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Live via Satellite: NATO Aerial Surveillance Video
Factomatic writes "The BBC is reporting 'NATO surveillance flights in the Balkans are beaming their pictures over an insecure satellite link - and anyone can tune in and watch their operations live.' All you need is a satellite dish. John Locker tapped into the NATO aerial surveillance feed over the Balkans from England and has been e-mailing, faxing and calling NATO since November to get them to fix the problem. NATO denies it is a problem at all. I wonder if this would work in Afghanistan, too?" No, the article notes that Afghanistan is taking up all the secure communications bandwidth, and operations in the Balkans are getting kicked over to unencrypted channels. We ran an older story about the military's growing bandwidth crunch.
how long until somebody starts a webstream of this stuff? that'll beat webcams any day of the week.
It won't be on for long. It's ratings are horrible.
... because they're bogus feeds designed to throw someone off?
If you paid taxes during the cold war, you ended up supporting terrorism. What's your point?
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
My question to NATO is: Why are any of the feeds not secure to begin with? Shouldn't all they have implemented all secure transmissions from the get-go?
At last, some real competition to Rupert Murdoch's crappy satellite-based PayTV service!
Now if they can just get a good looking weather-babe the military might be on a winner here!
Surely they could buy a $1000 PC at each end and do: /dev/video_capture | mpeg_encode | unexportable_munition_software <secret-key> | /dev/satellite_modem
cat
and: /dev/satellite_modem | unexportable_munition_software <secret-key> | mpeg_decode | /dev/video_out
cat
Now showing on satellite TV: secret American spy photos
Encryption is a munition, remember?
--Patrick
I taped that BBC interview and they had included the feeds in their little piece. Most of the footage seemed to be from an airplane looking at an acute angle downwards at road traffic like trucks - perhaps it was from a satellite but the camera seemed to move laterally in both directions. I've never seen a satellite feed but the shots seemed to come from a shaky airplane than a satellite in orbit. I have to admit I'm skeptical that these are true feeds. I honestly think it's misinformation. The quality of the footage was much better than the public ever sees in those press conferences, as if they were begging for the "enemy" to use the feeds. In fact, it seemed much better than the footage from helicopters during police chases. On second thought...maybe this is high quality military grade stuff:-)
At least they're voluntary. Anything vital is still secure. I mean who wants to watch the decimination of food to poor people? So what they'll show is some simple peacekeeping missions, nothing's in danger really. But really.. with the money we spend on them, they could stand to get some more secure channels.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
that because the Balkans are relatively "stable" now, that NATO just doesn't care if someone's watching? Milosevic is on trial in the Netherlands, there aren't mass riots against right-wing government candidtates (eg. LePen in France), and while their economy isn't anything near that of mainstream Europe, they're not starving in lines or causing problems, either (Even Quaddafi learned to keep quiet back in '86). Granted, this whole Afghanistan thing has got to be chewing up a lot of satellite space, but I really doubt it's eating *all* of it. Especially when you think about how many satellites are up there (Take the ones we know about, then double or triple to taste to count for the ones we don't)
I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
"Ah, here's an interesting little number... This is a live feed from a 'bunker buster' bomb. If there's a Mr. S.H. of Baghdad listening, call now to pledge $50 million or this little beauty will turn up on the front steps of your presidential palace..."
dan
Of course, this could all be avoided if he knew "how not to be seen..."
Let me clarify the lateral movement. It didn't seem like intended movement by a camera operator but unintended jitter.
The BBC is broadcasting the report on BBC News24
Live news stream hereThe report is being shown approx every hour
I think someone is going to be in trouble
well doesn't matter if it's broadcast to the world if it's in real video format, i mean c'mon how much info can be gleamed from a 20 pixel by 20pixel box?
ahh, the egg in the basket..
The article makes it clear in the first sentence: Nato surveillance flights in the Balkans are beaming their pictures over an insecure satellite link - and anyone can tune in and watch their operations live.
It's that old butter versus weapons argument again. Now let's see if the military needs bandwidth or anything else and I have to forgo in order for them to go... then I forgo. The US military didn't purchase their bandwidth from Enron did they?
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
And what did the evil dewers say when they were able to tap into this? All your base are belong to us!
That's what they get for using WEP...
You: Senator, why did my tax money support terrorism?
Senator: I have no knowledge of that fact.
You: Is it not true that currently TV shows are running commercials claiming that drugs support terrorism?
Senator: That would be true.
You: Well, says that my taxes, taxes which you helped passed went to support Afgan freedom fighters who later became terrorist to us.
Senator: Umm.
You: Therefore if this is true, should I not stop paying taxes since they went to support terrorist?
Senator: umm... umm.. umm. Your un American!
Reserved Word.
"Gee, Bob, ever since we started streaming those NATO satellite images over the web, our traffic has increased over 700%!"
..uh... think it means we'd better buy up m..m..mmore bandwidth... and pray the website doesn't go down."
"Hmm, looks like most of the traffic is coming from... Afghanistan, Serbia, Somalia, and Pakistan. In fact, that's where *all* of the traffic is coming from. What do you think it means, Phil?"
*Phil suddenly turns very pale and starts shaking and sweating*
"I
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
a government poll taken after the campaign against drugs using the "your supporting terrorism if you buy drugs" showed that the beginning stages of drug use had gone up 30%, not to mention our government shelled out over 2 billion dollars on the adds , paying for a professional director, and then airing them nonstop for several months. Maybe its me but i think its about time we legalized something
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
We ran an older story about the military's growing bandwidth crunch.
I guess if you get drafted it gives new meaning to the phrase "Will work for bandwidth?"
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
I worked in satellite communications in the army for 8 years. This story is hard to believe. Everything I worked on in the Army was encrypted up to 3 different times before it was transmitted to the satellite. Even GI's phone calls to their wifes were encrypted. There was an bulk encryption stage after the voice to digital encoding/multiplexing. This stream was fed into a data multiplexer and multiplexed with incoming data circuits. The output of that multiplexer was encyrpted again. The other incoming data circuits were probably already encrypted when they got to us. This is all before anything is modulated so it's not like they can't encrypt the data because they are using civilian satellites.
It's either counter-intelligence stuff or just real stupid.
I've got a C-band dish... so where can these feeds be found? W4/24? C7/8?
--
I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
Maybe this is the C-SPAN for the military. 24/7 surveillance footage of Eruope!
But, even the "simple" case may not be as simple as you think. It depends on how hard-wired their comms centres are, and how inventive the tech support people are. We can only speculate ...
And don't forget the "organizational" issues. I can imagine conversations like this.
SigInt guy: I need to run crypto XYZ over this unencrypted link. ...sigh... How do I solve my problem then?
...click...
Crypto guy: We cannot allow that.
SigInt guy: Why not??
Crypto guy: You don't have "need to know".
SigInt guy:
Crypto guy:
Maybe what they broadcast are fake operations to confuse adversaries?
Hmmm... I don't think so; the interested party also run radars, and knows his territory as well. It's hard to fool them that way.
So where's the NATO Wish List?
I wanna see the good stuff.
I think the government should pass a law that good folks who point out security vulnerabilities in the government's stuff get a huge reward... I'm talking something in the seven digit range, not including decimal places. It would be an amount like 3,001,526.72. (Kind of like the $271 fine for running a red light--why 271, as opposed to a round number?) Then, if you suggest how they might fix the problem, you get another 5 million or so (or a lifetime supply of Negra Modelo, at your option), even if they don't take your suggestion. And furthermore, if the vulnerability isn't fixed within 24 hours, you get an additional 10 million or so, and written permission to f*ck with the systems that contain the vulnerability, as a punishment to the government for its negligence.
Hey, the government punishes people when they do stuff against the government. It should punish itself for doing stuff against the people. That's only fair. This program would be given a short and coherent name like the the Government Computer Systems Security and Vulnerability Repair and Rewards Act.
Oooooooooooooooh well.
An acquaintence in NASA once told me all of the satellites he's worked on for NASA (3 of them at the time) were controlled via unencrypted communications. They felt secure with this "security through obscurity" because it's a little harder to actually transmit the commands up to the satellite than it is to simply put up a BUD and start listening to all the data streams out there.
Might this not be NATO trying to get into the entertainment industry?
(after all, how else can new members pay for their new defense expenditures?)
.
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My hotel in Bangalore has the "worldwide" CNN and BBCNews, but they both loop after about an hour. I've seen this story about three times now with live footage. The worst part is that the footage also contains the aircraft's location. It's just silly that the live footage isn't encrypted at all. I mean, how hard could it be?
Of course, if it started to look like fighting was imminent, and the short term knowledge of what NATO saw or missed during yesterday's flight becomes dangerous information, then I would expect then I would expect NATO to secure the video feed, or perhaps even at any point when a few more fighting words than usual were emerging from Serbia.
What VCD group is encoding and releasing this? What's the quality? It's not on vcdquality.com for some reason.
So far I think Bush has done a good job on the American side of things when it comes to this current war on terrorism. He is keeping all live feeds out of the loop and not letting anyone know what is going to happen next which was his fathers mistake during Desert Storm.
Sun Tzu preached in all his teachings about war, that knowing your enemey and knowing yourself would result in countless victories. Yet these teachings seems to have been disregarded over the course of 2000 years. They are still legitimate.
If there is the potential of a leak or a security hole, there should be no denial of it but an active investigation on to why it is allowing this to happen. It is the equivalent to having a security hole in your OS yet denying its existence yet it seems to be getting taken advantage of. It is slow death. You can't let the enemy know what you are doing.
This just seems like a hard story to believe yet if true is beyond silly. Oh well, I am not a military leader, I just base this off common sense and a few books. (i.e. Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Art of War II)
~Char Lander
Brothers and sisters I have none, but this mans father is my fathers son
Satellites broadcast to anyone on their path, so anyone with a small budget and some spare time can toy around with them -but crypto is the hard part.
.wav for processing.
A beginner's shopping list:
- A PC-controlled ICOM PCR-1000 SSB receiver ($300)
- A turnstile or better, double-helix antenna ($150)
- Satellite tracking software to know when to listen (eg NovaWin from Northern Lights Software, $60)
- Frequency lists, grab them on the web.
Plug the receiver's audio out into your soundcard's audio in, and voila ! save transmissions as
http://www.gravitywell.org/ is a good example.
Have fun!
Denis the menace
The Goelette Project
The video or though not visible on the streamcast but visible on my TV (BBC) are overlayed with a fine transparent Airscan text logo which a quick google turned turned up a "Airborne Surveillance Security" company based in Murrell Road, Rockledge, FLorida
presumably its their equipment/responsibility/fault as they seem to be a 3rd party contractor for the US Army/Security, below is taken from their About page
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
AirScan was created in 1989 to provide airborne surveillance security for US Air Force launch facilities. During seven years of surveillance missions, AirScan supported every mission on time. AirScan has in-depth knowledge of the space launch program and the vital service airborne surveillance provides in supporting this program. Sensor aircraft equipped with infrared, TV, LIDAR, and multispectral and hyperspectral sensors operated by experienced crews using innovative tactics combine to form a responsive, dedicated airborne surveillance operation. The result is proven capability based on operational expertise, thorough planning, and carefully chosen mission objectives.
Over the years, AirScan has greatly expanded its capabilities to perform a wide range of airborne surveillance missions. We are currently conducting surveillance and remote sensing missions in Africa, Europe, and throughout the US in support of diverse governmental and private projects. We also remain under contract to NASA and the US Air Force in support of the space and missile programs. AirScan is under contract to the National Response Corporation to respond to any major oil spill in US inland or coastal waters. We also conduct maritime surveillance, ground security, wildlife surveys, research and development, and aircraft modifications and systems integration.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
So is this their fault or the Armys or both ?
- If you buy drugs you're providing justification for the 'war on drugs'
- The 'war on drugs' has resulted in US money being paid directly to terrorist organisations in Columbia, Afghanistan and South America.
QED: If you buy drugs, you're supporting terrorisim. The conclusion is logically sound.455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
was here Google's Cache is still here.
UK Laptops
It makes absolutely no sense to talk about "secure communications bandwidth".
According to the guy they interviewed last night about this (someone from the US army), the planes send their surveillance to a ground station, which then sends the data to Virginia (?) via an encrypted link. The surveillance footage is analysed in Virginia, and then anything rated unclassified is sent back unencrypted; the implication being that anything rated classified is sent back encrypted.
Since (I guess) anything rated unclassified is probably available to anyone anyway, this means that this whole story is a storm in a teacup.
No suprises there then!
Previously in the Balkans, the Uk troops couldn't afford encrypted radios. The soultion to this was to employ troops from one on the Welsh regements as radio operators. They chatted away in the Welsh language as a means of "security".
Thus, the fact that NATO can't set up a secure sattelite link dosn't suprise me in the least!
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
They are letting us see the Balkans so that people are less interested in seeing what's going on in Afghanistan. They've set up a honey pot. Or at the very least, they really want to hide what's going on in Afghanistan. I wonder what they consider the security threat model to be from a bunch of desert nomads with a lot of plastique and too much time on their hands?
Why bother.
Awww are you upset because I called you stupid. Maybe you should watch the video again to hear where they mention the airplanes over and over and over.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
Yeah, so let's help them out with that bandwidth crunch by /.ing their servers... :)
Nato broadcasting this stuff in the clear is proof that military intelligence is a contradiction. Their claim that the footage shows nothing the enemy can use is the kind of arrogance that causes the west to get caught with it's pants down every time terrorists strike.
How ya like dat?
This isn't any different than the Americans using the native Cherokee language during WW2 to throw off the Germans :)
I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
I wouldn't suppose Bush's ties to the oil industry (and thus Osama Bin Ladin) explained in detail in a recent issue of High Times magazine means that if you drive a gas-powered car you support terrorism...
2 billion dollars? I wish George "Dubbi" Bush would get a clue.
-EvilMonkeyNinja
Mild Mannered Host by Day
Wild Hammered Programmer by Night
Check this out: http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID =189&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0
:(
This site has stills and videos. Unfortunately I cannot get the videos to work. Looks like they may be some kind of Windows Media Player format
--Jon
Think about it. What better way to keep the peace than to prove that you're watching?
Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
If the USA not #1, then who is? China, EU, Russia?
Someone has to be #1.
First the barracks are coed
second the when I was in the army there wasn't a handful of wome I wanted to see naked (shudder)
Third In every barracks I ever lived in there was some sort of wierd jamming field in place that made it so that nothing wireless worked unless it was in the same room as the base. no radio, no pagers, no cordless phones, no....(etc)
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
than one of the most effective way to win a war is: - to know your enemies and to give your enemies guided/controlled/manipulated/(all you can think about) informations
The Balkan's dog of war and his goons are sitting in a jail in Den Haag. A domestic government is chasing the rest of them. A domestic army is loyal to a new president who has no such genocidal, mad ideas like the prevouis one.. Who, in your opinion, exactly is the enemy in Balkans ? In newspapers read some articles sometimes, on political conditions over there. The war is over in Balkans, three years ago.
It was the Navaho, and they were used in the Pacific theater, not Europe. Their language is particular problematic to translate or learn.
"The Code Book" by Simon Singh has a good chapter about this.
I believe the Cherokee were considered but not used. The need in the Pacific theater was primarily for extremely rapid encryption of transmissions by forward air controllers for strikes, and for whatever reason this was not a tactical need in the European theater.