Bill Gates, Airbus, Softbank back EarthNow plan to cover Earth with real-time video surveillance satellites

[Delicieuxz]

Bill Gates backs $1bn plan to cover earth in video surveillance satellites

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A satellite company planning to launch a $1bn (£700m) network of satellites to provide "live and unfiltered" coverage of the Earth has been backed by former Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates and Japanese tech giant Softbank.

 

The tech leaders are backing EarthNow, which plans to launch 500 satellites to cover Earth's atmosphere in video surveillance and provide live video feedback with only one second of delay.

 

The Washington-based satellite company has the backing of aerospace giant Airbus as well as billionaire Gates and Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate that has invested billions in tech companies from Uber to chipmaker Arm.

 

Bill Gates backs a $1 billion plan to cover Earth in 'Big Brother' satellites capable of streaming 'live and unfiltered' HD footage of the planet

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'We believe the ability to see and understand the Earth live and unfiltered will help all of us better appreciate and ultimately care for our one and only home.' 

 

The company is based in Bellevue, Washington and was founded in 2017.

 

It plans to use an army of orbiting satellites will weigh around 500 pounds (225 kg) each that will have their cameras trained on Earth 24 hours a day.

 

It will onboard analysis of the imagery, though to what extent isn't clear.

 

There is also currently no clear timeline, price-tag or technical details about the project. 

 

EarthNow's services will initially be aimed at 'high value enterprise and government customers.

 

However, the firm says it also expected to allow civilians to access the video from a smartphone or tablet. 

 

'We are excited by the prospect of giving everyone a stunningly beautiful real-time window on your world from space,' Mr Hannigan said. 

 

https://earthnow.com/

Quote

 

With EarthNow you can:

• Catch illegal fishing ships in the act
• Watch hurricanes and typhoons as they evolve
• Detect forest fires the moment they start
• Watch volcanoes the instant they start to erupt
• Assist the media in telling stories from around the world
• Track large whales as they migrate
• Help “smart cities” become more efficient
• Assess the health of crops on demand
• Observe conflict zones and respond immediately when crises arise
• Instantly create “living” 3D models of a town or city, even in remote locations
• See your home as the astronauts see it—a stunning blue marble in space
   

 

EarthNow's details of what could be seen with their planned satellites suggest the satellite feed would have very good resolution when looking at Earth's terrain very close-up.

 

Depending on what resolution these satellites would be able to picture the ground with, I think there are clearly serious implications for people being stalked or targeted for harm, or for when thieves plotting to rob a house when someone isn't home, or for people who want to sunbathe nude in privacy in their backyard, as well as a great many other scenarios.

 

Paragraph added May 16: Court witnesses, activists, government critics, and minorities could, hypothetically, be put in grave danger by technology that makes monitoring or tracking people in public spaces available for everyone. For example, imagine the threat and harm that would be created by a publicly-accessible satellite surveillance system in conjunction with intentions and websites like this: White Supremacists Built a Website to Doxx Interracial Couples — and It's Going to Be Hard to Take Down

 

I wonder if the company EarthNow plans different levels of zoom and fidelity for governments and the public. Though, it would be concerning if governments and law enforcement suddenly had the easy and unregulated ability to monitor everyone without their consent, their knowing, and a warrant. And I also wonder whether EarthNow would censor sensitive locations, like military and testing sites, not just according to the US government's interests, but to all countries' governments' demands.

 

It's possible real-time footage wouldn't be available to the general public, or that feed from residential areas wouldn't be available. But there are still many ways this could be exploited.

 

 

Here's a great comment made by Koeshi.

On 5/11/2020 at 1:13 PM, Koeshi said:

Kind of curious with all the talk people were having of small scale crime (stalking, kidnapping, etc) nobody mentioned how this would make it easier for governments to track dissidents (leaving aside the argument about resolution for a moment).  Even if you trust your government/ruling party, can you say the same for other governments/parties?  If something like this does go live with a resolution that allows tracking people, you can guarantee that countries that do not already have access to this sort of system but want it (e.g Iran, Turkey) would be at the front of the line to get access,

[jaslion]

This just sounds horrible. For all the good it can do it will do so far more worse things. Once anyone with bad intentions gets access to this be it a single person, a group, a government or whatnot things can easily spiral out of hand.

[MS-DOS Guy]

That's actually genuinely really cool! 

[MS-DOS Guy]

Just now, jaslion said:

This just sounds horrible. For all the good it can do it will do so far more worse things. Once anyone with bad intentions gets access to this be it a single person, a group, a government or whatnot things can easily spiral out of hand.

You can't just make a claim with no evidence. How is this horrible? Can you provide some details as to why you don't like it, since personally, I think it's really beneficial since it allows people to view the world from outer space, each technological advancement we make, is another step into the future. And I think this is just one of them, although that may be subjective. I think it's really cool that we are expanding our eyes into space. And as the points OP made, it sounds nothing short of incredible.  

[Tristerin]

Since "The eyes cannot trespass what the eyes can see" Is also backed by "You cant stick a huge telescope on your camera to take pictures of my property from the property line because that modifies the eye"

 

This is a state by state issue, but already touched on by the Supreme Court with McDonald v US - this is spying by a Company.

[MS-DOS Guy]

Just now, Tristerin said:

Since "The eyes cannot trespass what the eyes can see" Is also backed by "You cant stick a huge telescope on your camera to take pictures of my property from the property line because that modifies the eye"

 

This is a state by state issue, but already touched on by the Supreme Court with McDonald v US - this is spying by a Company.

Fair enough. I suppose now that I think about it, maybe it isn't all too great considering they basically have permission to look at my property in high resolution live cams with only a second of delay and all while I just sit, susceptible, frail and an inability to decline having a mass corporation backed by billionaires spying on me.

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

You can't just make a claim with no evidence. How is this horrible? Can you provide some details as to why you don't like it, since personally, I think it's really beneficial since it allows people to view the world from outer space, each technological advancement we make, is another step into the future. And I think this is just one of them, although that may be subjective. I think it's really cool that we are expanding our eyes into space. And as the points OP made, it sounds nothing short of incredible.  

Well:

Spying

Stalking

Home invasion

Transporting illegal goods

Better organized crime

Actual 0 privacy

...

[ARikozuM]

No.

[akio123008]

It's kind of like a drone hovering over your property but very high up.

[Sauron]

Sounds useless.

4 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

I think it's really beneficial since it allows people to view the world from outer space

You can literally do that right now, NASA streams live video from the ISS.

[Delicieuxz]

30 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

You can't just make a claim with no evidence. How is this horrible? Can you provide some details as to why you don't like it, since personally, I think it's really beneficial since it allows people to view the world from outer space, each technological advancement we make, is another step into the future. And I think this is just one of them, although that may be subjective. I think it's really cool that we are expanding our eyes into space. And as the points OP made, it sounds nothing short of incredible.  

Taking this plan at face value and without more information, there are obvious issues and I've mentioned some of them in the OP.

 

But here's another very specific one: There are people who abduct children and even teenagers. Access to real-time video surveillance of when children leave their home or school, their habits of where they go, would make it easy for a kidnapper to target and abduct a child with very-low risk of being caught.

 

And the ability to know when people in a house and their neighbours are all away from home would be like an open invitation to thieves.

[ChrisD06]

This should not exist. It's illegal, violates all privacy, can be used as a super-weapon if it gets in the wrong hands, and will just do more harm than good

[MS-DOS Guy]

There's no way the government is going to consider this viable and judicious at least within there proprietorship. It's borderline invasion of privacy, and now that I think about it, the general public is probably not going to handle it well if it does come into effect.   

[MS-DOS Guy]

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

Taking this plan at face value and without more information, there are obvious issues and I've mentioned some of them in the OP.

 

But here's another very specific one: There are people who abduct children and even teenagers. Access to real-time video surveillance of when children leave their home or school, their habits of where they go, would make it easy for a kidnapper to target and abduct a child.

Ok so I just described in multiple replies that now that I am aware of the views of other people on this matter, I do not agree with it being into effect. 

[ChrisD06]

Just now, MS-DOS Guy said:

There's no way the government is going to consider this viable and judicious at least within there proprietorship. It's borderline invasion of privacy, and now that I think about it, the general public is probably not going to handle it well if it does come into effect.   

Well for 1 thing, none of the North American countries will approve of this. We all know Trump would shut it down faster than anything, Trudeau might be an idiot but he most likely won't approve of it, and Mexico will just say no and not go any further.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Taking this plan at face value and without more information, there are obvious issues and I've mentioned some of them in the OP.

 

But here's another very specific one: There are people who abduct children and even teenagers. Access to real-time video surveillance of when children leave their home or school, their habits of where they go, would make it easy for a kidnapper to target and abduct a child with very low-risk of being caught.

I strongly doubt this would have a high enough resolution and precision for anything of the sort. The best they advertise is "catching illegal fishing ships in the act" - fishing ships are quite a bit larger than your average school kid. Also with "only" 500 satellites they can't possibly cover the entirety of Earth all at the same time with that level of precision.

[samcool55]

Welp, time to take everything underground and live like they do in metro or in nuclear bunkers like some people in China.

[Sauron]

6 minutes ago, ChrisD06 said:

Well for 1 thing, none of the North American countries will approve of this.

Funny you'd say that when the NSA was caught in the act of doing much worse just a few years ago.

6 minutes ago, ChrisD06 said:

We all know Trump would shut it down faster than anything

...why? He's the guy who ordered an air strike on a foreign general in allied territory, killing allied representatives in the process. He clearly has no qualms with this sort of thing.

[MS-DOS Guy]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Funny you'd say that when the NSA was caught in the act of doing this and much worse just a few years ago.

...why? He's the guy who ordered an air strike on a foreign general in allied territory, killing allied representatives in the process. He clearly has no qualms with this sort of thing.

Don't want to get political here about Trump, but as i said before in my previous post, if the government ( Trump ) sees this as nothing but a beneficial thing towards them, they will completely disregard the dignity and privacy of the people as they had in the past. I'm pretty sure there are a couple bloodthirsty individuals who will stop at nothing to end this if it ever comes to start to gain momentum and be executed. 

[RejZoR]

Totally not creepy tho...

[Tristerin]

12 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

Fair enough. I suppose now that I think about it, maybe it isn't all too great considering they basically have permission to look at my property in high resolution live cams with only a second of delay and all while I just sit, susceptible, frail and an inability to decline having a mass corporation backed by billionaires spying on me.

California already has guidelines on this (due to people intentionally baiting cops by standing on public property taking pictures of defense installations etc), which is legal 100%.  Until you modify the lens.  Once modified this is now considered trespassing.

 

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

Don't want to get political here about Trump, but as i said before in my previous post, if the government ( Trump ) sees this as nothing but a beneficial thing towards them, they will completely disregard the dignity and privacy of the people as they had in the past. 

Exactly. As I said, however, this probably isn't as bad as people seem to think it is.

[MS-DOS Guy]

1 minute ago, Tristerin said:

California already has guidelines on this (due to people intentionally baiting cops by standing on public property taking pictures of defense installations etc), which is legal 100%.  Until you modify the lens.  Once modified this is now considered trespassing.

 

What do you mean by "modifying the lens"? 

[3rrant]

2020 Will be renamed "how to go from WW3 to Orwell in just a pandemic plague"

[DildorTheDecent]

>Backed by Bill Gates

 

Of course.