Just don't tell anyone what you are gathering for the purpose of spying. Just tell (if anyone would be bothered enough) what you are a blogg^W influencer and making a new TikTok.
Yeah, like a Chinese national renting an apartment in some weird place and frequently "hiking" near missile silos with a bunch of unusual electronics isn't going to attract unwanted attention. The FBI would be totally fooled by your influencer ruse.
You know what's so great about spy baloons? They're things not people. Using them doesn't put any of your people at risk. That's, like, a consideration.
If a balloon looks innocuous, then it might be a great tool to do something with.
https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/where_can_i_fly/airs...
Spy balloons (and drones) are 100000% a thing. I think it's laughable that you can even try to argue otherwise.
As to why the US suddenly cares publicly, probably mostly political because the Chinese balloon was spotted by a civilian and there was a public outcry. That doesn't mean they aren't happening, nor that the governments across the world aren't aware of them.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones...
you're own link: "Drones are prohibited.. from the ground up to 400 feet above ground level"
This, charitably, is called moving the goal posts. I fly over/near a nuclear plant every couple of months on my way somewhere. I am not a drone. Pilots fly over silo fields and nuclear plants all day, every day.
Nuclear silos are generally not that sensitive, because they are all 60 years old and everyone can identify them on satellite imaging, but if you fly a drone near one, you will definitely be surveilled by some security, whether you know it or not.
The HN guidelines ask you not to do those things, because they degrade discussion and we're trying for something else here.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
You did it repeatedly in this thread, and unfortunately have been doing it elsewhere too—and we've had to warn you about this kind of thing more than once before. When accounts behave this way, we end up having to ban them. I don't want to ban you, so if you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Edit: it looks like you've been posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments repeatedly. We end up having to ban that sort of account because it's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. I don't want to ban you, so it would be good if you'd fix this going forward.
I also find our own reaction somewhat telling. It seems difficult to imagine that $800 billion a year isn't enough to find some way to recover a balloon. Yet we chose to destroy it, and send the debris for a swim on top of it. Whatever's left of the device is almost certainly completely wasted. Would you want to do this if you believe there might be evidence of surreptitious behavior, potentially to try to compromise high security locations, on that balloon? Or would you deploy signal jamming technology and work to recover the balloon intact?
Our reaction just feels like a meme. I can't help but hear this song [2] playing in the background as I envision an F-22 making its flyby locking on $400k missiles to bring down a balloon.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/us/politics/chinese-spy-b...
So if you can send satellites over unmolested, maybe you also try with a huge-ass balloon. It's way cheaper. Worth a shot.
So if spy balloons were considered a real threat - why isn't there a more cost efficient way to take them down?
Yes. It is funny how, after US, everybody started seeing one.
Be alert...
The HN guidelines ask you not to do those things, because they degrade discussion and we're trying for something else here.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
The, in theory, purpose of such a balloon is going to be something like satellite surveillance but low and in the are long enough to use certain types of sensors that would not work that high up, or that can now penetrate much further into the ground.
Not that I really think there's much to be worried about, as even if this is the case its more "nations who's only war will be miserable nuclear fire pretending there's a chance it could be others", but there is absolutely a plausible reason for these.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/why-shooting-down-chin...
“In 1998, a rogue weather balloon from Canada deployed to measure ozone levels accidentally drifted away. BBC reported at the time that the airship was the size of a 25-story building and was operating at an altitude between 27,000 and 37,000 feet, so admittedly much lower than China’s balloon is now. The incursion prompted attempts from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States to shoot it down, with two Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornet fighters firing more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from their own Vulcan cannons into the balloon off the coast of Newfoundland. That balloon took days to come down, at one point even gaining altitude and drifting across Canada and then out over the Atlantic Ocean, which made for a problematic situation for regional air traffic.”
The point I should have said was "Were any of these flying over a restricted area that couldn't have been easily checked out by a drone? If not this seems like an unlikely spy mission, or at best a poorly-planned one."
There's an argument on both sides.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.