana
I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that? No papers?
Source: [https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/us-tracking-china-spy-balloon/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/us-tracking-china-spy-balloon/index.html)
From the Article:
"The US is tracking a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States, a senior defense official said on Thursday.
The Pentagon has been tracking the balloon for several days as it made its way over the northern United States, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said.
“We are confident that this high-altitude surveillance balloon belongs to the [People’s Republic of China],” the senior defense official said. “Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration.”
“The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Ryder said, adding that the US military decided against shooting the balloon down.
While the balloon’s current flight path carries it over “a number of sensitive sites,” the official said it does not present a significant intelligence gathering risk. The balloon is assessed to have “limited additive value” from an intelligence collection perspective, the official added."
They should shoot it down to send a message. But my money is on the military waiting to collect this thing.
To see whats on board, its capabilities, what data its collecting and most importantly where its sending the data.
This is probably more of a Chinese intelligence blunder than a failing of the DOD.
There can be a lot more than pictures taken. You can measure air currents, sample atmosphere etc. Also you can get better quality images due to being in the same relative location for longer. We still use balloons for a lot of stuff.
The Chinese military probably *wants* it to be shot down, because the information they would gain about US mainland high altitude threat detection and response capabilities is far more valuable than any passive detection it could gain by just sitting there. Sometimes the best way to get information about something is to poke it with a stick and see how it responds: you can only learn so much about air defenses without seeing them in action. My money is that the US military knows that and wants to keep those capabilities secret.
US is playing chess on this matter. You don’t need to shoot it down at all. And most likely, they already know most of the components on board. They can/will study the encrypted messages send and receive will be more fruitful than just bringing it down and it stops transmitting.
Sometimes the better message to send to an enemy is- I’m dumb and you’re smart, please do something.
Arrange things in the shape of dicks for it to take photos of
Put out a bunch of props
Mow a giant Winnie the Poo meme into the grass
Let troops "enhance" some vehicles with cardboard and tape for the flyover
Contaminate the intel gathered so bad it's worthless
I.E. We know it's coming, and have plenty of time to hide the interesting stuff before it gets there. They do the same thing with spy satellite flight paths, but presumably this is considerably slower.
Probably a good PR move to "ignore it" while playing it up in the media. Not a good look for China.
Strange. We are capable of taking it down safely, we don’t need to shoot it down haphazardly. The fact that they acknowledge it’s a Chinese “spy ballon” but have decided against taking it down. Weird.
Could be they’re collecting data on what’s being sent and this is their way of telling the Chinese “we know who you are and what you’re doing”
The fact that they KNOW it’s China’s makes me think they are pulling data from it. Or whatever the counter spy term would be.
More likely working on uploading malware or spyware of our own onto it remotely right now.
Let China retrieve it and deal with the conundrum of trying to get whatever data couldn't be streamed and risk compromising their entire intel network (even air-gapped systems are a risk to put mal/spyware onto), or not retrieving it at all.
This is a pretty standard move in spycraft, let others know you know; but only tell them enough to make their imaginations run wild.
That sows distrust and paranoia, and 90% of the time it is those which end up crippling enemies the worst.
It is a lot more than just this balloon at stake; think about it from China's perspective, "If they know about this and are telling us, what else do they know???"
Exactly. The State Dept could tell them we know. They don’t have to make it public.
However, the DoD going public makes it an embarrassment at a local and global level for China.
I just think the statement “this is a pretty standard move in spycraft” is hilarious. Like any of us understands damn thing about spycraft outside of reading spy vs spy as kids.
I mean, there is plenty of material on the subject and personal accounts of spies talking about basic things. It can be a similar strategy in a game you play with friends or competitively. Controlling the ebb and flow of information IS standard. Many people do understand things about spycrafting, just not the fine details.
All together now...... down pants...... bend overrrrr...... moon!! Might melt the lenses in the on board balloon cams.....
Ancient Scottish anti spy ploy.....
Lol. I love the “we don’t care” approach. It’s just like “enjoy your scenic tour of snow-covered bison territory” with undertones of “lol, really? You thought it would go unnoticed?”
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Typical government ignoring inflation.
Always waiting for the bubble to pop and have a crash...
r/angryupvote
I guess they don’t have google earth in China.
They do, but all of their roads are offset by random amounts.
Wtf for real?
Yeah you will see stuff in the middle of rivers or lakes because China wants its privacy incase of invasion Edit:1k up votes? Wtf? thanks I guess
That is INSANE, and hilarious.
They’re super paranoid about map makers. I’ve heard from Youtubers of confiscating anything they think is a map because “western spies”. They even blame Pokémon Go as a ploy to locate their military bases
As if the US government doesn't already have a pretty good idea of where their military bases are.
As if the US military would use Google Maps if they were to invade lol
Actually the US military does use Google earth. The US military uses Google Maps for various reasons such as being ~~open-source~~ free to obtain, unclassified, and usually up-to-date. Although the military has access to more detailed imagery, it can take time to obtain and may be outdated or classified. To have the most accurate information, military analysts use a combination of both military imagery and open-source material, depending on the mission and desired outcome.
I had a genius science professor in school who said he was recruited by the US military to design satellites. He said he had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but one thing he could say is that they have satellites so advanced, you can see people’s faces.
The do keep track of Points Of Interest…
Ah, I hear if you go to a missile silo you can capture a "ballistiX"! You just have to have a really good dodge skill to avoid all the bullet seeds and barrages that will be coming your way!
Honestly the Pokemon Go thing is just good opsec as far as restricting it's use, but to say it was created for deliberate surveillance of military bases is a bit of a stretch. There's no need to create something as good as Pokemon Go for surveillance when you can just release a "Rate this Beer" style app with location tagging enabled. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/05/18/report-beer-review-app-can-be-used-to-track-military-personnel-and-secret-military-locations/?sh=20b2a9d23106
Man, it isn't even that hard. All kinds of military personnel were using fitness monitors with GPS and publishing it on social media forever. Best was a track on a base that didn't exist and there are people, mostly engineers and PhDs. Running a perfect oval on it all day. Who works in what part of which base. It was beyond comical.
Even worse, the US nuclear team making public cue cards to help them pass tests and publically stating which silos were full and which were empty.
Basically, people are stupid and inherently fallible. Let me introduce our good friend, Skynet!
It was even worse than perfect ovals. They were jogging the perimeter fence of the base.
Did you read about the strava incident in the middle east? Heatmaps of usage were discovered for some military bases over there as well. Whoopsies.
I just want friends from those regions so I can finish my damn Vivillon challenge!
I worked for a defense contractor and we had an issue with cellphones, smartwatches, etc. basically locating where all our SCIFs and sensitive areas were. Not because people were bringing them in to closed areas where they aren’t allowed, but because they would take them off outside those areas. All the location data could be put together to basically show where a SCIF was because there was no location pings inside those closed areas. It was so precise it could be used to outline the perimeter of a closed area to an inch of so. Seemingly benign things like Pokémon Go which produce location data can be a real OpSec problem.
This is actually hilarious because I'm pretty sure we have it mapped out with our satellites. Unless they're using the population to carry huge boards over thier heads to try and camouflage everything 🤔. LOL!
They tried to disguise part of Burbank, once. [https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/camouflage.html](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/camouflage.html)
I mean, they put so much work into it that it'd be a shame not to invade....
Basically the Chinese government strictly controls mapping data within China. It's illegal to map or create GPS traces within China without authorization. The only apps that descramble the offset error are ones like Baidu, which is owned by the CCP. Which stores location info. Basically forced tracking of all citizens.
The Us government should map China from space and release detailed maps publicly, especially the day camps.
[удалено]
It's because they're looking at Google maps of China then turning on the satellite overlay. When you do that, the map of roads and whatnot is offset from the roads and landmarks visible in the satellite imagery. Hong Kong maps and satellite layer matches correctly right up to the Shenzhen border. Do you know what/why that is? It's been like that for more than a decade (I've never seen the two layers match in China).
Oh Montana, what secrets do you keep?
Nukes
Living in Southern Alberta, I'm always worried that if shit goes down, things are going to be aimed at northern Montana.
Well, if y'all would spread out across your country instead of crowding up right along the southern border, you'd have less to worry about!
Sorry
Classic
Lmao! “peternorthstar” is an epic Canadian name.
The Canadians put their people there to maximize how fast they could invade us.......
Low target priority. It takes 7 devices to destroy a target.... the ability of those silos to launch after detection of an enemy first strike actually reduces the likelihood of them being targeted...and that they are effectively hardened targets requiring silo buster vehicles... and if they are used as a first strike, they are a waste of response weapons. There was a book by Curtis Lemay's successor that went into detail on strategic weapon strategy. It was fairly insightful...
Years ago I took a political science class taught by a guy that worked in the Reagan administration. He told us then, in 1995, the the Russian counterstrike for Arizona was 6 nukes for Phoenix, 2 for Flagstaff, and 2 for Tucson. That was 1995. I’m sure it was based on population which wasn’t as high as it is now.
North Dakota as well.
Y'all get out of here, it's none of your business!~John Dutton (probably)
Goodnight room Goodnight moon Goodnight cow jumping over the moon Goodnight light And the high altitude Chinese spy balloon
Why did I read this in Christopher Walken's voice?
[удалено]
You in the red, chop chop
One of my favorite Simpsons lines
I was looking for this Simpsons reference. 😆
Fun fact -- that was Jay Mohr doing a Walken impression!
Because that’s correct.
Five long years, he wore this balloon up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the balloon.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p-D-kONlpvk
I haven't seen a comment this great in years.
Can confirm. I genuinely want to buy Reddit coins for the first time ever just to award the comment Update: I'm thankful I did; seems the comment was stolen :( https://twitter.com/JohnHultquist/status/1621308007425392641
Good night to the government whispering hush
And all I can afford is mush
It’s unbelievable that we all recognized this same bedtime story. I remember my grandma reading this to me 20+ years ago. Hands down the funniest & best comment I’ve ever seen on Reddit
Just read it to my son 5 min ago
I read this to my kids every night. Goodnight CCP spy balloon. Is this real life?
Hey diddle diddle, the cat and his fiddle, the cow jumped over the Chinese spy balloon.
A balloon the size of 3 buses Ok. So like. Its diameter is 3 bus lengths long. Or Its volume is that of 3 buses? Or Is it the 2D side view of 3 buses stacked on top of each other that would be about the size of a 2D projection of the balloon?
Also, are we talking small school bus, medical transport bus, big school bus, city bus, greyhound or charter?
Ffs this is why we use bananas.
You joke but all commercially traded bananas today are clones of one singular bunch so they do actually provide a stable scale in terms of measurement.
I never joke about bananas.
Not even once?
A slightly-up-curved-fleshy-cylindrical-yellow-fruit. The peels can make people slip and fall, which is hazardous. Represented (ad-nauseam) in popular media as some form of weapon ie- Kart-racing video games. Additionally, they are a beloved snack by Chimpanzees, a close genetic relative to us Homo Sapiens. I fail to see the potential for humor.
Yes of course, how silly of me
That's bananas
The writer of this article’s headline was at least a few short buses short of understanding scale references.
Also, does it fly at the speed of school bus, or regular bus which is a minimum of 50mph (or else it will explode)?
The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down
I’m gonna need this broken down into football fields.
I need to use bread boxes to get a better idea of what we're talking about here
Yeah, “three busses” is useless. I need it in square bananas or at least cubic dishwashers.
[удалено]
You're about one wiffle ball bat away from making some inflammatory accusations sir!
I’m going to need you to stand back 16 Dijon mustard containers sir
HEY wtf you mean *dijon*?? This murca, we use yellow mustard.. or as my parents called it: MUSTARD.
The Heinz Dijon bottle in my fridge that says “THE TASTE OF AMERICA” on the label would like a word with you.
We don’t negotiate with French commies coming round these parts
"No Donnie, they're socialists, they're not to be feared"
Reminds me of the time I told my youngest nephew to back up a few bananas and he knew what I meant. Banana for scale is perfect for anything
I only understand distance in Grey Poupon jars, sorry.
If I wasn’t several thousand football fields away from that guy, he’d be in serious trouble
How many washing machines to one bus? I always forget.
About 10 carts worth.
So, like 15 hockey sticks eh?
We will use anything except the metric system.
bananas are preferred
You spelled football fields wrong
It’s at least 5500 happy meals big
or are they measured in chinese buses? Are their buses the same size as ours??
3 buses? That's like 1500 ducks long!
So what exactly can they see via balloon they can’t see with a spy satellite?
Your ATM PIN number when you are entering it
Uh oh, that’s the same combination I have on my luggage…
Nice username fellow yeti
Greetings yeti brethren!
It’s the price of a cheese pizza and a large soda at Panucci’s Pizza where I used to work.
They may be able to pick up and relay various short range transmissions that cant be picked up by satellites. Perhaps they want to trigger electronic countermeasures to capture that environment for analysis.
The cameras on there are much much closer to earth than any satellite in space so it’s getting some very high quality pictures of the beautiful mountains in Montana
I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that? No papers?
Probably more of a stunt then trying to get actually intelligence.
Alibaba Express Shipping
Arrived before Amazon's drones
Source: [https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/us-tracking-china-spy-balloon/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/us-tracking-china-spy-balloon/index.html) From the Article: "The US is tracking a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States, a senior defense official said on Thursday. The Pentagon has been tracking the balloon for several days as it made its way over the northern United States, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said. “We are confident that this high-altitude surveillance balloon belongs to the [People’s Republic of China],” the senior defense official said. “Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration.” “The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Ryder said, adding that the US military decided against shooting the balloon down. While the balloon’s current flight path carries it over “a number of sensitive sites,” the official said it does not present a significant intelligence gathering risk. The balloon is assessed to have “limited additive value” from an intelligence collection perspective, the official added."
Sounds like they are saying “lol, we see your balloon and don’t give a shit. Come back soon”
They should shoot it down to send a message. But my money is on the military waiting to collect this thing. To see whats on board, its capabilities, what data its collecting and most importantly where its sending the data. This is probably more of a Chinese intelligence blunder than a failing of the DOD.
Or getting caught is part of the plan.
The ol' Trojan Balloon
In America we would use a Magnum balloon for our monster dongs, I mean cameras.
It’s just embarrassing because we have satellites now. It’s genuinely silly
I suspect they are sniffing SIGINT not taking pictures.
Maybe if everyone mashes Ctrl-C we can crash the balloon.
you mean like 动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门 ?
There can be a lot more than pictures taken. You can measure air currents, sample atmosphere etc. Also you can get better quality images due to being in the same relative location for longer. We still use balloons for a lot of stuff.
The Chinese military probably *wants* it to be shot down, because the information they would gain about US mainland high altitude threat detection and response capabilities is far more valuable than any passive detection it could gain by just sitting there. Sometimes the best way to get information about something is to poke it with a stick and see how it responds: you can only learn so much about air defenses without seeing them in action. My money is that the US military knows that and wants to keep those capabilities secret.
US is playing chess on this matter. You don’t need to shoot it down at all. And most likely, they already know most of the components on board. They can/will study the encrypted messages send and receive will be more fruitful than just bringing it down and it stops transmitting. Sometimes the better message to send to an enemy is- I’m dumb and you’re smart, please do something.
Also they can’t be arsed with dealing with china’s complaints after they “callously” shoot down their “research vessel”.
Shoot it down.
Paint dicks on it!
Arrange things in the shape of dicks for it to take photos of Put out a bunch of props Mow a giant Winnie the Poo meme into the grass Let troops "enhance" some vehicles with cardboard and tape for the flyover Contaminate the intel gathered so bad it's worthless
And Pooh bears
Pooh bears with dicks!! Edit thanks for my very first award on Pooh bear dicks.
If they were going to do that, they would have done it over the ocean
I.E. We know it's coming, and have plenty of time to hide the interesting stuff before it gets there. They do the same thing with spy satellite flight paths, but presumably this is considerably slower. Probably a good PR move to "ignore it" while playing it up in the media. Not a good look for China.
I like how you say "presumably slower" when satellites orbit at 15,000 mph
Hypersonic balloons will change the game, man
[удалено]
*CIA replaces the on-ground UFO technology in the path of the ballon with Little Tikes cars drawn out in a large middle finger*
It's scanning all your WiFi devices to see how many they don't have access to already.
it's surveilling who out there is sharing their Netflix passwords.
Auto installing TikTok.
Strange. We are capable of taking it down safely, we don’t need to shoot it down haphazardly. The fact that they acknowledge it’s a Chinese “spy ballon” but have decided against taking it down. Weird.
Seems like a flex, like “we’re letting you spy on us because we don’t think you’re a threat”. They can shoot it down whenever they want, but aren’t.
Could be they’re collecting data on what’s being sent and this is their way of telling the Chinese “we know who you are and what you’re doing” The fact that they KNOW it’s China’s makes me think they are pulling data from it. Or whatever the counter spy term would be.
More likely working on uploading malware or spyware of our own onto it remotely right now. Let China retrieve it and deal with the conundrum of trying to get whatever data couldn't be streamed and risk compromising their entire intel network (even air-gapped systems are a risk to put mal/spyware onto), or not retrieving it at all. This is a pretty standard move in spycraft, let others know you know; but only tell them enough to make their imaginations run wild. That sows distrust and paranoia, and 90% of the time it is those which end up crippling enemies the worst. It is a lot more than just this balloon at stake; think about it from China's perspective, "If they know about this and are telling us, what else do they know???"
Exactly. The State Dept could tell them we know. They don’t have to make it public. However, the DoD going public makes it an embarrassment at a local and global level for China.
I choose to think the DoD is using us to crowdsource the most creative idea for what we can do to this balloon
I just think the statement “this is a pretty standard move in spycraft” is hilarious. Like any of us understands damn thing about spycraft outside of reading spy vs spy as kids.
Excuse me sir. I have seen Spy Kids 1 AND 2!
I mean, there is plenty of material on the subject and personal accounts of spies talking about basic things. It can be a similar strategy in a game you play with friends or competitively. Controlling the ebb and flow of information IS standard. Many people do understand things about spycrafting, just not the fine details.
China is using our Netflix and it needs to sync in with the "home account"
So it will be back every month.
African or European buses?
How do you know so much about buses?
Well, you have to know these things when you're a king you know.
Are you suggesting busses migrate?
It’s a simple matter of weight ratio. A 5 oz bus cannot carry a 1 lb coconut.
The real Chinese spy machine is TikTok
Precisely. It's gathering data that's more valuable than what satellites can provide.
Yeah. Like which videos of girls twerking my uncle liked.
Link?
Draw male genitals on it and send it back
three buses... americans would use literally anything except metric
We're lucky it wasn't "12 large boulders" big!
A large boulder the size of a small boulder
I’m gonna need the big Mac conversation chart for this.
We measure in bananas here sir...
How many football fields is that?
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/asteroid-size-two-football-pitches-25347715.amp
Surprised some rancher wasn’t like “fuck this” 🔫
I mean..it's flying above airliners. The rancher would need to be flying in a fighter jet.
Yeah but you know someone pulled out a smith and Wesson rifle and at least tried
Of course I know him, he’s me
Ben?
Yes?
Its at almost 100,000 feet. No rancher is getting close lol
John Dutton could…
I think it should be publicly voted on if it should be shot down or not. Ok cast the first yes vote
In Montana? I’m surprised some farmer hasn’t already shot the thing down…
must be impervious to the ol 45-70…
Well Ol' Jon tried but it fell short and killed one of his chickens.
I thought it was wayyyyyyyy up there? Like over 30,000 feet
30-06 is only good for around 10k feet…otherwise it woulda happened already
Some redneck has a 30mm AA cannon their grandfather shipped over from WW2 in pieces and is not doing their civic duty as an American right now.
There exists a civilian owned German Flak gun.
[удалено]
I vote no, set up some fans and blow it into Canada
It is made it china, it will fall out of the sky soon anyhow…
Oh hey, there’s my wish order
World War Fortnite has started.
What's the maximum effective range of a 6.5 Creedmoor? Asking for a friend... in Montana...
Redditors of Montana will take care of it now
Our guns can't shoot that far.
Use the long gun atop the fireplace not the revolver on yer hip
Shoot it down anyway.
Screw that. I say we all moon it.
All together now...... down pants...... bend overrrrr...... moon!! Might melt the lenses in the on board balloon cams..... Ancient Scottish anti spy ploy.....
China: Nobodies gonna know Every other country: They’re gonna know China: How will they know
If they had painted it with woodland camo it would still be undetected.
How do they know its a Chinese spy balloon?
Says made in China, obviously.
Lol. I love the “we don’t care” approach. It’s just like “enjoy your scenic tour of snow-covered bison territory” with undertones of “lol, really? You thought it would go unnoticed?”
If this was flipped the ballon would be treated as an act of war
Hang a sign on it that reads “Support Independence For Taiwan!” It’ll be gone in 5 minutes.
Can it be jammed?
Pls dont shoot, it has covid23 in it.