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Comment Re:So what? (Score 1) 117

Oh? There are a lot of laws. Are you sure? You don't even get to know about all of them. There are secret executive orders, things like the Invention Secrecy Act, Defense Production Act, and good old intimidation. Or do you think the telecoms engaged in all that illegal spying because they really loved detective novels?

Comment Re:\o/ (Score 1) 117

the Pentagon said the Chinese military sought to acquire advanced technologies and expertise developed by Chinese companies, universities and research programs that "appear to be civilian entities."

?

Every military does this. They'd be stupid not to. The US military has been doing it since the US became a thing, which is admittedly a lot less time than the Chinese have been. The US government can even make inventions disappear:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment Re:So what? (Score 1) 117

How many American companies are required by US Government to routinely supply said Government with all the information it wants without even involving the courts?

Depends what you mean. Every company with a government contract pretty much has to do that. There are certainly some that are secretly forced to do so as well:

https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying

Do you count secret courts?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment Re:Does Anyone Know? (Score 1) 71

Radar altimeters on satellites are accurate to about 25 mm for a single measurement. They make a lot of measurements, and averaging them gives much better accuracy.

Tide gauges are very accurate but sample more sparsely in space. Even so, we have a lot of them spread around the world and you can correct them with e.g. GPS for changes in the land.

Both types of measurement are averaged over many many measurements over both space and time. Averaging smooths out both technical measurement error and short term or local variations like wind.

Comment Re:Is anyone really surprised? (Score 1) 148

Sure. The US government's first thought when they put up the GPS constellation was how to keep others from using it. Their second thought was shit, this thing is pretty easy to jam, how do we stop other people from preventing us from using it? They and the Russians were thinking up and testing anti-satellite weapons long before that.

I also don't think it's likely this is purposely a jamming system. You don't test your secret weapon by pressing the button a couple times every Wednesday year after year until someone notices.

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