'Chinese spy balloon' was 'crammed' with US hardware

FreeBooteR69, 11 months ago

I don't buy that it didn't send data back to China. That's a little too much to believe.

breadsmasher, 11 months ago

Given the distance from China, and assuming it had no satellite communication hardware, are there any other ways data could have transmitted that sort of distance?

Sincerely wondering/asking

jrs100000, 11 months ago

Connect to a cell phone tower on the ground and transmit encrypted file blocks over the Internet.

breadsmasher, 11 months ago

Good suggestion! Had not considered. Does the range go high enough though from cell towers?

jrs100000, 11 months ago

Not on a standard handheld set, but with an amplifier and a large antenna I doubt it would be an insurmountable problem, especially since most of the data transfer only needs to go one way.

dystop, 11 months ago

Yeah that's a good question. I can't imagine the plan was for the Chinese to actually physically retrieve the balloon to get the data...

qaz, 11 months ago

CNN: "Chinese spy balloon was able to transmit information back to Beijing"

FfaerieOxide, 11 months ago

And The US was worried about balance-of-trade.

TinyPizza, 11 months ago

Russian drones full of DSLR cams and Chinese spy balloons filled with Ti-84's and Ring doorbells. This future feels like we all fell into the dollar store dimension.