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

[Astronautical]

as far as im aware, A 500kg satelite camera with current tech would have a resolution of a few meters, not enough to individualy identify people. but large vehicles and buildings yes. so personally Im okay with this. their claims of 1s delay with only 500 satelites probably indicates a high~ish orbit and so a lower max resolution. nobodys gonna be able to tell what your doing in you back yard. at least... not yet

[Eaglerino]

While the idea is rather horrifying, so far only SpaceX is the only company that's shown themselves capable of launching these huge satellite constellations and that was after years of delays and they're still nowhere near giving us their internet. I don't believe for a second we'll see it in 2020.

 

At least this thing will take forever to happen, if it ever does, and I sure hope it doesn't. Suddenly our menial worry of internet privacy will be pretty funny when satellites are watching humanity's every move.

[CarlBar]

5 hours ago, Astronautical said:

as far as im aware, A 500kg satelite camera with current tech would have a resolution of a few meters, not enough to individualy identify people. but large vehicles and buildings yes. so personally Im okay with this. their claims of 1s delay with only 500 satelites probably indicates a high~ish orbit and so a lower max resolution. nobodys gonna be able to tell what your doing in you back yard. at least... not yet

 

Resolution is entirely a matter of the combination of optics and the sensor. It's also somthing thats allways changing. Especially in spacecraft, they're launched so infrequently, (and the radiation factor is such a novel issue), that the current state of the art in use can still be wildly less than what we can build today. 

 

5 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

While the idea is rather horrifying, so far only SpaceX is the only company that's shown themselves capable of launching these huge satellite constellations and that was after years of delays and they're still nowhere near giving us their internet. I don't believe for a second we'll see it in 2020.

 

At least this thing will take forever to happen, if it ever does, and I sure hope it doesn't. Suddenly our menial worry of internet privacy will be pretty funny when satellites are watching humanity's every move.

 

Again where not even vaguely within an order of a magnitude of ICBM range of being able to do this even if we didn't have the unique issues of orbital use to think about. Orbital use makes it even more insanely difficult. Though the radiation issue in earth orbit at least isn't Jupiter levels of bad. Thats arguably one of the three harshest challanges you can throw at a spacecraft designer.

[MatthewTheCollegeStudent]

No. Big nope. I'm already trying to think of ways to thwart such surveillance. It's going to be hard to without doing something significant. I could create a large crystalized mesh to drape over my property to distort any ability to see in? Is there any way to impede such satellite imagery? Could I create a device to throw out electromagnetic radiation at different frequencies into the sky above my property to distort the image? Basically an constant EMP bomb pointed at the sky. Or some way of shining a laser at the satellite directly above my property? I've seen that heavily polluted cities are, to a degree, hidden by the smog they produce. With the clouds reaching up over the buildings ruining any clear view of the city. Perhaps if I find someway to create lots of smoke and pump it into the air above? Sounds horribly unhealthy, but it sounds better than knowing that i'm actually being watched constantly. And unwillingly.

[leadeater]

58 minutes ago, MatthewTheCollegeStudent said:

I could create a large crystalized mesh to drape over my property to distort any ability to see in?

That will only make you stand out. The imagery being taken can't see small object but putting a giant cover over the area the size of a house, yea that can be seen and will stand out.

 

1 hour ago, MatthewTheCollegeStudent said:

Is there any way to impede such satellite imagery?

Trees

[MatthewTheCollegeStudent]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

That will only make you stand out. The imagery being taken can't see small object but putting a giant cover over the area the size of a house, yea that can be seen and will stand out.

 

Trees

Well, I wouldn't be trying to be subtle. Also, I have a large property, so it would have to cover several acres. I've seen some of the imagery that these satellite photo/video companies put out and yes, they aren't super high resolution. But it's close enough to distinguish people as small dots moving around, and that's more than enough to bother me. That alone is too much. Also, trees would work, except when you want to hide an entire property. I don't want them to know any of my movements at any point. There has to be some kind of market for combatting satellite imagery, through some kind of distortion or impairment. There must be something more sophisticated than just trees or something like that. And I don't want to have to live in an underground bunker.

[Astronautical]

20 hours ago, MatthewTheCollegeStudent said:

Well, I wouldn't be trying to be subtle. Also, I have a large property, so it would have to cover several acres. I've seen some of the imagery that these satellite photo/video companies put out and yes, they aren't super high resolution. But it's close enough to distinguish people as small dots moving around, and that's more than enough to bother me. That alone is too much. Also, trees would work, except when you want to hide an entire property. I don't want them to know any of my movements at any point. There has to be some kind of market for combatting satellite imagery, through some kind of distortion or impairment. There must be something more sophisticated than just trees or something like that. And I don't want to have to live in an underground bunker.

strategicly placed mirrors to overwhelm the pixels covering your area.

[CarlBar]

21 hours ago, MatthewTheCollegeStudent said:

Well, I wouldn't be trying to be subtle. Also, I have a large property, so it would have to cover several acres. I've seen some of the imagery that these satellite photo/video companies put out and yes, they aren't super high resolution. But it's close enough to distinguish people as small dots moving around, and that's more than enough to bother me. That alone is too much. Also, trees would work, except when you want to hide an entire property. I don't want them to know any of my movements at any point. There has to be some kind of market for combatting satellite imagery, through some kind of distortion or impairment. There must be something more sophisticated than just trees or something like that. And I don't want to have to live in an underground bunker.

 

Look up what the worlds various militaries do to hide from satellites. Generally the answer is the same, cover it with somthing, be that tree cover, a huge camo net, or by burying it underground.

[Ravendarat]

I wish we could trust people/companies enough that we could allow this to actually be in existence. I can legit see many many good things that this system could do but because you cant trust people to not be corrupt you cant trust this to be implemented .

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, Ravendarat said:

I wish we could trust people/companies enough that we could allow this to actually be in existence. I can legit see many many good things that this system could do but because you cant trust people to not be corrupt you cant trust this to be implemented .

Or countries could just grow some balls and make intentional breaches of privacy using such systems to be extremely costly in the form of remuneration to the victim.   Sure, make your money from private data, but let your system be used to stalk, harass or be hacked for nefarious gain and you pay the price for letting it happen.

[MS-DOS Guy]

On 5/4/2020 at 9:53 AM, scuff gang said:

Whenever you walk around outside, you can be seen. whatever you do Outside you can be seen. This violates privacy laws imo

Holy shit, time and time again, I have told people that I now see the flaw in this. 

[Koeshi]

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,

[Delicieuxz]

10 hours ago, 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,

That's a great comment. I've added it to the OP.

[mr moose]

12 hours ago, 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,

 

4 things,

 

Yes we have considered that, or at least a few of us have.

 

Kidnapping and stalking are not small crimes.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.

 

You can't leave resolution out of the picture when it is such a huge hindrance (and likely inescapable hindrance) for almost all of the nefarious activities people think it could be used for.

 

Governments monitoring dissidents already have a closer more accurate eye on those people, this is not going to make that any easier.  Especially when then cameras can't see who gets in and out of cars that are in garages/carports etc.     Trying to track peoples moment with this would be impossible.  three cars come to my house, they don;t know who gets in or out of each car, each car goes to three shopping centres, no one knows who gets in and out of those three cars. Shopping centres have thousands of cars leaving which results in person lost. 

[Delicieuxz]

57 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Governments monitoring dissidents already have a closer more accurate eye on those people, this is not going to make that any easier.  Especially when then cameras can't see who gets in and out of cars that are in garages/carports etc.     Trying to track peoples moment with this would be impossible.  three cars come to my house, they don;t know who gets in or out of each car, each car goes to three shopping centres, no one knows who gets in and out of those three cars. Shopping centres have thousands of cars leaving which results in person lost. 

Monitoring dissidents isn't simply a government interests. It's also one for opposition parties and discriminatory political groups who aren't running for government positions.

 

If a car is owned by you and it sits outside your house when you're at home, and that one car leaves your house and goes to a destination (perhaps one that it regularly goes to), and that destination can be identified as linked to political activities, then that affords for people, inside and outside of government, to monitor and interfere with political activism.

 

If a person is going to be tracked, their tracker likely isn't going to start tracking them from a shopping centre, but from the place they leave from and return to: Their home.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Monitoring dissidents isn't simply a government interests. It's also one for opposition parties and discriminatory political groups who aren't running for government positions.

 

If a car is owned by you and it sits outside your house when you're at home, and that one car leaves your house and goes to a destination (perhaps one that it regularly goes to), and that destination can be identified as linked to political activities, then that affords for people, inside and outside of government, to monitor and interfere with political activism.

No shit,   but they can already do that better than what they can with this proposed system.

 

[Delicieuxz]

Just now, mr moose said:

No shit,   but they can already do that better than what they can with this proposed system.

While spending more resources and being more conspicuous. To say there isn't an advantage in being able to effortlessly monitor movements from the sky while being in any location is not taking everything into consideration.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

While spending more resources and being more conspicuous. To say there isn't an advantage in being able to effortlessly monitor movements from the sky while being in any location is not taking everything into consideration.

The new systems doesn't allow them to do what you claim it does.  There is no point in moving to a new system that doesn't work as intended.

 

 

[Delicieuxz]

34 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The new systems doesn't allow them to do what you claim it does.  There is no point in moving to a new system that doesn't work as intended.

I don't claim what its specific capabilities will be. But considering that EarthNow's advertising says: "The native video resolution, combined with image enhancement techniques, is designed to enable event monitoring and tracking applications consistent with existing and future customer requirements.", I'm taking as granted that it performs better than the existing capabilities demonstrated in these links:

 

On 5/5/2020 at 10:47 AM, spartaman64 said:

theres already lots of companies that do this except they dont have that many sats

https://www.slingshotaerospace.com/products/

https://www.maxar.com/products/satellite-imagery

https://www.imagesatintl.com/

 

If I imagine that level of zoomed fidelity in video form, then that already seems pretty capable, to me.

 

If it's good enough for a vehicle's movements to be monitored with it, then activists can be tracked without a warrant and without them knowing they're being tracked that they might be able to take steps to mask their activities. And if anyone can have access to that footage, then that poses a threat for dissidents and activists from not just the government, but also from police, opposition groups, vigilantes, hate groups, corporations, and more.

 

Regardless of the exact capabilities of EarthNow, but especially when its exact capabilities aren't known, I think that the dangers with the technology are things that should be considered.

[mr moose]

40 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

I don't claim what its specific capabilities will be. But considering that EarthNow's advertising says: "The native video resolution, combined with image enhancement techniques, is designed to enable event monitoring and tracking applications consistent with existing and future customer requirements.", I'm taking as granted that it performs better than the existing capabilities demonstrated in these links:

 

 

 

I've got bridge you might be interested in buying, genuine 1 owner, It's also legitimately mine to sell.  If you believe the marketing hype then there is no point in talking realistic terms.

 

As many people in this thread have already pointed out, the ability to be able to identify even a car with their proposal is a stretch at best.

 

[ARikozuM]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I've got bridge you might be interested in buying, genuine 1 owner, It's also legitimately mine to sell.  If you believe the marketing hype then there is no point in talking realistic terms.

 

As many people in this thread have already pointed out, the ability to be able to identify even a car with their proposal is a stretch at best.

 

We said the similar things about cell phones, satellites, and the Moon landing. Where are we now?

[mr moose]

57 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

We said the similar things about cell phones, satellites, and the Moon landing. Where are we now?

 

I don't recall anyone saying that moon landing was able to track you,  what was said about satellites?  maybe people predicted that councils would use google satellite images to look for illegal constructions.  To be honest I don't have a problem with that. 

 

The reality is in this situation it actually can't be used to do what they are claiming, and certainly not in a better way than current processes provide.   Let's be realistic, and for the sake f argument let's say you could identify someone who didn't wear a disguise.  First you'd have to know where they were before you could even begin to track them, then all they have to do is what I said earlier and they are lost, gone, vamooshed.  It doesn't matter about the number or quality of the video streams.  If they can;t see who gets in or out of a car and several cars go into a shopping centre then several thousand come out the person is gone.  You can;t track shit unless you already know where they are and where they are going.  In that case in order to prove they were there you'd need to have someone there staking out the old fashioned way to get any real evidence (video or photographic).

 

 

The whole argument that you can track someone of value with this is quite frankly dumb. 

 

[Koeshi]

On 5/12/2020 at 3:39 AM, mr moose said:

If they can;t see who gets in or out of a car and several cars go into a shopping centre then several thousand come out the person is gone. 

Thats cool and all if you are some organised group that is specifically putting work in to avoid being tracked.  Really not relevant to the point of being able to track individual dissidents who do not have an army of lackeys and a fleet of cars to use for distraction.

[mr moose]

Just now, Koeshi said:

Thats cool and all if you are some organised group that is specifically putting work in to avoid being tracked.  Really not relevant to the point of being able to track individual dissidents who do not have an army of lackeys and a fleet of cars to use for distraction.

 

I don't know about you, but in order to be a threat you have to be in numbers.  What exactly is an individual dissident?  how do you effectively be a dissident when you are just one person? Maybe you could make prank calls to the dictatorship from phone boxes?

 

Again, as has already been said,  you cannot id a single person with this, and if any dictatorship wants to track an individual there are already much more efficient and absolute ways to do that than this.

[Trik'Stari]

This shit needs to be crushed with the heaviest hammer imaginable. It's an invasion of privacy, and I honestly don't like the idea of living in a surveillance state. We already live in too much of a surveillance state as it is.

 

The governments of the world will 100% abuse and misuse this kind of capability. If it is allowed to continue, any video surveillance captured from it should be deemed automatically inadmissible as evidence, as it was obtained without warrants or due process.

 

31 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

I don't know about you, but in order to be a threat you have to be in numbers.  What exactly is an individual dissident?  how do you effectively be a dissident when you are just one person? Maybe you could make prank calls to the dictatorship from phone boxes?

 

Again, as has already been said,  you cannot id a single person with this, and if any dictatorship wants to track an individual there are already much more efficient and absolute ways to do that than this.

I'm surprised you're taking this line.

 

It would be rather simple to ID and track a single person with this. If you know where someone lives, you have an agent outside their house watching the targets car, they can radio back to base saying that the target is leaving, and the people back at base can use this to track that car.

 

I can pick my car out from Google Earth at where I work, simply because I know I park in the same spot every day. I can easily identify my coworkers cars, or some of them anyways.