this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
508 points (97.0% liked)

Technology

59569 readers
3431 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] foggy@lemmy.world 165 points 11 months ago (3 children)

This is what you get for not castrating them 25 years ago.

Make internet a utility already, fuck.

[–] Cypher@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I really thought you were going somewhere else before I got to the second sentence.

[–] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

Yeah that was a short but wild ride lol

[–] Joker@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Who? The intelligence people, the Chinese spies or the internet people?

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 62 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Castrations for everybody! You get a castration and you get a castration!

[–] tentacles9999@lemmynsfw.com 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

c/shitcrusaderkingssay

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago
[–] Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

This was probably the biggest intelligence coup of this century. Our intelligence agencies have extremely capable hacking capabilities. I’m sure they not only know the provider, they know the exact building down to the individual IP addresses of the PCs that data was transmitted to. If they get that, they will be able to trace all of the other activities that originated from that Chinese agency.

On top of that when the US was done it still shot it down and now has the hardware to analyze.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 90 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I was having a hard time imagining which company this could be. Not that I'm a fan of Verizon or Comcast, but I think they know what side their bread is buttered on. Which one wouldn't?

Then I remembered Starlink exists.

[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 170 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Don't think they were colluding with the provider. They probably just put a burner sim card into a 4g module and sent data over a VPN to China whenever it had signal.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 38 points 11 months ago

It could have even been one of those multi SIM router things that has network redundancy.

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The blurb says primarily for navigation.

So it was using the starlink signals like gps signal and therefore they needed to correlate with the carrier to get a rough time sync.

I wonder what timing data is freely available on the starlink acquisition signal.

[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Why would they need data then? With GPS can get a 1metre accurate chip for like 20 bucks and it's way smaller. And no need for any carrier or subscription.

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Mapping out network topology? Who knows.

Whatever the collected data was, it could have been sent to their satellites for long haul back home.

[–] Joker@discuss.tchncs.de 54 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It’s a satellite provider. Cell networks don’t work at that altitude. Starlink was my first guess too but, after some more thought, it could be Hughesnet. They probably have wider coverage.

[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Yeah, their coverage is hughe

[–] snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Y U G E N E T

[–] crsu@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

So are their pings

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

Hugh Mungous

[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Probably Hughesnet or Viasat.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 48 points 10 months ago

That just sounds like efficient design if you ask me.

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 47 points 10 months ago

I guess now we know why it stopped to hover over Starbucks for so long.

[–] schmidtster@lemmy.world 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I thought the official announcement from the pentagon was it never sent any data?

[–] Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 39 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You're correct, it didn't send any data, it sent data.

[–] schmidtster@lemmy.world 29 points 11 months ago

Ah yes of course, my apologies for the misunderstanding. I hate when a butt plug is the voice of reason, thank you for your service though.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works -5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Right, because they figured out which provider was using and had them cut it off...

[–] schmidtster@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

That’s not even similar to what the announcement was.

[–] moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 10 months ago

But the free market will regulate. /s

[–] Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago

Wait, you mean US corporations will take money to do questionable things? Surprised Pikachu face.

Maybe the US government shouldn't have set the precedent that that was EXPECTED AND ENCOURAGED

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ok, now tell us what the hell you shot down way up north during that time.

[–] Lazhward@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Didn't that turn out to be a weather balloon launched by an amateur meteorology club?

[–] nrezcm@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

No that ended up being swamp gas from a weather balloon trapped in a thermal pocket which reflected light from Venus. Pretty common mistake.

[–] wagoner@infosec.pub 2 points 10 months ago

Please don't interrupt a conspiracy theory

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

The one over the Great Lakes may have been an advertisement from a car dealership.

[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well..how many nationwide internet suppliers could there be?

[–] balancedchaos@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Three.

Thanks, deregulation.

[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Actually there is only one. The rest buy their services and say they are nationwide but are regional centric. Long lines weren't really deregulated either.

[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

AT&T of course.

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

I'll have a good laugh if it turns out the baloon was not chinese after all, it has just contained some iot device with previously unknown call home function to collect diagnostic data.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We should let them do this provided they only use Comcast and Sprint.

[–] spikederailed@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago
[–] ugjka@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Someone tell China how to install Google earth app

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 9 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Officials familiar with assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.

Such a court order would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it flew over the U.S and as it sent and received messages to and from China, the officials said, including communication sent via the American internet service provider.

"As we had made it clear before, the airship, used for meteorological research, unintentionally drifted into U.S. because of the westerlies and its limited self-steering capability," Liu said in a statement to NBC News.

The previously unreported U.S. effort to monitor the balloon's communications could be one reason Biden administration officials have insisted that they got more intelligence out of the device than it got as it flew over the U.S.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News this month, VanHerck explained that he worked together with the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees U.S. nuclear weapons, to reduce the release of emergency action messages to ensure the Chinese balloon could not collect them.

“Protecting EAM and nuclear command and control communications is of critical importance to the United States,” a senior defense official told NBC News.


The original article contains 821 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 7 points 11 months ago

Wow really they used infustructure in the United States to communicate with something in The United States instead of putting a super expensive and moving satellite dish on the thing???

[–] Zoidberg@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

The PCC must be feeling all smart about their spy balloon design choices. Just wait until they need to talk to Comcast customer support...

[–] bajabound@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

Was Dishy mounted on top?