Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon Acts Like They’re UFOs

Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by everdrive on Monday February 06, 2023 @05:18PM (#34685300)

>then isn't the act of reacting to it and trying to light up the drone is exactly what your opponent wants?

Honestly, probably not in a lot of cases. If the intent is to collect, then destroying the drone ends the collection.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by crote on Monday February 06, 2023 @05:32PM (#34685444)

That depends on what you are trying to collect, doesn't it?

It probably isn't optical data. Satellites are more than good enough for that, and near-realtime high-resolution data is even commercially available. It probably isn't electronic transmissions either. Having a field operative hide a SDR would be way easier, and way less conspicuous.

However, it could be trying to determine how the military responds to hostiles. Sending a jet after it and shooting it down might be exactly the kind of data it is trying to collect.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by everdrive on Monday February 06, 2023 @06:01PM (#34685796)

It could be, but it's specific and situational. If you're the one sending the balloons, you don't really know what the response will be. Further, whatever the response is will not be a good test for an actual military test, (foreign fighters or bombers) which will surely have a different response.

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Re:Adversary Drones Are Spying on the U.S. and The Pentagon ... by wang_li on Monday February 06, 2023 @06:17PM (#34685980)

The balloon was 10-20x closer than satellites. Can get 100-400x better resolution photos.

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