Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Forces In Iraq Ban GPS Phones
Brian Enigma writes "According to a report last night on NPR and these two articles, Central Command has banned a particular satellite phone from reporters. It seems that it not only has a GPS--to help locate which satellite to use--but also (if activated) transmits the users location back to the phone company. Eavesdropping this signal is nontrivial, but still possible."
And why shouldn't they?
In related news, embedded reporters are also being instructed not to carry Iraqi homing beacons, or gigantic signs saying ``US Troops Here ----->>''
I mean, why is this news?
...how many bombs have been dropped in Iraq in the last 12 days, id find it hard to believe they still have the working technology left to eavesdrop these phones anyway.
Maybe they don't have to intercept the signal. Maybe they only have to hack into the telephone company and read their locations from their computers.
<sarcasm> Oh yes. You can tell that's a serious and accurate site from the article on the front page claiming they have a working anti-gravity device. </sarcasm>
My Sprint Samsung A460 has this but you can turn it off. It's the "location" option in the setup tool.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Did anyone notice that there is a brand new
Wowzers! I didn't realize that the Department of Defense was that fast...!!!
"Officers have ordered me to hand my phone in and I am giving it to one of the officers," correspondent Matthew Green said.
In a related story, the U.S. military seems to have growing concerns that the printing inks used in reporters' copies of Maxim and the smoke from reporters marijuana cigarettes could be detected by sophisticated equipment in Iraqi possesion.
"Officers have ordered me to hand my copies of Maxim and my marijuana cigarettes in and I am giving them to one of the officers," correspondent Matthew Green said.
------
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
Geesh, somone dropped the ball, or was just stupid.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For the embedded reporters, in order to be where they are they had to agree to follow a few common sense rules... some of the most important being that they aren't allowed to report on any future movements they may know of, and that they're never allowed to reveal the exact location of the unit.
These particular phones do just that... transmit the GPS location back to the telecom provider, people outside of the military who have no clearance to be handling such secret info. Yeah, it's likely that the telecom provider can be trusted, but why trust somebody to keep a secret when you can just not tell them the info in the first place?
The exact GPS location of our troops is a military secret, and for a good reason too!
However, they do not state if the authorities will be able to locate you even if you are not making an emergency call (or even not making a call at all).
Obviously, from this article, you can be located at all times which turns your cellular phone into mechanism the authorities can use to track you.
One wonders if they are going to go the extra mile and enable enable the authorities to eavesdrop on conversations via the phone's microphone. This should not be hard to do and I'd be willing to bet that the code to do this has been slipped in the phones already.
Where Iraq said it caught some spies with satellite phones and some think that this is related to satellite phones some UK reporters had taken from them by the Iraqi government?
What is music when you despise all sound?
As for letting iraquis know where the embedded reporters and their units are I reckon the iraquis already know where the americans are ... every f**king where, just let one off man and it'll hit something and if it's one of ours even better.
"But with U.S. signal interceptors targeting satphone transmissions to locate Iraqi military commanders, analysts worry that phone calls from civilians could appear as beacons for bombers."
And this makes good sense.
Last thing the Gov't wants is for an embedded CNN correspondant and their unit getting fragged live on prime time coverage. (though I'm sure Fox wouldn't mind, due to ratings and all) because a guided munition homed in on their location while broadcasting.
Let's face it, though our bombs are smarter, war is still hell.
We have no way of knowing the precise location of friendlies and enemies at any given time and some international reporters have already been killed by US ground troops.
The satphones are effectively really high power transmitters, attempting to transmit a signal to an antenna hundreds of miles ahead. If it's possible to sniff the GPS signal, it's possible to triangulate the location of its emitter.
This ban makes it harder to track down the journalists, but not impossible. It does require three sensors in mutual contact, instead of one lone sniffer -- this is true.
I suspect there are signs they know where we are, and we're worried these phones are the reason why.
--Dan
By the way, a simple "fix" would have been to tell the reporters to turn off the GPS feature, but guess what: by mandate of the U.S. government the user can not disable it!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I don't know, I played red-alert 2. those russians have alot of technologies we don't have... now where the hell are our chrono troops?
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
The Iraqi military anounced they have a new plane on how to find the US troops in Iraq after reading how they can use GPS phones. Iraqi officials report they had no clue about this or ever thought it possible till it was reported when people flipped out over something and went nuts telling the world the flaw in GPS phones.
More on this breaking story as it happens. Coming up next, How to eat all the fat and preservatives you want and still lose 40lbs a day.
I'm a little tea pot.
Kuro5hin has an article on Russian news reports derived from intercepted coalition communication. They even tell you how to do it and where to buy the equipment.
I'm really saddened by the recklessness of the Bush administration, endangering not only Iraqi civilians, but also British and American troops.
As many people have said, there is little chance of Iraq being able to eavesdrop on the GPS locations.
However, it presents a sigint boon to countries who do have the capability.
China is probably building a massive database of US infantry move and coutermove strategy as we speak.
Or, they could just use Iridum (however you spell it) like the other journalists in the NPR piece.
which part of the camel do they use to trace those GPS signals? maybe it's that advanced sand technology...
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
Exactly. Someone should tell congress this before they pass anymore privacy-invading laws!
neurostarA lot of times the reporters aren't allowed to reveal where they are and sometimes simply aren't told. I've listened to a lot of NPR reports where the journalists state that they can't reveal their locations
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Too bad the Syrians and Iranians weren't clandestinely smuggling these phones in to be used by the Iraqi military along with the night vision goggles and anti-tank weapons. It would have made the coalition's job of ferreting these guys out of civilian neighborhoods a tad bit easier.
someone mentironed the iraqis prolly don't have gps weapons - and that's irrelevant.
if you hand me your lat/lon within 100m, i can find you - maybe with a missile, maybe with a truck, maybe with a lot of stuff. and i can do it with a $100 gps, close enough to kill you. i don't want this happening to our troops so that some media diva can be avant garde.
truth is the npr story mentioned some whiney reporters having to use a plain old sat phone and dictate stories to a copy desk and pitching a fit. they need to understand they are just barely able to do this period, they do not have a god given right to be ther, and that there is a more than acceptable risk of becoming pink mist on no notice.
suck it up, do your job, and listen to the professional warriors.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Why were these phones allowed in the first place? Wouldn't it have made more sense to simply give them a list of things they CAN take rather than giving them a list of things they can't take and possibly missing something?
First, I think you have to realize that certain press people are with certain American forces using a certain technology...hint hint.
Second, just because the government doesn't tell everyone its intentions behind mandates doesn't mean there is a huge conspiracy behind it. What if Washington were honest in its intent to pusue justice and freedom for the Iraqi people? Whoah! Perhaps there are people in power who actually care about oppressed people and
Americans who are risking their lives to stop it!!!
Signal Ops with Hum Int is very powerful. In this case the Hum Int may be the bigger concern.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
We heard earlier this week that Russian contractors were in Bagdhad training Iraqi military how to use GPS satellite blocking devices. I assume they could have also sold the Iraquis other technologies as well.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
But this is ridiculous. I'm surprised the Military didn't issue the reporters with standard phones at the start and ban anything else. And whats with the damn web cam shit on the news. Its like watching a really low bandwitdth version of a web clip. Come on people we must have a better compression scheme than that.
So this is why these reporters are always being attacked whenever they go to make a report by phone.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Apparently Iridium isnt as reliable as immersat etc (which makes sense, as you are tracking lots of fast moving satelites instead of one stationary satelite).
Just think, people were fleeing to Canada to avoid the front lines with a gun in their hand, and we have 600 morons who decided to tag along with a camera?
Not only are these folks civilians, not only are they not armed, they picked the crankiest, self-rightious, blabbermouthiest population of poeple in the western world.
No wait... there may be a plan in all this.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
While that is the good kneejerk response, it's not based in fact.
By US military estimates the US has destroyed perhaps a Brigade worth of Iraqi soldiers. I'd guess it's closer to an Iraqi Division or 6-9,000. It's in the "thousands" but it's thousands of combatants who are using tactics that lead to large number of combatant deaths. Assaulting superior equipment, house to house fighting and not having capable air defense to attrit the American and British bombers and strike aircraft.
The Iraqi government has tossed out numbers in the hundreds and the International Red Cross says an average of about 100 people are killed or wounded every day in Baghdad because of bombing by U.S. and British forces. Iraqi AAA and SAMs falling back into the city aren't helping matters much either I suspect.
Less are dying this time than the last time because the Allies aren't carpet bombing Iraqi units in the field.
This ban on these comm devices isn't censorship in a war gone bad, its called lowering the emissions of the units in the field.
If anyone here really thought a military operation to defeat a large army in the field in a country the size of Oregon and Washington was going to happen in 3-10 days is an idiot. If Rummy thought that, he is an idiot as well.
There is a list as long as my arm of tiny cutoff islands in Japan whos capture cost the Americans a 100 times more casualties an hour than Iraq and many of them had been shelled and bombed for days before the first soldiers set foot there.
The current campaign on Iraqi isn't an "arrogant miscalculation" it's a remarkably well organized and carried out operation to this point.
I'll bet that there are some people who didn't like seeing this news get out. The bad guys use sat phones too, and it would be pretty handy to have their exact location.
You should work for Rumsfeld and the US DOD. You're almost as good at underestimating the enemy as they are. You could order the marines sent in armed with baseball bats, after all the Iraqis couldn't possibly do more than throw rocks at them...
;-)
ps: that box you typed this on is "advanced sand technology"
Freedom: "I won't!"
You'd be surprised how much modern (coalition) military strategy is based on Chinese military strategy.
They may not be as interested or surprised by what the US may or may not do as you think. After all, we've only been in the war business for a few hundred years, while China has thousands of years to look back on.
Apparently it's reliable enough for the Department of Defense.
That was the initial estimate during the war. Afterwards, the number was found to be a couple of orders of magnitude lower. Iraqi units that were bombed had far fewer soldiers than had been estimated, and they were smart enough to mostly stay away from where the bombs were dropping.
Direction finding is why military commanders try to put their communications antennas at a distance from their headquarters and communications centers.
The Iraqi army may not have GPS guided missiles and bombs, but they do have rockets and artillery pieces. Being on the receiving end of an artillery barrage can ruin your whole day.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Of course they have self-censored to an extent that I personally find rediculous. For example, interrupting an Iraqi press conference because "of course the administration would disagree with what they have to say."
Why is it that I have to go outside this country for good news? Why is it that CNN's coverage improves the instant you leave the USA? Why is it that although there is more widespread support for this war in Israel than there is in the US, that Ha'aretz is far more ballanced than even the New York Times?
Why is it that when the American troups parachuted into Northern Iraq, the press portrays this as a glorious moment, rather than the result of a diplomatic failure (to get Turkey to let us use their land as a staging area for a northern front)?
Here are some links I suggest people look into (all in English):
http://www.haaretzdaily.com (a respected Israeli newspaper).
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly (an Egyptian weekly news magazine).
http://www.bbc.co.uk
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Get a clue. These are not cell phones, and the GPS is not in there because of a government mandate, it's there because of technical need - so that the satillite can get a proper fx on where the phone is.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
On slashdot, K5 and in the local and national press the words disaster, quagmire and miscalculation are thrown around less than 2 weeks after this war started.
Well alot of people need to look at modern military history to see how fast armies move and how long it takes to eliminate enemy opposition.
February and March 1945 the Marines attacked an island 2 miles by 4 miles in the Pacific. In 36 days 6,800 Marines died and 19,000 were wounded.
21,000 Japanese soldiers were killed.
For 70 days the island was bombed and for 3 days it was shelled by battleships.
On 1 April 1945 the Marines and Navy attack Okinawa. The fighting for the most part ended on 30 June 1945. In 90 days of fighting 12,000 Americans died and more than 38,000 were wounded. 34 ships were sunk, 368 damaged and 763 aircraft lost. 26,000 American soldiers left the battle because of combat fatigue and other non-battle causes.
And lets remeber how long the last wars took.
Gulf War '91 - 44 days of bombing before a 3 day ground war.
Serbia - 77 days of bombing before Milosevic threw in the towel.
Check out the java midlet I wrote that allows anyone to track where my Nextel phone is
Free cell phone tracking
I was watching the news about a week ago and they had one of the embedded journalists on and he was talking and all the sudden they came under fire and he immediately turned off his sat phone and they left. A couple hours later he came back on and he said that they thought the Iraqis had been tracking his sat phone because nobody was supposed to know where they were.
Well, that's not much of a "triangle" is it. I guess if you wanted to you could use a single receiver and simple move it to three different points, then you could build your "triangle".
Of course, you don't really need the triangle, you could just head toward the direction from which the signal was strongest.
Quite.
Venik, the webmaster, is a well known loon on rec.aviation.military.
Root around enough his site long enough and you'll find references to B-2's and multiple B-52's shot down in Bosnia.
It's like when MS talks about improving the user experience or whatnot. They always have ulterior motives. The end result may be an improved user experience, but in the process it may involve bundling something to kill a competitor.
Same deal with the government. Usually what they say is true prima facie, but there are usually many other things going on, and it's naive to assume otherwise.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Ban is political way. US today does not use political methods anymore. So, EMP will be much more consistent to other methods of US administration.
Less is more !
Second, just because the government doesn't tell everyone its intentions behind mandates doesn't mean there is a huge conspiracy behind it. What if Washington were honest in its intent to pusue justice and freedom for the Iraqi people? Whoah!
You know, I've never quite sorted the politics of this whole situation out... I came across a really neat article in the Washington Monthly that points out a very interesting "conspiracy theory"... It's all about a supposed plan to topple virtually every government in the Middle East. A good read...
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
It was never claimed that these were cell phones or that Uncle Sam had made the industry put the GPS receivers in these phones. I simply pointed out the irony that while they think it's great to impost this technology on a supposedly free society with basic privacy rights, they sure don't like it when the same technology might provide information on them.
I personally like GPS technology, have had a GPS receiver for about 8 years. I think it would be great to have GPS technology in a cell phone, and the information available to the other party. Makes the "Where are you?" question so simple. But the owner of the phone should have the ability to disable the GPS information from being sent (not just to the other party but to the government as well) without having to completely disable their phone. It's a basic privacy issue.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Guess you can't use this phone...
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I agree that the owners of cell phones should have the ability to disable GPS if they so choose, but the GPS in these phones is not imposed by the government, it's a technological neccessity due to how the phones operate - it is impossible to build such a phone that doesn't broadcast its location (Iridium uses a different type of satelite setup, so it's not relevant).
In any case, it's not hypocrisy - the military believes that the GPS satelite phones shouldn't be used in order to save troop's lives, while Congress believes that cell phones should have GPS, in order to save civilians lives (although there are less appealing uses also, of course). Those are two different entities making two different decisions in two different situations for two different reasons - a far cry from hypocrisy.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Uh-huh. And given the dozens of reports, even in the Middle Eastern media, of Iraqi Fedayeen militias firing on Iraqi civilians who tried to leave cities, how do you know that these were shot by US Marines?
These particular civilians, this particular story? Well, the reporter was stationed with U.S. troops and talked to those around him who had some semblence of an idea what had happened there. If there had been any mystery over what had happened there (and if there was some sort of cover-up attempted, that's what the reporter would have been told, that it was unknown who did it or believed that Iraqi fighters did it) the reporter would have reported it as such. At least you would expect so. There isn't any detail over whether the reporter arrived with new troops to be with troops already there or whether the reporter had arrived with troops who found that scene.
It was a strategically important bridge, right? The US/UK troops would had to have been in control before the event happened, or there would have been a recent battle for the bridge while the 12 bodies were still lying there. There was no mention of a recent battle in the article.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Thuraya handsets are GSM phones which fallover to the Thuraya satellite system if one is outside the range of a ground-based GSM tower.
The satellite-to-phone protocol is a very slightly modified GSM that runs in L-Band. This was done for two reasons. A - if it ain't broke, don't fit it. B - why put in totally separate comm gear if you don't need to? C - everybody knows GSM inside fscking out. (yes, that's three reasons)
it also has a GPS receiver in it which provides the Thuraya satellite the information to decide which L-band spot beam(s) would be the correct beam to use (sometimes, you're in between beems, and if you are, and beam A is busier than beam B, then the Thuraya NOC will decide to put you on beam B)
it also provides a means for Thuraya Inc. to payback the countries their cut... much like the mass confusion which plagued the licensing schema for Iridium, Thuraya phone calls are not all alike... if you're in country A, then you'll be paying country A's tarrif + the base cost you pay to Thuraya. The easiest way to keep track of where one is was to put a GPS in the handset, then calculate the tarrif charges abse on the absolute location.
http://www.thuraya.com/tech/ will let you know some of this information. You'll also see there the increasingly missnamed "country code" for Thuraya calls, as well as the neeto tidbit that Thuraya was launched from Sea Launch - which is quite a sight to behold. Looking down the shaft of the laucher into the ocean 100+ feet down was quite a stomach-moving experience.
Where i got the rest of this info is an exercise left to the reader to guess.
As cool as computers will ever be, space shit is far cooler, y'all. Sorry.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Ahh, here it is:
... Mr Tyrrell said reporters were using these less because they tended to connect less reliably than the Inmarsat phones that link via the Thuraya network.
BBC News: War reporting goes hi-tech
Reporters are also equipped with Iridium satellite phones
The government doesn't mandate phones have GPS receivers in them. Rather, it mandates that telcos be able to determine with a certain accuracy where a caller is. GPS is probably the easiest and most straightforward method of doing this, but it's not the only one.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Hey ignoramous - read a little more history before you shoot your mouth off. They DID try to oust Saddam, and the freakin US told them to rise up and do so (Bush Sr. that is, in 1981). When they asked for help, the US turned their backs on them, after we promised to help them - and they were brutally slaughtered.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/kurds/battle.html
"Bush then did nothing to help. He allowed Iraq tanks and Republican Guard units to move, to put down the rebels, IN SPITE of ceasefire conditions in which he was not allowed to move those units. In the north, he allowed Iraq to use helicopter gun ships, even though there was a ban on flights. These were not accidental decisions of the Bush administration. This was a conscious decision that it was better for Saddam Hussein to remain in power than for the Shiites in the south to succeed or for Kurds in north to succeed because they might be separatists and annoy Turkey."
So before you cast all Iraqis in the same light, trying education yourself and get f*cking informed. I am so sick of people who yammer on without a f*cking fact in their head. And yeah, I do hope Bush looses the next election - like he did the last one... oops nm.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
GPS (Global Position System) is not necessary for locate phone. At least on Finland certain phone company provides location service which can locate GSM phone with just by receiving phone's signal via several link. Resolution is not as good as GPS, but is able to tell location better than on which "cell" user is. On towns resolution is quite good, on coutry side error is much larger.
The phones are using the Thuraya network. It covers Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and keeps going eastward with full coverage of India.
They're pretty nifty. The 450 grams Hughes handset can do GSM mobile phone, Thuraya sat phone, GPS and can act as an Hayes compatible modem. Ideal for a journalist that mostly does print. Helps a lot that an Inmarsat Mini-M is typically the size of a table phone and that Iridium does not automatically fall back to GSM or do GPS. Did I mention it's cheaper to operate even for sat calls? And IIRC, modem speed is 9600 bps instead of 2400 or 4800 for Inmarsat and Iridium. And it can fax too.
Thuraya is basically a Global Star with EMEA+India coverage instead of North and Central America. But it's much ahead technologically.
Alex
Actually the more accurate figure was around 200,000. And of course that says nothing about the many who died after as a result of sanctions (the figure often heard is at least 500,000 Iraqi children alone, that according to the UN) or those who died after the war as a result of the intentional bombing of Iraqi water supplies.
I'd really love to see the iraqi commando dressed up as a 5 year old girl in yellow dress.
This is not a "Suppressing Freedom of Press" story. This is a "Wow! Using sattelite phones in Iraq could get you a sniper bullet in the head" story.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yeah, I suppose they are going to invade Turkey next?? More Kurds have died at the hands of the Turkish government than due to Iraq, this is the reason the EU are reluctant to accept Turkey.
You idiots, he didnt WRITE THE STUFF, he quoted it from http://www.iraqwar.ru/
p g
Whos a MORON NOW.
or is this guy YOU ?
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/prowarprot.j
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-62825 8,00.html
reg: cpunks/cpunks
They DID try to oust Saddam, and the freakin US told them to rise up and do so (Bush Sr. that is, in 1981). When they asked for help, the US turned their backs on them, after we promised to help them - and they were brutally slaughtered.
We had no U.N. mandate to enter Iraq and aid its citizens in overthrowing its Government. Do you really think if Bush had wanted to, and did so, that the same countries objecting to this war, wouldn't have objected then?
The Gulf War was considerably less popular domestically than this war. The Bush administration didn't have the political credit to usurp the authority of a U.N. effort and extend it into a liberation campaign. The administration chose to do the easy thing instead.
get f*cking informed. I am so sick of people who yammer on without a f*cking fact in their head.
Me too. Take some of your own advice.
The grandparent is a real piece of work, but things aren't really as simple as you'd like them to be.
You have exactly 314 seconds to come up with a less retarded plot.
In fact at least one cell phone provider is just adding triangulation equipment to their cell towers because it is cheaper then adding the backend for the GPS stuff AND subsidizing the new E-911 cellphones. Besides there are plenty of places where you can get a cell signal that you won't be able to get a GPS lock.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Americans are still bombing allies as usual. This one seems even more stupid than the plethora of those before him:
BBC Article
The Independent (newspaper) article
Sorry, I couldn't find any references to this article in the US media... I wonder why...
I quote:
I mean, loads of people in all countries all joke about Americans firing on their own and on their allies, but this is getting ridiculous. American's even supplied aids to the British to put on their vehicles "so you don't get shot" but they're still shooting at us.
I think I'm right in saying that more British soldiers have died as a result of US friendly fire than they have by being shot by Iraqis.
I quote from an article on canada.com:
Isn't there anything someone can do to improve on this situation? It seems the US pilots have aids to prevent this, but they're too trigger happy to actually use them.
If you mod this as flamebait, then you haven't read the linked articles and haven't realised that this is a genuine problem and not some kind of war propaganda.
They DID try to oust Saddam, and the freakin US told them to rise up and do so (Bush Sr. that is, in 1981).
More likely you mean 1991. In 1981 Iraq was still "best friends" with the US, since they were attacking "those nasty Iranians".
When they asked for help, the US turned their backs on them, after we promised to help them - and they were brutally slaughtered.
IIRC one of the things the US refused to do was give anti-Hussain generals control of capured military hardware.
Bush then did nothing to help. He allowed Iraq tanks and Republican Guard units to move, to put down the rebels, IN SPITE of ceasefire conditions in which he was not allowed to move those units. In the north, he allowed Iraq to use helicopter gun ships, even though there was a ban on flights.
Only later did the US government start making a big fuss about the "no fly zones", which were never endorsed by the UN in the first place.
These were not accidental decisions of the Bush administration. This was a conscious decision that it was better for Saddam Hussein to remain in power than for the Shiites in the south to succeed
With these same people not being too happy to be invaded. They might not like the government in Baghdad, but they don't like being invaded by soldiers from thousands of miles away either.
A lot of people here seem to think this is a good thing, that iraqi troops can monitor GPS signals and this is giving them an advantage.
Rubbish.
Isn't it more likely that the US army don't want the outside world to hear any news from Iraq that they haven't filtered?
Try news.co.nz for news not CNN, you get a better view of world events.
Isn't GPS supposed to be available on the whole earth? Do satellites avoid certain parts of the country now?
AFAIK you don't need GPS to determine the position of a cell phone. You can calculate the position based on values from three transmittors and it's quite accurate. You can trace any signal like that. That's why there is a slim chance to see Saddam giving a live interview during the war.
- The failure rate of most "smart" bombs and cruise missiles is less then 100%. It's between 85% and 95%.
- Iraq does not use ground to air missiles inside Bagdad (It's a huge six million people town). They use anti-aircraft artillery because SAMs would have been already destroyed by anti radar missiles.
http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-analiz_lenta_w.php?seI think he means in buildings. GPS doesn't work very well through 1" plaster, 4" of fiberglass batt insulation and another 1" of plastic,
My cellphone however, works from the center of most suburban steel structures.
And of course that says nothing about the many who died after as a result of sanctions (the figure often heard is at least 500,000 Iraqi children alone, that according to the UN)
To me this is more of a reason to get Saddam out. Many programs were set up to get food and medical supplies to Iraq, but Saddam either used them for himself or, as we recently found out, smuggled in military supplies in the foods place. No one wants war, but at this juncture it is the only way to truly help the Iraqi people.
Well,
this site tells us that the article you posted in now way decribes conspirady theories (I saw you quotation marks, just wanted to additionally point that out.). Especially check the older articles (pre 2000) about Iraq/Middle east, and the people behind these articles. You might find names you know.
Both of those articles gave only a snippet of what Kate Adie said. Read the rest, and hear the audio stream of interview with Kate Adie available here:
..They've been warned."
...take the attitude which is entirely hostile to the free spread of information."
...electronic media... mediums, of the military above Bhagdad... they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists ..' Who cares! ' said.. [inaudible] .." ...sorry Kate ..just to underline that. Sorry to interrupt you. Just to explain for our listeners. Uplinks is where you have your own satellite telephone method of distributing information."
... they've been warned.'
http://www.gulufuture.com/news/kate_adie030 310.htm
'The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares..
According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the the free spread of information."
"I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs," she told Irish national broadcaster, Tom McGurk on the RTE1 Radio "Sunday Show."
Ms. Adie made the startling revelations during a discussion of media freedom issues in the likely upcoming war in Iraq. She also warned that the Pentagon is vetting journalists according to their stance on the war, and intends to take control of US journalists' satellite equipment --in order to control access to the airwaves.
Another guest on the show, war author Phillip Knightley, reported that the Pentagon has also threatened they: "may find it necessary to bomb areas in which war correspondents are attempting to report from the Iraqi side."
Tom McGurk:
" Now, Kate Adie, you join us from the BBC in London. Thank you very much for going to all this trouble on a Sunday morning to come and join us. I suppose you are watching with a mixture of emotions this war beginning to happen, because you are not going to be covering it."
Kate Adie:
" Oh I will be. And what actually appalls me is the difference between twelve years ago and now. I've seen a complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters should be able to report as they witness."
" The Americans... and I've been talking to the Pentagon
" I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks --that is the television signals out of... Baghdad, for example-- were detected by any planes
Tom McGurk: "...Kate
Kate Adie: " The telephones and the television signals."
Tom McGurk: " And they would be fired on? "
Kate Adie: " Yes. They would be 'targeted down,' said the officer."
Tom McGurk: " Extraordinary ! "
Kate Adie: " Shameless! "
He said: ' Well... they know this
This is threatening freedom of information, before you even get to a war.
The second thing is there was a massive news blackout imposed.
In the last Gulf war, where I was one of the pool correspondents with the British Army. We effectively had very, very light touch when it came to any kind of censorship.
We were told that anything which was going to endanger troops lives which we understood we shouldn't broadcast. But other than that, we were relatively free.
Unlike our American colleagues, who immediately left their pool, after about 48 hours, having just had enough of it.
And this time the Americans are: a) Asking journalists who go with them, whether they are... have feelings against the war. And therefore if you have views that are skeptical, then you are not to be acceptable.
Secondly, they are intending
We all know the real reason they don't want Turkey in the EU, and it has little to do with their human rights record. Hint: Turkey had a good shot until they began to support the US and UK against Iraq.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Look at this from the solders point of view. How _do_ you discriminate between friendly signals and signals from hostiles? US ground forces can detect and localize satellite cell phone signals; however, in general the intercepts are side lobe spill of digitized and compressed signal from a mostly directional antenna. Most of the time you know someone is talking and where they are but you can't listen in real time from the ground. Can't the Iraqi's use cell phones to relay information from scouts back to artillery units or headquarters? Guess what they all ready do. Any signal not from an imbedded journalist could be someone getting ready to kill you and your buddies. So warning the non-imbedded journalists that they may draw fire by using a technology known to be in enemy hands is somehow the wrong thing to do?
According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the free spread of information."
Ms. Adie thinks that she _should_ be able to report the exact location of the 3ID's headquarters and offsets the from those coordinates for the main briefing area and the exact time of the next command staff meeting. Should the people in that briefing let her? Should they feel hostile to someone whose actions may result in their death or dismemberment?
check your facts, because you are wrong.
See for instance this link
http://www.csis.org/turkey/TU020308.htm
I quickly pulled from google.
WHAT? Do you watch the news at all?? We're getting more "on the spot reporting" during this war than any conflict in history. Much of this is a DIRECT RESULT of the administration. The administration specifically requested that networks embed reporters, because it helps keep reporting honest. You can't say that the army is committing all of these horrible atrocities when we've got reporters watching every single move of the military. There's no room for the left to keep making up all of the idiotic stories that they love to tell about american soldiers slaughtering innocents.
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
The United States has moved a force to within 50-60 miles of Bagdhad and lost a platoon worth of combat soldiers in fighting.
When the 173rd airborne can appear out of no where and take important airfields without anyone thinking that was possible is a sign of a well organized and carried out operation.
No technology is needed at all. The GPS info goes to a gulf state (Qatar?) and all it takes is one Iraqi sympathizer in the sat. phone company who has access to the info and can make a call from home each evening.
:-)
First Casualty
Nor does the reporter say that he is embedded with this unit, or has talked to anyone in it but two privates in the scene -- where do you draw this conclusion from?
Now that I look back at the article, it was staring me right in the face.
This, the description that I gave above, and the idea that I'm not willing to believe that Americans are above accidental killing. That's why I think this happened the way the reporter described it. It sounds more like a story of a young soldier who fired thinking it was an Iraqi attack than someone merely regretting seeing the bodies of children. "Shooting at anything that moves" may have been an exaggeration that angered you, but if this is what really happened in this situation I think it is an appropriate description.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
We're getting more "on the spot reporting" during this war than any conflict in history
You know why? This is called propaganda. There is a carefully selected group of reporters "in bed" with the military in order to produce the pictures the military wants. We had this in WW2 where Germany sent out so called "Kriegsberichterstatter" with their troops, the difference being that the Pentagon has outsourced these jobs.
when we've got reporters watching every single move of the military
you must be really naïve to believe that. And even if they did, what does it help if they don't report what they see?
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
That said, that does not change the fact that Venik, of www.aeronautics.ru, IS a loon of the first order.
He may be translating verbatim, or, he may be 'translating', and putting his special spin on the exact wording.
Go ask about him in rec.aviation.military.
Antigravity, indeed.
Sorry to disappoint you, but even Iraq claims that they use surface-to-air missiles over Baghdad, and many media outlets, including in the Arab world have pointed out that they have placed such launchers in residential blocks in the city itself (a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, needless to say).
Given that some of these launchers were in the very district that was hit, and that the explosion in the marketplace was far smaller than it would have been from one of our bombs, this seems at the least a likely explanation.
That would make it about 1000. Are you sure that's what you meant?
in reply to "Come on, stop this silly war, it will just bring more terrorism"...
the whole point is to scare the world population into thinking terrorism is wrong. it doesn't matter if we create 100 bin-ladens because the important thing is that the governments that host these terrorists are afraid that the US will put a stop to it. that is the only way that we can coerce these terrorist supporting countries to police their own territories. unfortunately, these countries support terrorist networks and do not think they cause a domestic threat. by threatening US intervention, they may start thinking that mabye , just mabye, terrorism is a bad thing. go figure. who would have guessed?
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
I wonder how many suckers you'll catch, trolling this on the end of your line. There are probably quite a few people who're willing to "forget," for the purposes of jingoism, at least, all of the very bad men that Americans have helped to keep in power.
All in the name of stability, of course. Difficult decisions, et cetera, and as we have now seen, it's always possible to take it back later and fix everything by offering peace and freedom from the end of a gun.
Mind the Gap
JAG viewers (you know, the show about the Navy lawyers, with David James Elliot and Catherine Bell) will be well familiar with the real reason for this. A very similar subject was treated in an episode last March (I caught it in December). There's a plot synopsis here (the episode was titled "First Casualty"), and the title is a link to the full script. If you go to the script, search for the word "Rivet" (as in "Rivet Joint") to get to the start of the really relevant part. It's all dialogue, so it's a quick read.
For those who don't want to read, the short story is that Dunston (the reporter) used a sat phone against orders, and that his team was attacked shortly thereafter. The Navy charged Dunston with violating his orders not to use the phone, and, in the course of the trial, found out how the mission had been compromised: while talking to his producer, his sat phone had reported his GPS coordinates. Turns out his producer was working for the enemy. It wasn't the radiation that was detected--the information was conveyed by people in the news media who were opposed to the war (like that ever happens). The Law of Unintended Consequences rears it's ugly head.
This is the reason the military has banned GPS phones: you don't know who's going to get the info. It's the same way you write firewall rules, really: you ban everybody, then allow those you want. Doing it the other way (allowing all, then denying specifics) leads to all kinds of unexpected vulnerabilities. Indeed, it seems to me I've heard complaints about MS along just those lines: their security model is allow-by-default, *nix is deny-by-default. If deny-by-default makes sense in software, doesn't it make even more sense when people's lives are on the line?
BTW, to those of you who are going to complain "it's a TV show," yes, it is. That doesn't make it impossible, or even unlikely. Also, for those who are going to complain about the same thing, I've talked to my dad, who is a real-life JAG for the Air Force (works at Materiel Command at Wright-Patt), and he said that the law on that show is usually pretty accurate and well-researched.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
yes.
So I'm naive if I believe that our reporters are watching, at the request of our government, to ensure that the facts are reported accurately and that no atrocities are committed
Yes. The reporters are sent out to produce nice patriotic imagery, like Hollywood but with an additional "reality" kick.
Sounds a little backwards to me
This may be true for the scenario you are constructing but that is your imagination and not my comment.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
Idiotic stories? Just watch the friggin bombings being telecast to the entire world.
I have never heard a story about american soldiers walking into a town and killing children with small arms fire, in this war at any rate. But I can certainly watch the bombs going off and know that we are slaughtering innocents. Err.... Freeing them.
I'd be a little more likely to believe this if the Iraqi people were actually asking for our help. Many of the few Iraqis who did -- for example, the exiled Iraqi opposition group -- are now begging us to get out of Iraq. And many Iraqis who escaped Saddam's tyranny are now running back to Iraq to fight alongside his forces.
Here is an interesting article published in The Advance-Titan, the weekly newspaper at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. It's written by an exchange student spending a semester at the Moscow State University. (For reasons apparent from the content, Swen Gwolkquist is a pen name.) Did Saddam get Russian GPS jammers? The answer is at a Moscow strip club. If Saddam did get Russian GPS jammers it was rusty rubbish. For the modern stuff, look at Moscow casinos, strip clubs and brothels. By Swen Gwolkquist "Honey, I never knew you were that fond of classical music," the voice of my girlfriend woke me up in my hotel room in Moscow, "I wouldn't expect you to go listen to Shostakovich Sixth Symphony on Friday night. Did you enjoy it?" "uh-hu... err... How did you know where I was last night?" "Easy, darling. Remember, when you arrived in Moscow and rented your mobile phone you subscribed for a people finder service. If something happens to you, well, kidnapped or in trouble, I would know where you are and would direct police or security guys to your rescue. Well, yesterday I felt uneasy and decided to check the web site of the mobile operator. It showed that you were at Bolshaya Nikitskaya 13, and that was Bolshoi Conservatory Hall." "Oh, well, it really works ... amazing... now I really feel protected. And you would no longer worry about me. Great."
What the hell is going on, I asked myself. Conservatory Hall? Shostakovich Sixth Symphony? Damn, I was at Hungry Duck, the dirtiest hole in Moscow! Drunk Russian girls dancing on the table, completely naked. Hookers and stuff... vodka by the glasses...
I rushed to the mobile operator's web site. Yes, indeed, the log showed that on Friday night I was at Bolshoi Conservatory Hall! It was worth an investigation.
Calls to the Conservatory Hall and BeeLine, the mobile operator, lead to nowhere. Folks at Hungry Duck also refused to tell me anything over the phone but hinted that I may find out something if I'd drop by in person and talk to their security.
"You should thank us, fellow. We probably saved your marriage. Or was it your girlfriend? You don't care? Whatever," the security guy laughed loudly, after he drank, in one gulp, a double shot of Stoli I bought him. "You, studs, tell your wives that you are at Bolshoi and come here to screw around. It takes them only one visit to BeeLine's web site to find out that you're cheating on them. Patrons do not like it. It's bad for business."
"Well, luckily, we found a solution. One Russian company, formerly a top-secret defense contractor, makes great boxes. You hang one by the ceiling, and it jams the GPS satellite receiver in your mobile phone. You know, the old stuff like that would just make the GPS receiver inoperable. The stuff we got is smarter. It fools the receiver. The signal is so strong that it completely overwrites the faint signal from the satellite. I would enter any longitude / latitude in the box and your GPS receiver would obligingly report it back to the mobile operator."
"Wait a minute," a dark thought crossed my mind, "A GPS jammer? A Russian defense contractor? One that was accused of selling GPS jammers to Saddam Hussein? What did they call it? Aviaconversia?"
"Err..., no, buddy, I didn't tell you that," the security dude replied, quickly glancing around. "But I tell you one thing. If Saddam gets the box that hangs by my ceiling, you Americans are in deep trouble. Your Cruise missiles would fly back home. Funny, isn't that?" - he chuckled. "Or they would hit unexpected targets, whatever Saddam enters into the jammer. And, you know, the guy is wicked, he gassed his own people with Sarin. He could direct your missile on his folks again, to rally your greenie and leftie fools against the war, and Bush government."
"But, you now, friend," the security guy continued. Three empty glasses were now lined up in front of him on the counter. "The old comrades, from the organization, you know, those comrades who build these smart boxes, I don't think they sold any of this stuff to Saddam lately
You buy into this commie propaganda
...
So you think the BBC's world affairs editor is a "commie"? Mc Carthy I hear you coming
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
ROTFLBTC
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
So Brigadier General Vincent Brooks is a "liberal". You managed to squeeze in that word three times in your little vainglorious rant. I think you have a problem with labels and stereotyping.
Da Blog
When you're dealing with calculation of locations on a flat plane, you will most always have triangles, you will have a lot of other shapes too. I personally only think that you "triangulate" when you have three recievers. triangulation with two recievers is using another dimension, time, to create three recievers.
The legal case to made for war is that the ceasefire authorized the use of force for all "subsequent, relavent resolutions." Whether there is a statute of limitations, and who gets to decide what is relavent is an open quesiton, but the Bush administration had decided that they could be judge, jury, and executioner on this matter, when many of us feel it *should* be interpreted by the security council.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP