Quote from: Blackstar on 08/30/2016 04:16 pmMore info to be declassified on this subject soon.It's probably not what you had in mind by declassification and not exactly about the 1960s, but The Intercept has published an article about Menwith Hill, a NSA base in the UK, with plenty of information on the current high-altitude ELINT satellites:https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/There are interesting link at the end of the article, including:https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3089495/pages/MHS-collection-assets-p1-normal.gif
More info to be declassified on this subject soon.
There are interesting link at the end of the article, including:https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3089495/pages/MHS-collection-assets-p1-normal.gif
Quote from: gosnold on 09/06/2016 06:19 pmThere are interesting link at the end of the article, including:https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3089495/pages/MHS-collection-assets-p1-normal.gifThat is the more interesting of the two
There are some very unhappy people at numerous three letter agencies right now
Whoever did the redacting on these I can understand them blanking out parts of the satellite and their operational capabilities, but their names as well?
Quote from: gosnold on 09/06/2016 06:19 pmQuote from: Blackstar on 08/30/2016 04:16 pmMore info to be declassified on this subject soon.It's probably not what you had in mind by declassification and not exactly about the 1960s, but The Intercept has published an article about Menwith Hill, a NSA base in the UK, with plenty of information on the current high-altitude ELINT satellites:https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/There are interesting link at the end of the article, including:https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3089495/pages/MHS-collection-assets-p1-normal.gifGreat find - this document and the article provide a strong link between PAN and the ominous NEMESIS high orbit SIGINT satellite, which was mentioned in leaked budget documents. I guess, that makes then CLIO a candidate for the NEMESIS-2 satellite.
Quote from: Skyrocket on 09/06/2016 07:44 pmQuote from: gosnold on 09/06/2016 06:19 pmQuote from: Blackstar on 08/30/2016 04:16 pmMore info to be declassified on this subject soon.It's probably not what you had in mind by declassification and not exactly about the 1960s, but The Intercept has published an article about Menwith Hill, a NSA base in the UK, with plenty of information on the current high-altitude ELINT satellites:https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/There are interesting link at the end of the article, including:https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3089495/pages/MHS-collection-assets-p1-normal.gifGreat find - this document and the article provide a strong link between PAN and the ominous NEMESIS high orbit SIGINT satellite, which was mentioned in leaked budget documents. I guess, that makes then CLIO a candidate for the NEMESIS-2 satellite.Do you mean they are likely one & the same thing, because this sounds like COMINT rather than SIGINT. Orion is SIGINT.
I consider COMINT a subset of SIGINT.
Quote from: Skyrocket on 09/10/2016 09:32 pmI consider COMINT a subset of SIGINT.Yes, generally SIGINT includes COMINT and ELINT. There was also a category called TELINT, for telemetry intelligence, but I don't know if that term is really used anymore. I suspect that there is a fair amount of blur between these categories. For instance, if you were to intercept images being sent via Facebook, is that COMINT? What about communications hidden in the images? The spooks probably have lots of different subcategories.
Quote from: Blackstar on 09/11/2016 12:51 amQuote from: Skyrocket on 09/10/2016 09:32 pmI consider COMINT a subset of SIGINT.Yes, generally SIGINT includes COMINT and ELINT. There was also a category called TELINT, for telemetry intelligence, but I don't know if that term is really used anymore. I suspect that there is a fair amount of blur between these categories. For instance, if you were to intercept images being sent via Facebook, is that COMINT? What about communications hidden in the images? The spooks probably have lots of different subcategories.TELINT is now called FISINT (Foreign Instrumentation Signals INTelligence) - but these areas have become indeed rather blurred, especially since most communications are now digital.
Very interesting. I've seen you quote that 25 year rule before, but there does seem to be some flexibility in it as little bits and pieces have started appearing about the KH-11 in recent years and that's still in use.
I would argue that understanding what optical satellites do is pretty straight forward. SIGINT is not, and the reason they are dragging feet as much as possible is telling how they work lets people understand and counter it. You kind of know if something can or can not be seen from space and if you should or could hide it ... but if you don't know something is emitting critical data, you can not mask it.
The Soviets evidently did know about the SIGNIT program because during the 80s, they switched to using landline cables for communication which could not be read by a satellite.