
New Satellites Will Hunt Pirates, and Maybe Terrorists - PeOe
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-30/spacex-to-loft-satellites-to-hunt-pirates-and-maybe-terrorists
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yholio
> The company he formed in 2015 had a simple pitch to government agencies: “We
> convert a capital expense to an operation expense.” Raytheon Co., the giant
> defense contractor, was an early investor and customer. It has engineers
> working with Hawkeye’s 31-person team and, in turn, will sell some of the
> company’s findings to its own government customers.

Essentially, open market spooks for hire, selling limited space intelligence
to countries that can't afford their own space programs.

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madengr
It’s been done with optical imagery for a while, but this is probably the
first SIGINT.

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offmycloud
So ... SIGINTaaS ?

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madengr
Exactly. They have given talks at the last few GRCon. They were initially
geolocating AIS traffic.

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crooked-v
Pirates, and maybe terrorists, and definitely lots of ordinary people
spuriously prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws.

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maxxxxx
Or just people they don't like and eventually everybody. I think in a few
decades the surveillance infrastructure of 1984 will look benign and quaint.
Winston Smith actually could hide for a while.

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liftbigweights
> Winston Smith actually could hide for a while.

Actually, he couldn't. He thought he could hide. But we find out in the
ministry of truth and room 101 that everything he did "secretly", like writing
in his diary or his rendezvous with julia, were known to the authorities.

But I agree, unless we wake up, I think a mix of 1984 and Minority Report
style of dystopian future awaits us.

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ggm
Not disputing this outcome, but what is your solution for violent piracy and
it's effect on shipping?

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TeMPOraL
> _what is your solution for violent piracy and it 's effect on shipping?_

This is what I don't understand. The economy of US, Russia, and other naval
powers suffers because of piracy. New navy ships need field tests, new sailors
need training. We're at peace time, so it's hard to do realistic trials.

Why not just station some navy ships in the pirate-infested areas? Have them
hunt down and sink any violent pirate boats. Equip civilian ships with
satellite-based "911" signal saying "we're at (lat, lon), we're under attack",
so the combat vessels know where to look for targets?

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netsharc
I've read that they (the navies) are reluctant about adding firepower, because
the pirates would so the same (or "natural selection" would mean the knife-
wielding pirates will stay home and only the AK-47 and RPG-wielding ones will
continue), which will mean all the ships would need defending against powerful
pirates.

It's a bit like policing in the US.

A sister comment to yours has a saner opinion, I'd add why not fight the
African poverty/corruption that cause these people to attack ships.

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ggm
At one stage, non-armed-forces vessels were being permitted to carry semi- and
automatic weapons under very stringent controls. If you imagine those locks on
the duty-free drinks trolley on a plane, and upscale it: they could unlock the
weapons in defined areas and were permitted to use force to repel attack from
unidentified craft.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/8858159/Ar...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/8858159/Armed-
guards-to-protect-British-ships-from-pirates.html)

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TeMPOraL
That obviously invites an arms race with pirates, and probably reduces
survivability of the crews. That's why I asked about a different solution -
where merchant crews are unarmed, but armed forces provide separate, rapid
response service with overwhelming force.

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closeparen
The intelligence community was hunting RF emissions with trucks during WWII.
Three quarters of a century of top-dollar aerospace and electronic warfare R&D
later... I’d be surprised if they didn’t have this capability by the 70s. What
do you think the National Reconaissance Office _is_?

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greglindahl
I don't think the NRO puts much effort into finding illegal fishing, or other
kinds of activity that don't impact US national security.

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ggm
Having a capability and chosing what you use it for are different things. I
also believe that the life of RF detection by third parties, and radio between
parties has been entirely parallel. For every signal, there is a device
hunting that signal in amongst the noise.

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Bucephalus355
Tracking / Signal Hunting technology for planes and boats has always seemed to
generate the most fantastical ideas.

There has been a good amount of progress, but it really stalled for a while
when ICBMs seemed to negate the importance of aircraft. The US had the quite
sophisticated Northern Early Warning Line at one time to monitor all airspace
in the North Pole. It’s very hard, even today, to get good satellite tracking
there because it is a Pole.

The craziest thing I’ve heard is what the British tried before radar was
invented. A Hoover Dam like wall 200 feet high that was supposed to amplify
the sounds of planes approaching from Germany that would alert a human
operator.

[http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/locations/denge...](http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/locations/denge/)

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FlyMoreRockets
RF snooping has traditionally been done by "fishing trawlers".

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clubm8
So basically in 5-10 years they'll be using satellites for domestic
surveillance? After all, pretty much every other "anti-terror" measure seems
to "trickle down" to local LEOs

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ridgeguy
These may not work well for low frequency sources. The satellites are above
the ionosphere, which reflects/absorbs low freq RF.

Comm signals at, for example, 3.5MHz wouldn't get through the ionosphere.

