I have a nephew that worked at Tesla as a software engineer for a couple years (he left about a year ago). I gave him the VIN to my Tesla and the amount of data he shared with me was crazy. He warned me that one of my brake lights was regularly logging errors. If their telemetry includes that sort of information then clearly they are logging a LOT of data.

Even if they don’t have any nukes that they developed themselves, there’s always the possibility they could’ve bought one or two from North Korea…

Changing a 120v line over to 240 is likely also against code even if the physical cable can handle it. 120V cable is typically white/black/green, and the electrical code prohibits using the white one as a hot leg. That’s why 240V cable of the same AWG is red/black/green. The red & black legs both carry 120V.

#1 is a terrible idea if you ever need to hire an electrician in the future, plan on selling your house, etc. The National Electric Code prohibits using white, green, or grey wire for a hot/load connection. The 120V cable will contain a black wire for the hot connection, white for neutral, and green for ground. To properly convert it to 240V you would need a cable that consists of black & red wires for the two 120V legs.

If your home ever suffered an electrical fire then this sort of jury rigging is precisely the sort of thing any competent insurance inspector would spot, and insurance carriers would deny coverage for since it clearly isn’t code compliant, which means a licensed electrician didn’t install it and it wasn’t properly inspected.

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The NSA is already known to have tapped into the fiber optic lines at an AT&T datacenter back in the early 2000’s. That sort of tap would generate absolutely massive amounts of data.

If they did something like that 20+ years ago then the volume & analysis isn’t the issue. It’s whether or not they decide they need to perform mass surveillance of mobile devices.

No, but if somebody like the NSA comes along with a request to intercept a specific package, or even a bunch of packages then customs will gladly turn them over. As was posted elsewhere in this thread, NSA has been known to do this in targeted cases and installed software into routers etc. before returning them to customs for delivery.

So it truly depends on whether an organization like the NSA has you on their radar.

Doesn’t sound like he’s dead (yet). DA’s require removal from the gene pool.

Exactly. Look at a current US Navy ship like the USS Beloit and it has a reported draft of 14 feet. You’re going to want to launch a ship like that into deeper water than what it drafts so that it doesn’t bottom out and damage the hull.

It’s possible they’ve still been damaged enough to be unusable. Heat and/or shrapnel from those airplanes that burned could have easily caused damage that these satellites can’t see.

This is why they used small FPV drones and launched them just a few kilometers away. There was virtually no warning, and small low flying drones would be very difficult for any automated defensive system to detect in time.

I think the Russians also felt a false sense of security given how far these airbases are from Ukraine. They may have had defenses in place for larger drones flying all the way from Ukraine, but again, such a system would have difficulty with small drones flying at treetop level from a very short distance.

It’s not just a theory. The US military has confirmed that is what they are trying to do:

https://www.twz.com/air/russia-covering-its-aircraft-in-tires-is-about-befuddling-image-matching-seekers-u-s-military-confirms

Exactly. As a courtesy they might give trusted allies a few hours notice, or at least inform them when the op has started. But unless they needed the assistance of an ally in planning and preparing such an attack then informing anybody well ahead of time serves no useful purpose at all.

No. The sequel to that one.

Kind of makes me hope for a delayed reaction like the dam explosion in the movie Force 10 From Navarone.

I would love to see Ukraine trolling Russia with this.

Detonate an underwater charge that weakens one of the bridge supports. Wait while the Russians react, examine the bridge, etc.

A dozen or so hours later detonate another hidden underwater charge on another support a few hundred yards away.

Repeat the process after random delays until so many supports are weakened that the bridge collapses under its own weight.

This is the sort of op they would typically notify an ally of when it is actually imminent or just got started. If Biden was still in the White House my guess is he would have been given roughy 72 hours notice or less.

GPS and similar systems are extremely low power, meaning it’s trivial to jam them with a higher powered signal closer to potential targets. And you can easily counter multiple navigation systems by broadcasting over a wide range of frequencies.

Much better to augment radio navigation with inertial navigation, terrain mapping, etc.

Not to mention the high explosives used to trigger nuclear chain reactions degrades over time as well. There are lots of parts to a nuclear weapon that must be regularly maintained/replaced for the weapon to remain viable.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Ukraine over the past few years it’s that they are incredibly resourceful. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they have other novel attacks in various stages of planning. Of course they now have to wait and see how Russia changes their defenses as a result of this attack…