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am_Unition  ·  674 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Of Chinese Balloons and Tinfoil Hats

It sounds like the balloons used to be smaller, stealthier, and more frequent in the past. Three (known) little guys during the Trump admin.

I'm increasingly convinced that the primary purpose of this was to just flex and start shit. If it was a trial balloon (hurrhrurhurhurhrrrr) to see how much political infighting it would cause here in the U.S., well, major success.

Because yeah, if you wanna sniff 4G, you can just develop some hackware and deploy it on a bunch of phones, right? Wanna cover a wide swath of area? Rent some cars. Drive across the country. Having bigger antennae like what the balloon might've been equipped with only makes sense for longer wavelength (than 4G) comms gathering.

But yes, what a major newspiece!