At the same time, you have to take into account that the Netherlands is a small country. We don't have to drive 3 hours to our work (and many people actually commute by public transport). So while gasoline is expensive, you won't spend as many gallons a week typically as an average US citizen would.

Identity theft is not really an issue here. It seems to be more of an issue in the US.

And it even more fun to see that mentioning this, will result in your comment being moderated "Troll"....

I am part of one of the groups targetted in this paper: amateur classified satellite trackers. And I am highly offended in how the paper presents us: it has little to do with reality.

The author apparently did not bother to contact any one of us: on what grounds he then comes to the conclusion that we don't show restraint, is completely unclear. Moreover, his conclusion in this is incorrect. We do show restraint, more than he imagines. What we make public, is actually only a part of the story, and it is the part that any adversary (State or ideological group) can easily assemble themselves with very little effort.

The SAIC writer appears completely unaware of (or willingly ignores) what we really know but do not make public. For a number of classified satellites, we have formulated quite precise ideas about what they are doing (in terms of: the purpose of their mission): but decided within our little group to not go public with that, thinking it might endanger the mission of these satellites (and one satellite in particular, one of the most enigmatic there is out there). This is something this SAIC writer (who acts like a classic communist agitprop) seems not to be aware of (or put it differently: appears not te be interested in at all): and certainly hasn't even bothered to check. Talking about bias and being ill informed! So, how serious should we take this paper then?

The SAIC writer is highly unrealistic in his attitude and ideas. Our group basically is made up of 15 or so active observers. We track 300 objects. Many of those, are naked eye objects. All you need for this work is a good star map and a stopwatch, or a off-the shelf DSLR camera. We do it as a hobby alongside formal jobs, etc. The idea that any adversary, State or group, cannot create such an observing network themselves and is dependant on us, is ridiculous.

What this SAIC writer should realize, is that we simply show the limits to realistic secrecy. Within the US military, there is a group of people who have highly unrealistic ideas about secrecy. The more realistic people within the military (which luckily there are too) accept that some things cannot be kept secret (like a satellite that is easily visible naked eye), and realize that good military strategy includes being able to discern realistic secrecy from unrealistic attempts at secrecy. This SAIC writer fails in that regard, and displays an attitude that I feel is highly dangerous to US security as it amounts to the mentioned unrealistic ideas about secrecy that do not make for good military strategy. In other words: advisors like this SAIC Troll are the biggest danger to realistic US military strategy and from that US security. Not us satellite observers.

It are unrealistic ideas about secrecy like these that actually kill people. A military strategy that assumes their adversary doesn't have knowledge about the position of space reconnaissance assets is one that will quickly shatter to pieces, with lives lost, when the troops on the ground are confronted with the reality. The unrealistic calls for "secrecy" like those of this SAIC Troll therefore, is what if acted up on will increase the number of body bags coming back from war zones. THEY are the true danger.

I am not a US citizen by the way, and most observers in our network are not. In principle, I don't give a rats ass (and don't need to) about what the US government wants to keep secret. These very satellites might be spying on my own country (history shows the US is not beyond spying on allies).

Last but not least: the US is a signatory to the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies". This treaty specifically states that signature States (including the US thefore) must: "inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and the international scientific community, to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, of the nature, conduct, locations and results of such activities". This call for secrecy is therefore in violation of an International Treaty signed by the US government.

It keeps being funny though, to see the typical American reaction to any suggestion that the US might not always be on the technological forefront of things. Up to Americans then starting to hail the perceived merits of old fashioned systems...
In terms of monetary transactions, the US is decidedly lagging behind the rest of the western world. Paper cheques: monetary clay tablets, really.

No argument with that. Progress has its drawbacks, notably in the privacy realm. From cellphones tracking your movement to pyaments tracking your spending.

Here in the Netherlands, for years already most payment in shops is done by pin (bankpass plus pin-code): in fact, some shopping chains are now talking of (and experimenting with) abolishing cash payment altogether.

So Google wallet really does not introduce anything new: for Europe at least.

For the US, who is decidely archaic in its monetary system, it might be new but that is only because the US is lagging behind the rest of the world in these things (many NW European countries abolished paper cheques ages ago for example - all money transfer is done electronically directly from account to account here).

When it comes to discussions with people in the Mac Cult, sadly enough many of the comments of the above type are meant to be serious. I am happy to hear that yours was only a joke.

We Dutch are known for riding bikes rather than Vespa's, but I'll concede that Bettie Serveert may indeed count as an obscure band.....

Because I don't define my identity by means of Operating System (because I find people who do that inherently sad), and hence am less narrow-minded (as well as having a PhD), I have to tell you that it is a name transcribed from another language and alphabet (Arabic), and hence different spellings can be used. You can spell it "Baghdad", "Bagdad" (it is usually spelled the latter in my country) and a number of other ways.

It has little to do with being elder. There is a whole cohort of digibetic younger people who call their slighty more computer-savy brother (me) as soon as things get more complicated than opening a Word document (and even then...)

The real reason is that interfaces are the products of what I call "ITistics", a special form of Autistics. Since 99% of the Slashdotters is ITistic, it is no surprise many here won't accept that pushing a plus-sign and in that way "adding an alarm clock" is ITistic (and indeed, autistic). For a programmer, used to thinking in modules and object oriented language, "adding" something makes sense. For "normal" people, it doesn't.

You see the same with geeks who insist that an OS or software with command-line language is superior to a point-and-click GUI. For an ITistic, it is certainly superior. For everybody else, it is not, as command-line operations are not intuitive at all, and it involves remembering a lot of different commands. Which the average non-ITistic doesn't want to: they just want to be able to operate something by pushing an option.

Of course, the typical slashdot geek will not get at all what I write above. Which only points out that ITism is a real cognitive affliction: they really will not see the problem.

There are *no* tanks in Bagdad, I repeat: there are *no* tanks in Bagdad....

Some data to show that the X37-B OTV-2 coverage of Tripoli is really not that much better than that of the "conventional" Keyhole optical and Lacrosse radar reconnaissance satellites:

Number of passes of US Reconnaissance satellites bringing Tripoli within sensor range for April 3rd, 2011:

KH-12 Keyhole high-res optical satellites:
(97 degree inclination Polar orbit)

USA 186: 5 passes
USA 161: 3 passes
USA 129: 5 passes

Lacrosse high-res SAR satellites:
(50 & 57 degree inclination orbits)

Lacrosse 3: 8 passes
Lacrosse 4: 6 passes
Lacrosse 5: 7 passes

As you see, not quite a shortage of coverage.

The X37-B OTV-2 passes over Tripoli as well:
(43 degree inclination orbit)

X-37B OTV-2: 7 passes

Lacrosses with their orbital inclination of 50/57 degrees make as much passes per day as the X-37B with it's 43 degree orbital inclination. There really is no reason to think that the choosen inclination has anything to do with optimizing Libya coverage. The more so since the previous X-37B mission, which was before the Libya revolution started, also had an orbital inclination near 40 degrees.

As I mentioned in another comment, the choosen inclination most likely has to do with optimizing coverage by the US tracking facilities.

The KH-12 Keyholes USA 129, USA 161 and USA 186 all cover Libya, as do the Lacrosse high resolution SAR satellites Lacrosse 3, 4 and 5. Any satellite in LEO with an orbit with inclination > 35 degrees covers Libya. A satellite doesn't have to have an inclination similar to the latitude of Libya for that at all.

ANY satellite with an orbital inclination of at least 35 degrees will pass over Tripoli at least twice a day. I.e., the KH-12 Keyholes (USA 129, USA 161 and USA 186) in their polar orbits and the Lacrosses (3, 4 and 5) in their 50 and 57 degree orbits will do so as well. The X-37B is nothing special in that sense and there is really no reason to assume that Tripoli is the main surveillance target of the craft.

Nonsense! The whole orbit shifts over the day. Like any orbit with an inclination high enough to cover 43 degrees, it will visit that spot roughly twice a day on 1 to 3 subsequent orbital revolutions, depending on the altitude of the orbit.