Spy in the sky: What tech is the US trying to hide?
dan tynan on Feb 18 2008 at 8:37 am | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, National insecurity
(This entry originally appeared in Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.)
This whole “shoot the spy satellite out of the sky and win a kewpie doll” story is more interesting than it first appeared.
It turns out Uncle Sam isn’t particularly worried about the satellite landing in somebody’s pool and/or spewing plutonium all over your neighborhood (”today’s little league game has been canceled because the coach has grown a second head”). It’s because the feds are worried about their high tech secrets falling into the hands of the commies evil-doers terrorists competition. Or so some believe.
Also: the Army’s got a big new shiny gun and they’re just itchin’ to fire it.
Russia and China are understandably nervous about having U.S. missles whizzing overhead. Whether you lean red or blue politically, you have to admit that we haven’t exactly been knocking the ball out of the park lately. Imagine your drunk nearsighted second cousin squatting in your backyard with a shotgun, trying to knock a hummingbird off a high-voltage wire. You might be a little nervous too.
So what is the high-tech secret they’re so worried about? Conspiracy theories abound. My take: They shot it up there running an early version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, and now they can’t get rid of that “Accept or Cancel” dialog box without blowing the damn thing up. Happens to my Vista laptop every other week.
