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Comment by mrandish | Hacker News Reader

I doubt it was to get a day of cell phone intercepts since it would be far easier and stealthier for China simply send a Stingray-type device to one of their thousands of industrial espionage agents already operating in the U.S. to drive it around in a van in whatever area and time period they are targeting. In fact, I suspect they (and others) already do that.

I think the purpose for sending the balloon was primarily to analyze the radar and RF environment on approach to U.S. airspace. The secondary purpose may have been as a test to see how and how quickly we would respond to the provocation.

We may not learn much from the wreckage as I suspect we'll find a lot of wide-band software defined radio gear which already uploaded its recorded data via satellite and wiped its software.

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The radar and RF on approach might make sense. I just don't see how a provocation test makes any sense though. It is hardly like America is not willing to use military force.

Really, a mistake on the part of China feels like the Occam's razor explanation to me.

It is just very hard to see the risk/reward calculation to do this intentionally with spy networks both on the ground and in space.

True, although from up there you can collect a lot more than on the ground of course. The US does the same thing over international waters off China.

The other concern would be if it has jamming capabilities, you can jam an earth station pretty easily from a balloon and effectively blind our satellites.

Even if there is wreckage, you can tell if there is offensive signal equipment like that.

> The US does the same thing over international waters off China.

That's a good observation. Maybe the simplest explanation is China's "force majeure" claim was "true" and this was a wayward airship that was supposed to have transited the US west coast and Mexico or Latin America. Just like U.S. observational activities in international waters, just a little more invasive. Thus, when the military mentions they are tracking a similar balloon over Latin America-- what they mean is they know this balloon was intended to follow a different route too.

I suspect Hanlon's razor is operational here. China uses those things off in international waters all the time, the fact that this one almost perfectly followed the jet stream seems to indicate it may have had a malfunction of its propulsion system and it drifted with the wind. When the US uses them in the China sea they have the advantage that if there is a malfunction it usually would drift safely West away from China.

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