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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.
<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>
"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.
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Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
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!
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?
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.
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.
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...
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
Considering over half of the fatalities have been from the US, I'd be worried to.
It's no wonder Canada refused to be a part of this war considering they were bombed by the US in Afghanistan.
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
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
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).
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.
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.
Reasons Canada is not in the war
1) we consider Afganistan more important
At the same time as Canada refused to join the war in Iraq we sent 2000 troops to Afganistan.
2) Canada cannot get involved in another operation.
At the same time as above Canada admitted it was over extended (I mean come on we have 31 million people we can't be everywhere)
I think this was the main reason, its just less embarassing to say no then to admit that we're weak. (coupled with three anyway)
3) Canada believes that this will further isolate the Arab nations from the west and incourage the Islamic fundamentalists to join terror organisations and to attack the allies of the US.
The friendly fire thing is not an issue, it happens and NATO is working on better coordination.
I think that the friendly fire thing was a stupid preventable mistake, but Canada is sticking by the US and helping as much as we can, we just arn't doing it in Iraq.
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
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.
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.
The webmaster of aeronautics.ru, Venik, is a well known loon.
Ask about him in rec.aviation.mil
Some of his past spewings have been "2 B-2's and 3 B-52's shot down in Bosnia."
Russian plasma stealth technology
Russian antigrav technology deployed on current aircraft.
Take everything he says with several large grains of salt.
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.
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.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.