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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?
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.
Or, they could just use Iridum (however you spell it) like the other journalists in the NPR piece.
A 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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.