At 07:06 PM 12/17/99 , you wrote:
>well, from what I've
>heard, the military can tell what kind of tie you're wearing just from their
>satellite cameras.
Although nobody who's telling really knows what the capabilities of
state-of-the-art spy satellites are, I read an interesting article in Sky &
Telescope magazine a few years back in which they speculated on spy
satellite's capabilities using the limitations of the laws of optics to
determine what is and isn't physically (optically?) possible. It turns out
that most of the extreme claims about what these satellites can make out
are just not possible. From their orbit in space to the surface of the
Earth, it is impossible to get enough resolution (no matter how perfect the
camera or optics) to see some of the things that urban legend has these
things seeing. So while they can see individual vehicles, they can't read a
license plate. They can make out individuals but satellites are not reading
the newspaper over your shoulder. Under the most ideal conditions they may
be able to tell if you're wearing a tie, but resolving any detail in the
pattern is beyond the laws of optics.
>What really pisses me off is that our (U.S.) Gov't. puts a false error into
>the signal that civilian GPS models receive. They say that this is to keep
>militia, etc. from using precise (up to 3m) coordinates to bomb somebody or
>something, but that is just "feel-good" politics. The Russians have the
>same GPS system that the U.S. does, and they don't have the error. So, I
>guess if you wanted really accurate GPS coordinates, you could go buy a
>Russian system.
The military uses a very sophisticated algorithm to encode/decode the built
in error of GPS. It is my understanding that they can and do change the
algorithm at irregular intervals (like during George Bush's War-to
-Keep-Cheap-Oil-Prices...er, I mean War-Against-Naked-Aggression (aka The
Persian Gulf War)). While it's hard to imagine Russian anything being
better or more accurate that its American counterpart, even if you did get
a Russian GPS unit that could decode the GPS error, it would only last
until the military changed their code. I don't know why you're so upset
about this. Would you really want GPS units readily available that would
have allowed Iraqi artillery units to accurately target U.S. troops? If
you really want to get pissed off at something, ask yourself why the
government/military is so concerned about U.S. citizens flying over places
like Area 51, while Russian and Chinese spy satellites routinely fly over
and photograph the area. They keep places like that a secret from us while
allowing others to know everything that's going on there.
No Dak content. Posted as fuel for those complaining about a slow week-end :-)
Mike Crumley 97 V6 Auto
mail to: mcrumley@airmail.net
"If the whole world depends on today's youth, I can't see
the world lasting another 100 years."--Socrates
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