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Falun Gong Hacks Chinese Satellite
maetenloch writes: "Last week Falun Gong hackers in China were able to briefly take over the Sinosat-1 satellite and broadcast a banner for several minutes on all channels of China Central Television. This was apparently repeated several time on different channels on Sunday but so far the Chinese government has imposed a news blackout on the incident. However thanks to the Internet and the millions of witnesses, word has leaked out. Surprisingly, security on satellites can be very weak - often transponders are left on when not active and will continue to rebroadcast whatever is beamed at them. It's believed that Falun Gong used a 3 meter dish antenna mounted on a vehicle to overpower the government's uplink signal. This is not the only time that satellite signals have been hacked - there was the famous 'Captain Midnight' incident in 1986 and it's believed that Iraq has been attacking Kurdish satellite tv channels for several years. Hackers have even (discreetly) made use of the U.S. Navy's FleetSatCom satellites."
Whatever you think of Falun Gong vs. The Chinese Government, you've got to admit that this is a cool hack. The kind of thing you used to see in 'futuristicky' 1980's sci-fi movies.
Moments like this, along with the Anthrax outbreak last year, are beginning to define socio-political conflict in the 21st Century.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
The government has been cracking down on this supposedly spiritual movement. This would surely stoke the fire even more.
I don't why they would want to do this. This is hardly a good public relations move. Smells like a childish prank by some teenagers.
No doubt the most of the Falun Gonger's are mortified by now.
With the internet now readily available in Beijing, it's very difficult for the ChiComs to keep news like this from the general public. I seems to me at first glance that tricks like this could be a good way to undermine a particular government's confidence in it's "right" to rule. Similar stunts all put together over many years time (e.g. Boston Tea Party) have worked in the past...
Error: Success
Friends of Falun Gong
The Falun Gong take on the story is here:
Revealing Broadcasts Are Truly Serving the People-- From the Editors of FalunInfo.net: Falun Gong Practitioners Risk their Lives to Tell the Truth
If you would like to help out the cause, there is a page about it here:
Become a Friend- Alleviate the Suffering, End the Injustice
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
s/websites/things
Are we very sure they weren't trying to signal AMSAT-OSCAR 7 and just missed?
Never confuse volume with power.
From what (little) I know about Falun Gong, hacking a satellite doesn't sound like something they'd do, since it's much more likely to be illegal than a sit-down type protest, and MUCH more likely to bring the jackboots down on them.
I'm inclined to think it was some other band of kiddiez that just wanted a good cover for their actions, like the "Hacked By Chinese" incidents from last year.
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Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Try "Civil Rights Activists", and before you rail at me for being some so-called militant leftist, why don't you actually research the recent government reaction to the Falung Gong movement in China.
So I guess you see nothing wrong with the civil rights violations associated with the chinese government. As long as it's not agains their laws.
Since you said you're an American, don't you realize that you're an American only because some TERRORISTS back in the 1700's decided to BREAK THE LAW and rebel against their government?
Funny, what do you think happened during our war of independence? Surely all of our soldiers in the war were terrorists. I'm sure had the events taken place a few hundred years later you would see us doing similar things as you see here.
The problem is that no clear-cut definition of what a terrorist is exists at this point. I call upon the US and International bodies to come up with a clear, accurate, definition of what a terrorist is. Otherwise, every common criminal (or accused person) could be labelled a terrorist and end up losing their rights granted by the constitution.
What?
I doubt they will be branded as terrorists, since no harm or threat was caused by this prank. However, the government will be in its rights to question every FG member, and maybe arrest a lot of them for participation in this deed.
But the more FG does what it just did, the clearer it becomes for the West that FG is indeed what Chinese government claimed all along - an army of militants, not a health club. The hack of a satellite falls into territory of sabotage and propaganda, something that health clubs don't do.
Not true... I was using circa 1970 equipment in the mid 90's when I was doing satellite control/operations.
Are the Falun terrorists for "hijacking" Chinese TV? Or are they rebels in a quest against the evil empire?
Insofar as they aren't practicing any actual form of terror, I'm going to vote "not terrorist."
To the best of my knowledge, they aren't...
I think, at worst, you could call them an insurgent organization. But in my book, no terror = no terrorism - and popping "falun gong is good" on the telly signal for a few seconds is not "terror" by any definition I've ever heard.
I fear that this incident will prove highly counter-productive to Fa Lun Gong.
For the Chinese man on the street, who might not sympathize with Fa Lun Gong (many that I know don't), an act like this marks them as trouble-makers who have clearly gone beyond passive resistance.
For the Chinese government, this incident allows them to go to the American government and claim that Fa Lun Gong is a bunch of religious cyber-terrorists. An excuse to crack down on illicit internet-cafes, rights of religious freedoms (they can claim that religion preaches terrorism), and hackers in general (ala US-styled counter-cyber-terrorism proposals).
For American policy makers, this seems similar to Al-Qaeda cyber-terrorism scenarios, where a telecom disruption might occur concurrently with a physical attack, thus disrupting the C4 capabilities of the emergency support teams.
Get real. This isn't like in "Hackers" or "Johny Mnemonic" where the good guy hackers hack TV to expose The Man.
Patiwat Panurach
patiwat@sloan.mit.edu
By that defenition, the self bombing palestenians who are resisting the
israeli occupation are NOT terrorists but freedom fighters. Do I read you
correctly?
I've not read the parent... but I'll just comment on Falungong anyway. I have no respect for them.
They lie about being the ones to develop qigong (which has been around for thousands of years)
They use spirituality to promote their own political agenda.
And, what makes me the most mad, their leader hides out in NY while he has his followers in China gettings themselves killed (both by burning themselves and pulling stunts like this)
I'd call it a personality cult.
Oh -- and they have no political plan that's viable. This, in my opinion, is very irresponsible and dangerous. Many millions of people would die should there be revolution in china. many millions more would die if there wasn't a VERY strong government after the revolution.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
They could be seen as both. So could the Israeli soldiers who storm through Palestenian villages be seen as terrorists or "enforcers of law and order". It all depends on who is writing the book.
Despite what GW Bush would like us to think, rarely is it the case where a person is "pure evil" or "pure good". It all depends on whos perspective you are looking from.
IMO, the definition of "Terrorist" is not "Using crime to make yourself heard", but "Using crime to create fear and TERROR." - A key part of the word TERRORist.
Terrorists use violence to make themselves heard, not generic crime.
Using crime to make yourself heard is either simply immature (generic vandalism), or is activism (The civil rights movement, a key part of which was civil disobedience.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
All the idjits who whine about "1984" in the US aren't paying attention to the country where there's a good chance of it really happening.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
No, it doesn't, you putz.
No one called Martin Luther King, Jr. a terrorist. That's because he didn't attack and/or kill civilians while fighting for civil rights.
This is something that left-wing, anti-American pinheads purposely obfuscate: TERRORISTS ARE TERRORISTS BECAUSE THEY INTENTIONALLY ATTACK CIVILIANS TO ADVANCE A POLITICAL AGENDA.
Bullshit all you want to wiggle around this definition, but it's true.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Don't be fooled by Falun Gong. They hide behind their sham-of-a-religion to promote an overthrow of the current government. Their leader is a coward and a phony who should be dragged out and shot.
Let's hear it for President Jiang Zemin, everyone! Give him a big hand! Isn't he great?
You need to read Stratfor, and maybe some Foreign Affairs magazine.
Fulan Gong originally had no political aspirations at all. Mostly just a self help group drawing on an odd collection of Chinese cultural traditions.
But then the communist gov't decided there were too many of them (and a huge number of them were party officials themselves) and decided to repress them.
All attempts to change the opinion of the Chinese gov't have failed, leaving the multitudes of followers with a choice:
1. Disappear
2. Foster regime change
Since most members were part of the emerging middle class it is not surprising to see the kind of sophisticated hacking taking place. At least one hacking team has been caught and disappeared into the Chinese prison system. Which just shows that this group is far more sophisticated and robust than any had thought. They must have several teams out there. They are not just hacking satellites either- but also hijacking cables.
Most of the attacks have taken place in North Eastern China- The Rust Belt of China. This area has the highest unemployment of the Nation, and has seen many demonstrations against the Gov't in the past several years. Again, this shows the sophistication of the group's planners and reveals their goal: change the gov't to one that will allow for freedom of expression and religion.
As for comments by people calling them zealots and criminals, I'd take this lot over the lot of Zealots and criminals that has been running China for the past 50+ years any day!
China is a great place (lived in Taiwan and Asia for 5 years), but the communists have done tremendous damage to Chinese culture (most notably during the Cultural Revolution)
Does that help you understand?
I'll just start my own game wittily named "soccer" and pretend it's different...
:-p
Well, you have to admit this does have other possibilities. Perhaps Chuck Barris should be contacted to see if he'd like to host the Falun Gong Show...
(I wonder if I'm going to lose karma points for that one...)
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
The chinese openly admit to censorship, restrictions on individual rights, etc.
Here in the US, we are every bit as much a police state as china is, however we claim to be the freest place on earth. (richest sure, but the freedom is an illusion)
Here we curtail civil liberties in "defense of freedom". Here we have a working massive fingerprint database, and a credit database that says if you are a good person or not, which furthermore you cannot argue against.
Our government has huge monitoring systems which silently listen to communications all over the world combing for information.
We have a War department that is called "The Dept. of Defense" which has been waging nearly perpetual war for 50 years across the globe.
We have huge witchhunts for the enemy of the day "communists" "child molesters" "terrorists".
The scariest thing is that it all arises without rigid central control: we censor ourselves to further our careers.
The doublethink in the USA is getting pretty scary.
I doubt this was a computer hack, just a RF hack.
I am assuming that the Chinese are using a simple analog transmission over the transponder without any CA (conditional access/security).
If you have a big enough dish and enough power, you could get the transponder to lock to your carrier and get rebroadcast. The picture would look crappy, but it can be done.
There's no great defense against it other than implementing a secured digital transmission system where the IRDs (integrated receiver/demodualtors) do not have analog reception capability.
All the Falun Gong needed was an Earth Station anywhere in Asia that could see the bird and was willing to transmit. I doubt it was done from inside China. They'd know where all the 5+ meter dishes are in China and who was working them.
Information warfare of this type has a bit of a financial barrier to overcome to engage in, but once on the offensive, it is quite tough to defend against. The Soviet Union and Cuba were unable to stop the US radio and TV propaganda broadcasts throughout the cold war, no matter how much they spent.
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
USA PATRIOT defines domestic terrorism as activities that attempt "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion".
Dictionary.com defines "coerce" thus: By that definition, Falun Gong are terrorists. So are all of us that marched on federal buildings attempting to use "pressure" to "compel" the DOJ to free Dmitry. Which serves as a good example of one of the many things that are wrong with USA PATRIOT.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the terrorist party?
ehintz
Sounds like somebody from the Blue Cube, the USAF Satellite Control Center in Sunnyvale, CA. That place had the Technology that Put Men On the Moon, the same Philco green-screen consoles that NASA Houston used for Apollo. The computers were UNIVAC and Control Data mainframes from the same period. That old gear was used into the 1990s. The upgrade project in the 1980s ("let's put it all on an IBM mainframe") didn't work, but finally, in the 1990s, control was moved to UNIX boxes and to a USAF base elsewhere.
So do we--you've heard of the Constitution and the bill of rights, no? In the interest of protecting individual rights and freedoms, we repress other individual rights. Freedom is no illusion, it is a careful, careful balance. The difference is that I can go to court and challenge _any_ law that I perceive to be too restrictive, and I can win! It happens every day. Some might argue that the system's out of whack right now, but...
scariest thing is that it all arises without rigid central control
Exactly! It's brilliant! We control the extent to which our freedoms are suppressed, sometimes in the interest of safety, sometimes because of FUD, but always because we have chosen. And no doubt, the pendulum swings a little extreme one way, we see the error of our ways, and it swings back too far the other way. It's just human nature.
waging nearly perpetual war for 50 years
Rome went to war much longer--was it a police state? So did Britain--police state? You digress here, methinks.
BTW, I've been to some peaceful demonstrations, in our nation's capital and other places, and no tanks and soldiers have ever shown up, shot large numbers of peaceful demonstrators, and covered the numbers up. That kind of thing just can't happen here; part of the beauty of our system is that horrible things like Kent State can happen and be displayed by the media, to become a forum for the public to discuss for the next hundred years. How did the public discussion go in the People's Republic after that little incident in the Square? There are some bad trends in the US right now, but I do NOT think you can draw similarities between the States and China.
Banner advertising is _SO_ 2000.
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