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The Search for Secret Shuttle Parts
Slashdot readers have been submitting this story about the search
for secret shuttle parts with all sorts of insane conspiracy theories attached to their cut & paste of the URL. It's apparently just the box that handled encryption for messages, so of course Uncle Sam wants it back. Quite the needle in a haystack tho.
If its for encryption, it probably uses the same technology/techniques that the DOD uses and probably also has military secrets which shoudln't "fall into the wrong hands".
Spy novelists are salivating right now with such story line.
I imagine that what the government is worried about is someone using this device to impersonate shuttle control from the ground. A terrorist's dream...if the shuttle ever flies again, that is.
If the government doens't know of any flaws in AES, Blowfish, RSA, etc., then why would they bother using a "top secret" crypto box instead of just the publicly available algorithms?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
people would have learned by now that putting "Secret Government Property" on a box is not a good idea. Write "Spectrographic Differential Analyzer" on it and everybody will just think that it's a really boring and useless piece of scientific equipment and leave it alone.
That is pure dogma. The biggest enemy of security is dogma in place of thought.
The Germans had good reason to use security through obscurity. At the time there were NO ciphers available that were not vulnerable to analysis. It would not have taken an insane amount of additional computing power to break the allied codes. They were only slightly better by modern standards.
The enigma codes were broken in part because the Allies captured several enigma machines and code books. But the Germans knew that it was likely that this would happen. The Enigma system had been designed to be resistant to such attacks. It failed because it had one non obvious flwa - a letter never encrybecpted to itself and the operators were indisciplined.
The reason that security through obscurity is bad is it leads to complacency. But it is not the only way people can become complacent. As recently as 1992 I was arguing with UNIX sysadmins on comp.sys.computing that shaddow passowrds were necessary for UNIX since crack etc. were a real threat. Oh no came the reply you are ignorant, you don't understand, you are promoting security through obscurity.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
No "escape pods" are attached to ISS. One Soyuz craft, capable of ferrying down 3 people, is docked at the station. Russia is obligated to swap out that Souz every 6 months.
Russia also uses their unmanned Progress craft to send up small amounts of supplies on a regular basis, and to remove some of the station's waste. The craft then burns up on re-entry.
Using the Russian craft effectively limits the station's capabilities. Since the Soyuz is the only way to get the crew off the station in an emergency, that means no more than 3 people can be onboard, which is about one-half the intended crew complement, I believe. Fewer people means fewer results.
The cargo-capacity of Progress, only a small fraction of the Shuttle's, is simply insufficient to resupply the station in the long term.
And, of course, remember that tthe station is not yet complete. Only the Shuttle can do that job.
Don't forget that the Shuttle's intended design was crippled by the Nixon Administration's budget crew and that, ever since, the U.S. has been operating a human space flight program that manages to combine lack of direction (no President since Kennedy has provided even an ounce of space leadership) with rigidity and feigned purpose.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I suppose it's a good thing for the US government that the crash happened on home territory. When landing, the shuttle passes first over a great deal of sea (Pacific Ocean) and then lots of US soil.
Imagine a scenario where the geographical circumstances would not be so favourable and the parts of the shuttle would have fallen and crashed into another (perhaps less friendly) country. Would the US kidly ask for the debris to be returned, or would they engage into a secret undercover recovery operation in order to retrieve these top secret components?
What if this operation would have to be so extensive, that it could not be held secret? To what lengths do you think the US government would go in order to re-acquire the parts?
The launch failure of Intelsat 708 in China a few years back raised some concerns about crypto material falling into the 'wrong hands'. Seriously, you don't need any sinister motives for hunting down classified material... the paperwork alone from its loss would probably be more trouble than a massive ground search. =]
Here's an excerpt from the Intelsat 708 investigation that might shed some light on the subject.
The Intelsat 708 Encryption Boards Were Never Recovered
The Intelsat 708 satellite carried two FAC-3R encryption boards, one in each of its command processor units. These boards are considered Controlled Cryptographic Items by the Department of Defense, and the algorithm is classified "Secret."
Encryption boards are used to protect the command and control links between the ground station and satellite. They are required even on satellites that carry unclassified U.S. Government communications traffic. These devices do not encrypt the communications traffic that is otherwise processed by the satellite payload.373
Shortly after the Intelsat 708 launch failure, Loral's Communications Security custodian reported to the Department of Defense that the status of the encryption boards was being changed to "destroyed."
This was not seen as unusual by Department of Defense, however, because its prescribed policy requires that encryption boards be reported as "destroyed" when they are launched into orbit.
The Department of Defense did not require Loral to produce any evidence that the FAC-3R boards were in fact destroyed.374
After recovering debris from the crash site, Loral engineers grossly estimated the percentages of various subsystems and components that had been recovered.375 In that estimate, Loral engineer Muhammad Wahdy estimated that 30% of the command processors were recovered.376 Loral personnel then packaged the debris and shipped it to Palo Alto, where engineers examined the debris to specifically determine if the encryption boards were recovered.377
That examination determined that the FAC-3R boards were not, in fact, recovered from the crash site.378
The two FAC-3R encryption boards used on the Intelsat 708 satellite were mounted near the hydrazine propellant tanks and most likely were destroyed in the explosion. Additionally, the two FAC-3R boards had no distinguishing markings other than a serial number, making it extremely difficult to locate them amongst the crash debris.379
It is not known, however, whether the FAC-3R boards were recovered by the PRC. If they were, it would be difficult for the PRC to determine the cryptographic algorithm that was imprinted on them.
Reverse-engineering of a damaged board would be even more difficult. Any successful reverse-engineering would be resource intensive for the PRC.
If the PRC were able to determine the cryptographic algorithm contained on the FAC-3R board, it would gain insight into the state of the U.S. military in the 1960s, although such algorithms remain in use today.380
When the National Security Agency designs and recommends algorithms for use in equipment, it assumes that the equipment will be lost or compromised sometime during its operational lifetime. The National Security Agency relies on unique cryptographic keys for each separate satellite to keep command and control links secure. Because the FAC-3R boards on Intelsat 708 were uniquely keyed, the National Security Agency remains convinced that there is no risk to other satellite systems, now or in the future, resulting from having not recovering the FAC-3R boards from the PRC.381