How to Jam a Worldwide Satellite TV Broadcast

An anonymous reader submits: "According to an MSNBC article, 'it's simply a matter of aiming a strong signal at the uplink transponder on the satellite and overwhelming the...broadcaster's signals...You need a dish, some power, not too much. You put up a test pattern ... and do a sweep and find the transponder on the satellite you want to jam. It could even be smaller than the standard 6-meter dish. It could be a small dish with a lot of power.' This was apparently how an Iranian satellite television station was knocked off of Loral Skynet's TelStar-12 a few days ago. Loral contacted TLS, a company which specializes in satellite broadcast security, who quickly located the source of the jamming to Cuba."

Comments

Wow, a Denial of Service attack

[Anonymous Coward]

How original. I hope someone doesn't try that on the internet.

Re:Wow, a Denial of Service attack

[Anonym0us Cow Herd]

What if they only DOSed the satellite during the commercials?

Replace obnoxious commercials with something less irritating, such as Cowboy Neal running around naked.

Already been done here...

[Rorschach1]

See the story of Captain Midnight and HBO..

http://www.signaltonoise.net/library/captmidn.ht m

Re:Already been done here...

[K8Fan]

I was watching at the time it happened. HBO likes to spin that the signal was never clear, and that the handled the interference quickly. My experience was that the signal he sent was every bit as clear as HBO's own signal. It's funny that it happened during "The Falcon & The Snowman", a film about a couple of Americans who become spys for the Soviets - and screw up royally.

Re:Already been done here...

[Old Uncle Bill]

The other thing to note, which made me suspicious of the MSNBC article, is that Captain Midnight used a MASSIVE dish with a LOT of power. Which, in the end, was the reason he got busted. The dish he used was a 30 footer. Could it be done with a smaller dish? Probably, but there are far more nefarious things that could be done with a dish than temporarily "knocking" someone off the air, or taking over their signal.

Re:Already been done here...

[Anonymous Coward]

...there are far more nefarious things that could be done with a dish than temporarily "knocking" someone off the air, or taking over their signal.

Such as? Pointing it at the moon and using your death rays to make it explode?

Re:Already been done here...

[Paul Neubauer]

That was part of it. One item not mentioned in the article is that the characters of the character generator used were part of how he was traced - it limited the number of installations to consider. Now imagine if he'd used some other video source...

Re:Already been done here...

[TheMidget]

Doesn't count. Was done using a regular ground station where Captain Midnight was temping. That's cheating. Like claiming you DOS'ed amazon, but in reality you're just a temp that had access to the power button of the server cluster...

Re:Already been done here...

[Cylix]

No, captain midnight pointed another uplink at hbo's sat. He just had the same guns as the big boys, but he wasn't turning their own equipment against them.

Re:Already been done here...

[bobbozzo]

Like a goatse image?

Re:Already been done here...

[Nogami_Saeko]

Yes, but what the article was proposing was that joe-backyard with his old 12 foot dish, and a bit of extra hardware could DOS the satellites.

Not quite the same as a guy who works at a regular satellite uplink pointing the dish elsewhere and cranking up the power. There's nothing especially difficult.

For a number of years I worked with a C-band uplink (originally analog, then digitally compressed). We normally ran around 70-80 watts as I recall, but we could boost the power in the event of bad weather, etc.

Satellite operators always keep a close eye on the uplink power that sites are putting out, and tend to get very vocal, very quickly if you start hammering the bird enough to cause interference on other transponders. Of course it goes without saying that the uplink frequency is also rather important as transmitting on the downlink freq. won't accomplish too much.

But that said, it's not terribly difficult to do - anyone with a moderate size dish (and they can be quite small as were displayed at the recent NAB trade show), a decent power transmitter, and a knowledge of the uplink frequencies used could interfere with satellite relatively easily.

Using a regular dish could be a little tricky - you need a dish that has a proper waveguide from the transmitter to focus the beam properly on the dish and send it up. It may be possible to modify a regular receive-only dish to transmit this way, but I doubt it would be anywhere near as efficient as professional gear.

If someone was using portable professional gear, it could be difficult to trace people doing this because they could conceivably be anywhere within the satellite footprint, and they'd be broadcasting a rather narrow beam upwards. The old vans driving around with the direction finders wouldn't be picking up too much if it was aligned carefully with good shielding to reduce leakage.

N.

Cuba, eh?

[DoorFrame]

I know how to solve this problem... SANCTIONS! That'll show 'em.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[buysse]

You don't think that it came from Gitmo?

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Rolo Tomasi]

The hawks in congress must be pretty confused ... Cubans vs. Iranians - whom are we going to send the military aid?

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

And we need to give the Iranians arms so that they can fight instead of just get kidnapped one by one by government thugs and executed.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Uber Banker]

Of course it did.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Uber Banker]

Like 'we' gave Osama and Saddam arms?

Re:Cuba, eh?

[SN74S181]

The Iranian government must have sent the money to the Cubans, considering that the people in charge in Iran are the ones who generally seek to block access to outside news sources to their citizenry.

So I wouldn't call it 'Cubans vs. Iranians.' Just another example of Cuba exporting repression.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[GMontag]

Why would a pro-democracy channel be blocked by US forces in Gitmo?

Pretty old news that the Iranian satellite channel originating in California is an anti-Mullah/new-Revolutionary channel.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Malcontent]

I don't think any of the jammers knew iranian. The US military makes mistaked like this all the time. Raiding the wrong house, dropping bombs on the wrong town, firing on journalist (well they probably meant to that one).

Re:Cuba, eh?

[mcheu]

Cuba obviously.

Even though they've made it illegal for Americans to import them, the Americans have a major hardon for Cuban cigars. Must be all that Cuban siliva. If you smoke those things, and don't know how they're made, you really MUST have a look at a video on traditional Cuban cigar manufacturing. Might help with that whole stop-smoking thing.

Think sweatshops full of old ladies rolling tobacco leaves, frequently licking their hands and the tobacco leaves to help the leaves stay together.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The proves /. moderation is totally fucked up.
How the fuck is the post 2 insightfull.

If the Mods had RTFA they would have left this one be at a 1.

The guberment WANTS these signals to getinto Iran. Since the jamming went on for more than a few min it was able to be tracked down. I am sure they know exactly where the source was located. If it had been a US instalation the NYT would have publiched it in a heart beat. The NYT would never critize their beloved Fidel since his state is exactly the kind of place they wish the USA to become.
Get your head out of your ass

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG Insightful, maybe but -4 noninformative, definitely.. -3 stupid, absolutely, and -2 shortsighted and biased.. do I even need to point this shit out?

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Mark of THE CITY]

I don't think any of the jammers knew iranian.

The language is called Farsi, not "Iranian."

Re:Cuba, eh?

[SedentaryZ]

That post was modified insightful/interesting? Do people have any idea of the nature of the governments in Iran and Cuba?

A large student protest in Iran was just cancelled by the student leaders, because the theocracy made it clear that if they protested, they would face Tiananmen type reprisals. After the protests were cancelled, the student leaders were abducted by government backed paramilitaries.

Meanwhile, let's talk about 'deliberately targetting journalists'. Recently, Cuba used the global news distraction with the war in Iraq to jail large numbers of dissidents, including 26 reporters. See the 'Reporters without Frontiers' website for details.

Two very oppressive regimes, both with a huge hatred of the US, working together to jam a US sponsored pro-democracy Iranian broadcast at the same time anti-government protests are being planned in Iran.

Get a clue!

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Malcontent]

"A large student protest in Iran was just cancelled by the student leaders, because the theocracy made it clear that if they protested, they would face Tiananmen type reprisals. After the protests were cancelled, the student leaders were abducted by government backed paramilitaries."

OK but what does this have to do with anything I said?

"Meanwhile, let's talk about 'deliberately targetting journalists'. Recently, Cuba used the global news distraction with the war in Iraq to jail large numbers of dissidents, including 26 reporters. See the 'Reporters without Frontiers' website for details."

Cubans target journalists, Americans target journalist. In this regard they are acting in the same way. Are you proud of this? Or are you saying that it's OK for the americans to target journalists because cubans target even more journalists? What exactly is your point?

"Two very oppressive regimes, both with a huge hatred of the US, working together to jam a US sponsored pro-democracy Iranian broadcast at the same time anti-government protests are being planned in Iran."

I call bullshit.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[SedentaryZ]

My comment was directed more to the moderators who scored that post of yours insightful/interesting. I'm amazed at the willingness of some to ignore the facts about the regimes in Iran and Cuba. Oh, let's see, it must have been those silly Americans again; the Iranian theocracy wouldn't have any reason to remove a pro-democracy TV broadcast from the air at the same time large scale protests are planned. The Cubans wouldn't have had any reason to accept money from Iran in order to tweak the Americans noses. What an insightful thought! There's your bullshit.

So let's talk about your post.
What does the lack of Farsi speakers in Cuba have to do with Cuba doing a job for the Iranian government to upset a US sponsored TV station? How does speaking Farsi have anything to do with the ability to jam a broadcast?

Ask Occam, what's the more likely scenario? The government in Iran, using an intermediary, disables a US sponsored pro-democracy broadcast at the same time pro-democracy forces are planning massive strikes and protests. Or, the US military is trying to jam a specific satellite broadcast and hits the wrong station on the wrong satellite. BTW, any ideas about which station they were trying to block, but missed?

Oh wait, the US military doesn't make mistakes. All those bad things, like the journalist who was killed, were *intentional*. Or so you insinuate. Let's leave insinuation for facts. Cuba recently moved to imprison large numbers of dissidents. Iran recently forced the cancellation of pro-democracy protests and has been removing pro-democratic Iranian voices from the internet. Two tyrannical regimes, desperately trying to hold on to power.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll:

1. We never gave Osama arms, he's originally from Saudio Arabia. We never trained Arabs during the Afghanistan-Russia war. He went in after the major fighting was over. (late 1980s)

2. Saddam was only giving limited military aid (remember Iraq was an ally for *along* time, even during WWII), things like satellite info/pictures. His weapons all came from Russia (missiles, planes, tanks, arms), China (missiles, arms), France (missiles, planes, chemical) and Germany (bunkers). You can prove this by counting the number of Allied soldiers killed by Iraqis using American weapons during the past three Iraqi wars (Iraq-Iran, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom), and by reviewing the public UN Iraqi arms data.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea Reporters are regualary rounded up in the middle of the night in the USA given trials in kangaroo courts and sentenced to death. Sounds like Cuba and The Iran we know and love.

Bull Shit.. I don't think so. I think YOU are full of bullshit you cute little troll you.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[kubrick]

All those bad things, like the journalist who was killed, were *intentional*.

Journalists.

And they were shooting directly at them, despite knowing full well they were there. Certainly looked intentional to me.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Malcontent]

" My comment was directed more to the moderators who scored that post of yours insightful/interesting. I'm amazed at the willingness of some to ignore the facts about the regimes in Iran and Cuba. "

That's because my post had nothing to do with the regimes in iran and cuba.

" The Cubans wouldn't have had any reason to accept money from Iran in order to tweak the Americans noses. What an insightful thought! There's your bullshit."

Who cares if they had reason or not? Cubans have lots of reasons to hate us. So do the iranians. Did they do it or not? Do they have the means to do it? DO they have the knowhow? Do they routinely do this? Have they ever done it before? Did they do it again?

US routinely jams signals all over the world. It's much more likely they jammed this one by mistake then for the cubans to do one act of jamming in it's entire history and never repeat it again.

"How does speaking Farsi have anything to do with the ability to jam a broadcast?"

If the jammer didn't understand the transmission then it's more likely to be mistakenly jammed. If the jammer simply saw arabs talking in some language he does not understand then he might have jammed it just because it was arabs.

"The government in Iran, using an intermediary, disables a US sponsored pro-democracy broadcast at the same time pro-democracy forces are planning massive strikes and protests. Or, the US military is trying to jam a specific satellite broadcast and hits the wrong station on the wrong satellite. BTW, any ideas about which station they were trying to block, but missed?"

Considering that the govts of cuba and iran have never done anything like this before or since, considering that the govts of iran and cuba have never really worked together on anything significant ever I'd say the latter. Also they were jamming sattelites and not stations. There are thousands of them and a mistake could have been made very easily. Just like the US military made lots of mistakes in afghanistan and iraq by dropping bombs on the wrong people, firing on wedding parties, rounding up the wrong people they could have made a mistake this time too. Look at how badly the CIA completely muffed the iraq WMD and nuclear weapons issue. You think the US military is some sort of a infallible force?

"Oh wait, the US military doesn't make mistakes. All those bad things, like the journalist who was killed, were *intentional*."

Two possible conclusions.

1) The US military does make mistakes. It did not mean to attrack al zerreza multiple times. It did not mean to kill their journalist, it did not mean to bomb their stations in afghanistan and iraq. It was all a mistake. If the US military is prone to making mistakes in intelligence (and we know that this is the case) then they could have made a mistake this time and unintentionally jammed the signal.

2) The US military does not make mistakes. It meant to kill journalist and innocent civillians. It meant to attack arabic news outlets, the chinese embassy in bosnia, the tribal leaders in afghanistan. In that case the US is just as bad as the govts of Cuba and Iran if not worse.

So which is it?

Re:Cuba, eh?

[Malcontent]

" Yea Reporters are regualary rounded up in the middle of the night in the USA given trials in kangaroo courts and sentenced to death. "

No they don't get the luxury of a trial of any sort. We simply drop bombs on their stations. Why bother with pesky trials.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[SedentaryZ]

"That's because my post had nothing to do with the regimes in iran and cuba."

Right, it didn't discuss the regimes; rather it ignored clear evidence of what was really going on by implying it was the Americans behind it all. Wake up an smell the roses, it was clear from the story who was doing the jamming and why.

"US routinely jams signals all over the world. It's much more likely they jammed this one by mistake then for the cubans to do one act of jamming in it's entire history and never repeat it again."

See, there's some of that ignorance showing through. You are correct, the US does have sophisticated abilities to monitor, jam, and replace broadcasts, and has used it recently in war zones. (Ask the Iraqi soldiers who received our broadcasts on their military frequencies telling them that their particular installation was a target and they should leave to preserve their own lives.)
However, you are sadly mistaken thinking that Cuba does not have this capability and doesn't use it. Cuba maintains their own electronic warfare capabilities and uses them constantly; they are quite experienced in radio and TV jamming. Just ask the folks at Radio Marti. They spend a lot of time and money trying to get around the Cuban jammers. Cuba has even been able to jam broadcasts coming from moving airplanes (operated by Cuban dissidents in Florida) which isn't an easy task. Cuba has a large electronic base near Havana, built by the Russians in the early 90's that they use for monitoring and jamming.

Here's some more news for you. Loral, the owner of the satellite, fixed the location of the jamming signal near Havana, on the opposite end of the island from Guantanamo.

Let's look at some more details of what actually happened. (feel free to google for the information, it will clearly be educational for you). This station had been jammed before, with the jamming signal coming from within Iran. Iranian-American groups have recently been increasing their broadcasts on this station. Last week, the Voice of America began transmitting in Farsi, and that broadcast was joined in the same uplink to the satellite. In short order, the jamming from Cuba began. Again, this happened right before the protests were scheduled to happen in Iran, when information coming from pro-democracy groups could have been influential.
Further, the jamming has continued.

Our military does make mistakes, no oranization is infallible. I'll even concede that there have probably been instances where something was done intentionally and passed off as a mistake to cover some tracks. But let's not be willingly naive. This jamming of the Iranian broadcast serves a clear purpose; limiting the access of dissidents within Iran from information that may be of use to them in their struggle against an oppressive government. This time the jamming began just after a Farsi language VOA broadcast began, and just before large protests where scheduled to begin. The signal has been jammed before, by Iran. Cuba has likewise jammed similar Spanish language broadcasts.

Re:Cuba, eh?

[mfrank]

1) The Iragi Minister Of Information was not a journalist. Although he'd be a great intern for the New York Times.

2) He's still alive.

Noooo!

[deman1985]

This information can't leak out! We'll be subjected to Mystery Science Theatre 24/7! God save us all!

Re:Noooo!

[ashridah]

This isn't likely to happen, specifically.

Your average satellite receiver is setup to deliberately receive and amplify a particular signal, to make it usable by a decoder.

The satellite LNB (the device at the focal point of a satellite dish) is tuned when installed, and is specifically set to give the decoder a signal of a particular strength. This is usually measured in the order of a particular number of decibells (dB).

Most receivers will actually shut down if you overload them with signal however. It's possible for you to encounter problems when you tune an LNB, and someone goes and jacks up the output level on the satellite for some reason (like, say, they need to use it to broadcast military signals :) ), unless you take precautions. tune it too low, however, and you encounter signal loss in bad weather.

This means, that on the satellite that's receiving the uplink, you'll find that if you overload it, it'll just shut down the receiver instead of overriding the signal.

Don't let anyone fool you into thinking you can drive everyone nuts by replacing their favorite shows with reruns of the original odd couple :). You'd have to actually take control of the satellite (probably not as hard as it sounds, even with modern satellites, really) to get your own signal, and then you'd do it by making it receive a different frequency and you start broadcasting.

ashridah

Re:Noooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lies.

For real info see http://www.signaltonoise.net/library/captmidn.htm

Re:Noooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you spilled something on your keyboard. What you meant to type was: We'll be subjected to Mystery Science Theatre 24/7? THANK GOD!

Re:Noooo!

[lophophore]

You need to check out the comment above about Captain Midnight.

Here's the link to make it easy for you:

http://www.signaltonoise.net/library/captmidn.ht m

Obligatory Simpsons Quote.

[sweeney37]

"And may God help you if that thing carried the Spice Channel."

-Moe Syzlak

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote.

[77Punker]

He who controls the spice controls THE UNIVERSE!!

timothy == good, michael == bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Taco... fire michael, promote timothy, and then take a sabbatical and let someone else run the show for a while, until you get some passion for the job and stop hating the readers so much.

Thank you.

Regards,

Hank Kingsley

Re:timothy == good, michael == bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychologist: (nods) Uh huh.

(extended pause)

Psychologist: So, tell me again, why are you here? Why do you read that which upsets or disinterests you? ...

Dangerous

[Flamed to a Crisp]

This could get very very dangerous. Imagine if some terrorists got ahold of a dish (not very hard these days) and knocked out some vital communication systems. Chaos! Our only hope is that since the instructions have been Slashdotted, the terrorists can't get through.

Re:Dangerous

[compwiz3688]

So we should make a dupe of this story.

That's not enough... we need to flood the story submission database with this story :).

Re:Dangerous

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Yeah, like you need to be a genius to work out you can do this...

Re:Dangerous

[NeoSkandranon]

This could get very very dangerous. Imagine if some terrorists got ahold of a dish (not very hard these days) and knocked out some vital communication systems

You mean like CNN?

Re:Dangerous

[wackoman2112]

Yes, this could be very dangerous. We've talked for years about enemy countries sending missiles into space to knock out our sattelites, but now single terrorists can do it from the comfort of their own couch! (If they have couches.) And since they're doing it from other countries, civilized countries with laws can't do anything about them!

Let's deorbit our sattelites and switch to fiber optic baby!

Re:Dangerous

[TopShelf]

Drat - so getting the terrorists married and loading them up with kids won't work...

The tricky thing is....

[PS-SCUD]

How do you make this illegal? If they can beam their signal onto your house, why can't you beam yours at them?

Re:The tricky thing is....

[mrseigen]

They're megacorporations. They can do whatever the hell they want.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[jovlinger]

You need a license to transmit at all on many bands.

Hrm. That can't be right, because my PC was transmitting on FM radio bands just a few years ago (which would explain why 101.7 FNX started sucking right after I upgraded to a Duron from my old pentium). And I used to have this killer wireless mike that transmitted on commercial frequencies (imagine the fun to be had with a little sister...)

So maybe there is a threshold of a few milliwatts. anyways, you CANNOT reverse the stream and send DirectTV your homemade porn without someone throwing the book (of FCC regulations -- much heavier than the book of law) at you.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[heli0]

How do you make this illegal?

Why can't you broadcast a 50MW 95.5MHz signal from your home? A little thing called the FCC.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, yes, right, I forgot, the FCC is an international organisation that oversees every country's airwaives...

Re:The tricky thing is....

[bhtooefr]

Well, that IS a violation. Did you build the PC yourself? If so, YOU (and maybe AMD) violated Part 15 of the FCC rules.

(typed off the back of an old clicky keyboard)
This device complies wiht part 15 of the FCC rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference. And (2) This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
Therefore, your box is violating Part 15-1, but your radio is in complete compliance with Part 15-2.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[heli0]

The international enforcement arm of the FCC is the DOD.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[usotsuki]

And the international enforcement arm of /. is the DoS.

-uso.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[jovlinger]

*sigh* that's what you get for trying to be subtle. Look. The radio FM radio spectrum is from 88 to 108 MHz. Thus, anything cycling at those frequencies WILL give off em radiation.

You've heard of van-eyk phreaking, right? Same idea.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom of speech allows one to speak freely, as long as he/she does not infringe on the rights of another.

I think it could be modified to use radio signals as a form of speech.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a defeatist bitch. Go read some Marx.

Re:The tricky thing is....

[bhtooefr]

so the FSB was 100MHz, then?

Re:The tricky thing is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful where you moderate! I was just confirming that the FSB was 100MHz!

MSNBC giving out hacking instructions??

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, the other divisions of MS seem to think it's some kind of horrible, immoral, illegal thing when you describe how to hack hardware. What happened to "very committed to respect for others' intellectual property and we request the same respect applied to our innovations"?

Re:MSNBC giving out hacking instructions??

[SN74S181]

Here's your cookie for posting the obligatory anti-Micro$oft comment on an unrelated topic.

Re:MSNBC giving out hacking instructions??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a division of microsoft, dumbass, it's a joint venture between microsoft and nbc.

Re:MSNBC giving out hacking instructions??

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

munch munch munch munch munch

At first I thought the title said.....

[Anonymous Coward]

"How to Jam With a Worldwide TV Broadcast"

Jam on it. Ja-j-j-ja-j-j-jam on it....

Okay, I'm high.

uh oh

[bucklesl]

...was knocked off of Loral Skynet's TelStar-12 a few days ago.

Let the Terminator jokes commence

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok.

'"Skynet concluded the interference was caused by a third party" and asked TLS to investigate.'

So Skynet's already gone sentient, but fortunately for us, we appear to be dealing with a lazy-ass pansy Skynet that just asks others to investigate instead of killing 99.999% of everything by immediately launching every nuke on earth. Whew!

OMFG!

[Rolo Tomasi]

Radio signals can be jammed! What are we gonna do?!?!?

*yawn*

In other news....

[mrpuffypants]

In other news, DirecTV was knocked off the air permanently for unexplained reasons today.

Comcast, AOL/TW, and Cox all declined to comment.

At first _I_ thought the title said

[Anonymous Coward]

At first _I_ thought the title said, "Doom 3 progess report" but then I realised that I wasn't reading slashdot at all.

Re:ILLEGAL

[Gunsmithy]

A cable news website? Like I'd go there in the first place. :P

Jammed?

[I Like Swords!!!]

"I've lost the sweeps. I've lost the bleeps. And I've lost the creeps."

"...That's not the only thing he's lost."

"Look, sir! It appears that we're being jammed."

"Raspberry... There's only one man who would DARE give me the raspberry..."

... errr, yeah. Jamming satellites, that's the topic. Sorry, still waking up.

Re:Jammed?

[B3ryllium]

LONE STAR!

Re:Jammed?

[Anonymous Coward]

What fucking moron modded this redundant? I was reading at 1 and this was the first comment about Spaceballs I came across.

Re:Jammed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the OTHER one should be redundant...

Re:Jammed?

[ncc74656]

"I've lost the sweeps. I've lost the bleeps. And I've lost the creeps."

The moderator who modded the above post "redundant" can turn in his Geek ID at the front desk at the end of the day. The geek that doesn't know Spaceballs is not the true geek.

Re:ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Your computer is broadcasting an IP address and it has been logged. We will be sending a SWAT team to your location soon.

But...

[jabbadabbadoo]

...can I jam spesific broadcasts, such as, say... "Good Morning, Miami"?

The even more tricky thing is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you make it illegal, how do you stop people from simply doing it from Cuba (as the jammers in the article did)? Satellites, it doesn't really matter what country you're in if you want to contact them.. that's their strength, but..

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[SagSaw]

You don't even have to be in a country. Nothing would stop you from doing this from a boat in international waters. It really wouldn't have to be that big of a boat either.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[Anonymous Coward]

depends on where the boat is registered doesn't it - it's not that there are no laws in international waters it's just that you carry yours with you and enforcement is spotty

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[mesocyclone]

Nothing like an aircraft carrier and a jet carrying a HARM (High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile) to take care of that problem.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[GordoSlasher]

But you'd probably need a pretty hefty power source on that boat, or a verrrrrry long extension cord.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Well, it better be *really* big if you want it to be stable enough to allow you to point a heavy dish to a precise point in space ...

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[alienw]

It doesn't have to be THAT stable. Transmit a beam with a few kilowatts of power and it will reach the satellite no matter what.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[isorox]

SO I'm sailing across the atlantic, under a U.K. Flag, and the U.S. Navy blows me out of the water? Isnt that piracy on the high seas?

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[Ashen]

yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

shiver me timbers.

arrrrrrrrr.

etc. etc.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[RevSmiley]

Only if the UK finds out..

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The US has made it abundantly clear that they are above any such unimportant ideal as international laws and other commie pinko liberal eurotrash stuff like that.

It's only terrorism when they do it to us

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[evilviper]

Gee, could you possibly make it sound any more one-sided?

SO I'm sailing across the atlantic, under a U.K. Flag, just minding my own business, shooting grenades at passing boats, and the U.S. Navy blows me out of the water? Isnt that piracy on the high seas? Possibly murder?

You weren't just "sailing across the atlantic", you were causing serious financial damage to US interests. BTW, it isn't piracy unless that US Missle stole something from you before or after it turned your ship into ashes...

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that be a HSARM acyronim? IIRC HARM the moniker is more like HAARM High Altitude Anti-Radiation Missle.

Course IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist; but I do play one on a soap opera.)
SHIT (Sam Houston Institute of Tech.) I couldn't even remember the 10 general orders from my boot camp days The only one I remember is general order #11 I will walk my beat,beat my meat and fsck everything within 15 feet.... Oh hell guess my NAVY (NEVER AGAIN VOLUNTEER YOURSELF) days make me SOL (SHIT OUT OF LUCK).

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Serbians figured out the answer to that: you have FOUR boats, each doing a coordinated 30 seconds on, 90 seconds off. Or whatever "on" period is too short for a HARM missile to reach the boat from beyond visual range.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[Anonymous Coward]

And broadcasting a signal is equivalent to shooting grenades at passing boats?

Shooting grenades can be considered valid justification for military action, but broadcasting a signal, even if disruptive...

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[ColaMan]

BTW, it isn't piracy unless that US Missle stole something from you before or after it turned your ship into ashes...

Your ability to continue living perhaps?

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[ncc74656]

But you'd probably need a pretty hefty power source on that boat, or a verrrrrry long extension cord.

Most boats have a "pretty hefty power source" on them...it's called an "engine." Some boats even have two of them (or even more). Hook a generator to that puppy (or maybe just a $100 inverter tied into the electrical system) and you'd get way more power than you'd need to jam a satellite. (It doesn't take much power...maybe enough power to run a light bulb or two.)

At least that's what I took away from reading the article (!)...not much power is involved in satellite communications.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[evilviper]

Doesn't qualify... If it did, everyone that was charged with murder would also be charged with grand theft.

Re:The even more tricky thing is:

[evilviper]

I exaggerated the situation to illustrate the fact that he wasn't just an innocent bystander, and that rebuttle isn't entirely unjustified.

Of course, the idea that the US would launch a missle for something like this is an exaggeration as well. It is much more likely they would send the Navy to intercept, take control of and disable the device causing the problem.

Financially, broadcasting a disruptive signal CAN certanly be far more damaging that shooting grenades at boats.

Re:ILLEGAL

[LethalSoul07]

That is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Even if you were MSNBC there is nothing you could do to anyone posting on this website, other than doing something that is illegal. 0.o Suck on that one.

Re:ILLEGAL

[Gunsmithy]

OH NOS!!!

*downloads eight IP-blocker programs*

Aw ah...Uh huh!

[da3dAlus]

"Not if we JAM IT!"
"Ah ha!"
"Down scope."
"Down scope!"
"Radar...about to be...JAMMED!"

+2 interesting?!?

[imsabbel]

Well, there is something like licences for usage of frequency bands.
Somebody being allowed to do something doesnt equal EVERYBODY being allowed to do it.

Re:ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your input. Your computer is broadcasting an IP address and it has been logged. We will be sending a SWAT team to your location soon.

muhaha!

[wfmcwalter]

it's simply a matter of aiming a strong signal at the uplink transponder on the satellite

Worse, send a really powerful signal (read- military radar magnetron hooked up to mondo dish) and you can permanently fry that transponder, and do so with a burst so brief and directed that it's not terribly easy for anyone to figure out whonunnit. It's a great piece of asymetric information warfare - spend a couple of million dollars to knock out a few dozen civilian comsats, each tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Best of all, it's quite possibly not in breach of any international treaty !

Excuse me, I have to go now, my mechanical pirnahas are hungry...

Re:muhaha!

[Autolycus]

Shhhh.... you'll give Osama & pals ideas!

Does this mean that everytime I buy a transistor or other RF parts that I'l gave to go through a background check?

Re:muhaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to go now, my mechanical pirnahas are hungry...

what's a pirnaha?

Re:muhaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>with a burst so brief and directed that it's not terribly easy for anyone to figure out whonunnit.

Just use a generator in a van, park in the satellite owner's worst competitor! An anonymous call of "suspicious activity on the roof" 24 hours later could add to the fun.

Re:muhaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Best of all, it's quite possibly not in breach of any international treaty !

Denying a nation's communications systems is generally considered an act of war...

Sorta like mining somebody else's harbor.

It would really come down to how strongly the target wanted to/was able to pursue the issue.

Re:muhaha!

[throwaway18]

>send a really powerful signal [...] and you can permanently fry that transponder,

No, you can't permanently damage a satellite this way.

The path loss to a satellite in geostationary orbit is around 200dB. Estimate 50dB with a massive dish on the ground and 30dB gain on the satellite. Assume you need to get a watt of power into the satellite to physicall damage the front end.

You need aproximatly 1 TeraWatt into your dish. The voltage part of the electromagnetic wave will exceed the breakdown voltage of air and you will just produce a lot of plasma in the beampath above your dish. (You can exceed the voltage breakdown of air with a really powerfull laser and get sparks in mid air.)

Re:muhaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Sister Act was a whonunit. Or maybe it was more of a pleasegodstopit.

Re:muhaha!

[f97tosc]

worse, send a really powerful signal (read- military radar magnetron hooked up to mondo dish) and you can permanently fry that transponder,

Of course, even if this were possible it wouldn't really be an option for the Cuban-Iranians. It is one thing jamming a transmission; it is quite another destroying a satellite from a foreign country - even a commercial one.

The US could respond in kind with a missile on the source.

BTW, what are the legal implications of just jamming... are there any international treaties that apply...? Of course the Iranians may feel that they are doing exactly what their expatriots are doing - transmitting something that annoys the other party. Personally I see a difference in jamming somebody else's equipment and sending signals in previously unused (?) spectrums.

Tor

Re:muhaha!

[Destree]

What about sharks with friggen laser beams on their heads?

Re:ILLEGAL

[LethalSoul07]

::Is waiting::

whonunnit?

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a murder mystery in a convent!

(sorry, I'll stop now)

cool , but much cooler things can be done (DSS!)

[pigscanfly.ca]

such as using the transponders to carry your own signal . Most sat tv satelites are essnetially dumb transponders , which means (essentially) they receive a signal on one end and pump it out the other end . What is cool is that using DSS (direct sequencing spread spectrum) you can transmit your own data and people will think that it is background noise . I beleive correctly some russians were doing this awhile back and it went on for a couple of years before they got caught.

Re:ILLEGAL

[Infinite93]

Obviously they are referring to the site with the instructions. ::Patiently waiting for them to shut down MSNBC and EVERY IP that has attached to it::

Damn script kiddies

[aardwolf204]

Pinging nitv.tv with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for nitv.tv:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

Damn script kiddies

Re:Damn script kiddies

[caluml]

bash-2.05b$ ping -c 4 www.microsoft.com
PING www.microsoft.akadns.net (207.46.249.222) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- www.microsoft.akadns.net ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 3012ms

bash-2.05b$

What's your point?

Re:ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

The SWAT team is unable to pick you up right now. Please report to your nearest police station and turn yourself in. Thank you.

Logistically hard

[gilesjuk]

You need a huge knife and gallons of jam.

Re:Logistically hard

[SuiteSisterMary]

Sir, the radar, sir...it's being..jammed.

*lick*

Raspberry! I hate raspberry! There's only one man who'd DARE give me the raspberry....LONE STAR!

Hah! That's nothing.

[Talisman]

I work as a communications officer aboard a ship. We pulled into Cape Town on day 1 of the World Cricket Championships. One of the games was being broadcast nearby, until our active radar filled the air with distortion.

The second the gangway hit the deck, two sweaty, panicked cameramen came charging up, asking to speak to me. I was already at the gangway because I needed to meet a technician.

"You have to turn off your radar! We're broadcasting the World Cricket Chapmionships LIVE AND YOU KILLED OUR SIGNAL!"

Me: "Oh. Who's playing?"

Them: "Pakistan and Bangladesh."

Me: "Pakistan, eh? Yeah, I'll turn it off ASAP."

And 20 minutes later, I did ;)

For any of you gusy that were watching that game, sorry.

Kinda ;)

Tal

Re:ILLEGAL

[LethalSoul07]

oh my god, they are in the back yard! oh wait... that was a cat. Never mind

specializes in satellite security

[jovlinger]

Now does that sound like a cool job, or what?

It's one of those industries I didn't realize there was a niche for.

Re:specializes in satellite security

[Alien Being]

I'd rather be in field service.

Countermeasures

[td]

As has been pointed out, people have been jamming satellite uplinks since Capt Midnite & HBO. So why haven't the satellite folks gone to jam-resistant technology? (I know, it's because of the essential laziness of corporate culture -- geez, it was a rhetorical question.) Spread spectrum is essentially unjammable, if done right (i.e. with cryptographically generated spreading sequences or some such cryptogeek mumbojumbo.)

Re:Countermeasures

[LostCluster]

Spread spectrum is essentially unjammable

Huh? By definition, spread spectrum bounces all over the given band of frequencies in some predetermined patern. It makes it a bit harder to jam, because you'd have to cover all of the frequencies with the jamming signal, but not impossible if the attacker can just jam the whole frequency range.

Furthermore, spread spectrum makes things a whole lot harder on the transmitters on the ground. Let's use a simple example, imagine a satellite with channel space for 6 upbound signals coming from 6 different TV networks that are located at 6 different studios. In simple frequency division, they'd each get 1 slot of bandwidth, and so long as nobody retunes their transmitter to somebody else's frequency it all works. But, in spread spectrum, they'd each be all over the band... unless coordination was very tight between the spreading patern, the 6 sources would keep jamming each other by being on the same frequency at the same moment... you'd need a ton of retransmitting and error correction to get around that.

Re:Countermeasures

[Detritus]

The problem is that transponders are relatively simple devices. They receive a band of frequencies and retransmit those frequencies on another band. Anything in the uplink passband is duplicated in the downlink passband. The transponder can be jammed simply by putting a very strong unmodulated carrier in the uplink passband. This hogs all of the power available in the downlink section of the transponder, leaving little or no power for the legitimate users.

A sophisticated antenna system will provide steerable nulls in its radiation pattern. Once the source of the interference is localized, the antenna can be adjusted to place the null over the source of interference.

Re:Countermeasures

[buss_error]

you'd need a ton of retransmitting and error correction to get around that.

Not really. A pre-determined psudeo-random frequency hopping system sync'ed with a time signal from, say WWV, GPS, NTP, or a sync signal from the transponder itself would do fine. However, you are solving the wrong problem with this solution. (Police Fire and Ambulance use something called "trunking" that's quite a bit like this.)

The problem is that a stronger signal at the receiver can't be rejected based on transmission charateristics absent directional receiving antenna. That signal is going to be there, and it's going to interfere. Yes, you can use authintication to select the correct signal, but if the Automatic Gain Control (AGC) on the receiver is de-sensitized to the point that it can't get the correct signal (by virtue of the fact the the jammer is using more power than you are) then you are up a creek.

Using a directional antenna for the uplink receiver will mean that the jammer will have to be in the same geographic area your transmitter is in to jam you. The more directional the antenna on the receiver, the closer the jammer has to be to your uplink.

The advantage to that is to keep the jammer in the same jurisdiction you are in and all kinds of things can be done, up to and including a raid from armed police to stop it. You won't be able to prevent it, but retalliation in this situation would be swift and sure.

In an earlier post, someone asked how the jammer can be located. When sending a signal up to the transponder, the signal is sent using a directional antenna. Even the best antennas will have some broadcast leakage. At these frequencies, you can also detect the area of the beam from scatter introduced by dust, water vapor, and pollution. You can get at least a general sense of where the transmitter is, though pinning it down to 1000 feet would be a bit more difficult until you have a receiver in the area.

To see this in action, go outside at night and shine a flashlight up at the sky. You can see the beam going up. Same principal, different equipment.

Re:Countermeasures

[GMontag]

All true, but I believe the point of the parent poster is: the 'evil corporations' are too cheap to replace every transponder on every satellite whenever a vulnerability is exploited.

Sorry, I just can't agree with his 'too cheap' accusation. I go with the 'it is much to impractical to do all at once and will have to be upgraded over time' theory.

Re:Countermeasures

[Anonymous Coward]

You certainly know more than I in this area, but if they are swamping the uplink, why not reposition and redirect the upstream information? While inconvenient, I really doubt most of these channels only have one singular point they can uplink the broadcast from.

The other idea I had you covered more simply in the second paragraph. (It dealt with triangulating position or signal and then cancelling that out.)

Re:Countermeasures

[td]

Right. So the fix is not to do that -- i.e. don't use simple transponders, but populate the satellite with spread spectrum relays that cannot be jammed by a strong unmodulated carrier because they only watch that frequency for a few microseconds at a time, and can use forward error correction to correct for the interference. In fact, no signal of plausible amplitude that is unaware of the spreading sequence (which possibility we circumvent with a little cryptography) can successfully jam the transmission -- the jammer has to transmit on a substantial fraction of the frequencies that the spread spectrum signal uses, with higher power on each of them than the legit signal uses. Say we use a frequency-hopping system with 10 thousand frequencies (not hard in the microwave bands), at a power of 100 watts. The jammer has to jam a good fraction of the frequencies to have any success, so he has to build a transmitter whose power output is a good fraction of a megawatt, a proposition that is out of the range of most prospective jammers. And if it's not, we just broaden the spectrum of our frequency-hopper by a few factors of 10 until we exceed the bad guy's budget.

The satellite in question went into service in 1999, thirteen years after Capt Midnight demonstrated how to take over an uplink. It's not like they haven't had time to figure this out, or that the expense involved is large compared to the cost of a communication satellite. So why haven't they done it? The only plausible explanations are inertia and incompetence.

Re:Countermeasures

[TheMidget]

All true, but I believe the point of the parent poster is: the 'evil corporations' are too cheap to replace every transponder on every satellite whenever a vulnerability is exploited.

Especially, since the only way of replacing these transponders is sending up a new satellite... (sending up the space shuttle with a crew to replace just the transponders is not doable, as the space shuttle does not go high enough)

Re:Countermeasures

[TheMidget]

Spread spectrum is essentially unjammable, if done right (i.e. with cryptographically generated spreading sequences or some such cryptogeek mumbojumbo.)

Hmm, wouldn't work for TV satellites, whith millions receivers out there in the field. Just take one, reverse engineer it, and presto: you know the frequency hopping sequence!

Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

...who quickly located the source of the jamming to Cuba.

Why would Cuba want to block Iranian TV? Is there another country who doesn't like Iran that has a presence (or a large base) in Cuba?

Mandatory T3 joke.

[tcc]

> Iranian satellite television station was knocked off of Loral Skynet's TelStar-12

And so it begins... Skynet has become self-aware... and picked a country that supposedly has loads of WMD and terrorists. Guess even AI can be fooled :)

Re:ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

I have given you instructions in another thread. Please do not cross-post, as this places you in further violation and could extend your prison sentence. Thank you for your cooperation.

Re:ILLEGAL

[LethalSoul07]

that's original...

Umm... How'd they figure out Cuba?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone care to explain the technical bits of how they figured out the signal came from Cuba? I'd umm... just like to know for future ah... reference.

Re:Umm... How'd they figure out Cuba?

[yppiz]

Interferometry from space. TLS monitors the jammed satellite and one nearby one to find the approximate location of the source.

Here's TLS's website. They talk about how they do it.

http://www.tls2000.com/Site/Equip.html

The TLS Model 2000 uses interferometric techniques to determine the location of a signal that is being carried over a satellite transponder. This method is totally passive and requires only that the TLS site be in the transponder "footprint" of both the interfered satellite and an adjacent satellite that has a transponder closely matching the characteristics of the interfered transponder.

--Pat

DMCA Violation!!

[heli0]

How to Jam a Worldwide Satellite TV Broadcast

"According to an MSNBC article, 'it's simply a matter of aiming a strong signal at the uplink transponder on the satellite and overwhelming the...broadcaster's signals...You need a dish, some power, not too much. You put up a test pattern ... and do a sweep and find the transponder on the satellite you want to jam'."

So who from Microsoft or General Electric is going to prison for this DMCA violation?

Signal Replacement

[HeX86]

C'mon, lets get creative, instead of blocking out boring TV, lets replace it with eppisodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 or something.

Think creative!e

Re:Signal Replacement

[Neop2Lemus]

How about The Prisoner (sans ep 17)?

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[sik puppy]

The Italians have a radar system (their equivalent of aegis, I believe) that wipes out marisat communications. I had to tell the captain he'd have to wait til that cruiser got far enough away before he could talk to the office.

Cool... Reason to attack Cuba..

[A Commentor]

I bet Bush sees this as justification to now attack Cuba... Cuba is attacking our right to free speech being blasted into Iran. Time for another 'justified' U.S. attack. ;-)

Pirate radio, satellite style.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've often wondered if it would be possible to "pirate" an unused audio channel on a satellite. Do the companies switch off unused channels, or is it simply a transponder for a range of frequencies? It would be hard to locate (not sure how these guys were located to Cuba), and it would be a Europe wide pirate radio station.

Re:ILLEGAL

[Uber Banker]

You replied to this twice yet both times failed to see you were being wound up.

And that's just with your fresh troll account... you did it with Gunsmithy a lot more.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Talisman]

We were sailing off the coast of Spain once and the Spanish Navy was running military exercises nearby. They had a jammer that scrambled GPS signals, in this case by stripping out all the Westward coordinates.

The navigational system that shows the ship superimposed on a map by using a GPS feed had us squarely in the center of the Sahara :)

The ex-Soviet republics are _THE_WORST_ for radar interference. I swear they think someone is going to launch an attack on them every minute of the day. NOTHING but an orgy of signal jamming/scrambling when you get near their coasts. C-Band, INMARSAT, GPS...all yolked.

Tal

The Running Man

[iamjim]

Umm, Didn't we all learn this watching The Running Man?

"Uplink underground, uplink underground. If you say that one more time, I'll uplink your uplink your ass, and you'll be underground!"

Re:ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

dood you are so kewl, defying the police and all

The explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

> In other news, DirecTV was knocked off the air
> permanently for unexplained reasons today.
>
> Comcast, AOL/TW, and Cox all declined to comment.

Just then, an image of bald man dressed in an evil overlord garb appears on the screen and announces.

"Do not bother to change channels. We control all of them.

There is a nuclear device under each major city around the world. I know you don't believe me so I have taken the liberty of blowing up an insignificant city -- Hollywood California. No-one will miss Britney Spears, the new "Battlestar Galactica", or "The Brady Bunch, Next Generation".

Our request is simple. Your governments must submit their authority to our new ancient overlord masters or we will continue to detonate one bomb every day until with you surrender or until the only thing capable of living in your country are the roaches and lawyers.

All hail our new overlord masters!"

The TV goes to static for a moment before displaying, "Sorry for the technical difficulties. We now return you to a very special episode of 'Saved by the bell'".

How to find out the location of a jammer?

[Psychic Burrito]

Can somebody tell me how the source of such a jamming can be found? The satellite's receiver doesn't have a locator from which direction it is receiving something from, doesn't it? So how is it done? Thanks!

Re:How to find out the location of a jammer?

[Conor]

According to company website they use radio interferometry. To do this they need another (relatively) nearby satellite with a similar transponder, which also sees some interference. Then they measure the arrival time difference between the signals bounced from the two satellites, using this they can then triangulate the position to within a few miles.

If you pay them lots of money they'll send out helicopter
(assuming its not in Cuba!) to find the exact antenna causing the problem.

Re:How to find out the location of a jammer?

[Anonymous Coward]

You ask the CIA director for the location, and he triangulates it by the presence of weapons of mass destruction around it.

Re: why

[Typoboy]

Hmm, according to the article, Iran itself may have requested the block of Persian-language transmissions coming out of the US.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Which coasts are you talking about?
Ignoring the Arctic coastline (virtually uninhabited and pretty inaccessible), Russia has a small area of coast around St Petersburg (Leningrad) and a larger expanse between Vladivostok and the Alaska area.

The rest is landlocked.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Lieutenant_Dan]

He probably means Latvia, Estonia and Lithunia.

Done in The Sum of All Fears...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the story in the original book, not the watered-down screenplay for a Ben Affleck vehicle that it became.

Energy from the nuke the terrorists set off at the Super Bowl reacted interestingly and unexpectedly with comm satellites, via the satellite trucks at the site. It fried them.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Lieutenant_Dan]

Err, sorry, meant to type "Lithuania". My apologies to all the folks at the Vilnius University .

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[dr3vil]

No problem. In any given twenty minutes of a cricket game, the chances that anything actually happened are pretty low.

Guanta what bay??

[XSforMe]

I bet I can pinpoint the location in Cuba without the need of any telco equipment.

Re:Guanta what bay??

[Nynaeve]

It could be a U.S. military exercise, but the article states the jamming source is within 20 miles of Havana. Guantanamo bay is several hundred miles away.
Maybe Navy Seals could plant a transmitter 20 miles off the north coast, but if they can transmit to a fixed source from the water I'm very impressed (perhaps use a set of gyroscopes to stabilize it). Are the waters very calm there?

Re:cool , but much cooler things can be done (DSS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Russians using DSS satellites? You know what "DSS" stands for, don't you?

I'll give you a tip... "footprint"

I want..

[56ksucks]

..to jam the satellite and broadcast to the world the signal coming from my NES as I play super mario brothers.

Re:I want..

[Anonymous Coward]

and you hear loud boos echo from outside your window as you miss the that running-jump gap in world 8.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you wonder why you fucking morons have a bad reputation? Isn't there a toilet somewhere you could be scrubbing out right now?

Cuba and Iran

[f97tosc]

This is indicative of the moral bancrupcy of these regimes.

Their supposed ideologies are the very opposite. This makes it clear to everyone that they are really the same. They rally around the flag of protecting the dictators, and supressing free speech. That is the true essence of their ideologies.

Tor

Re:Cuba and Iran

[MochaMan]

Let me ask you this. Who in Cuba has easy access to the kind of technology required to do this, and has a motive? Go to Cuba and take a look around, the Cubans have nothing, and they have no reason to jam Iranian satellites.

I would guess that that signal came from the maniacs at Guantanamo Bay. It's not like they have a particularly good record to begin with: torture, holding prisonners illegally, surrounding themselves with the biggest minefield in the western hemisphere.

Re:Cuba and Iran

[Lord Kholdan]

This is indicative of the moral bancrupcy of these regimes.

Their supposed ideologies are the very opposite. This makes it clear to everyone that they are really the same. They rally around the flag of protecting the dictators, and supressing free speech. That is the true essence of their ideologies.

Kinda like the western world allied with Stalin during the WW2? I guess there's the definite proof that we're all morally corrupt?

Politics make strange bedmates.

Re:Cuba and Iran

[f97tosc]

Let me ask you this. Who in Cuba has easy access to the kind of technology required to do this, and has a motive? Go to Cuba and take a look around, the Cubans have nothing, and they have no reason to jam Iranian satellites.

I would guess that that signal came from the maniacs at Guantanamo Bay. It's not like they have a particularly good record to begin with: torture, holding prisonners illegally, surrounding themselves with the biggest minefield in the western hemisphere.

Please RTFA. The satellite transmissions are pro-student, anti-iranian-government programs based in the USA. The US is publically and privately lauding these transmissions and voicing their support for the student movement.

You conspiracy theorists are really funny, but this really takes the cake. So the US decided to take out the anti-iranian broadcasts based on its own soil, and it did so by taking jammers to a remote prison camp.

If you had RTFA you would have also learned that the technology to do this is very simple - well within reach of the Cuban government.

No, my original point still holds. The few remaining extremely totalitarian states are holding each others hands - it is the only support they can find.

Tor

Re:Cuba and Iran

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what's sad, this comment is now at a 5.

I think the days of anonymous moderation are coming quickly to an end.

Re:Cuba and Iran

[kantor]

These manics are being employed by me and I think they are doing darn good job.

I actually do not mind to have my taxes being spend on "torture, holding prisonners illegally" etc as long as we are dealing with motherfuckers like these who were responsible for 9/11.

Re:Cuba and Iran

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you haven't read ANY of the previous posts I( can assume you are a retard with a small dick.

Re:Cuba and Iran

[Anonymous Coward]

You really believe that?

The only significant incident outside of the Americas I remember Cuba being involved in is when they sent soldiers to Africa to fight against a repressive regime.

I'm not saying that Castro's dictatorship is ok, just that things aren't quite as black-and-white as you seem to like to believe.

Re:Cuba and Iran

[bill_mcgonigle]

I would guess that that signal came from the maniacs at Guantanamo Bay.

So, how did the maniacs make it triangulate as if it was coming from 20 miles outside of Havana? Thems clever light acrobatics they're doing.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Talisman]

"He probably means Latvia, Estonia and Lithunia."

Bingo. Ukraine and Bulgaria like their jammers, too.

shoot back

[Tablizer]

spend a couple of million dollars to knock out a few dozen civilian comsats, each tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Best of all, it's quite possibly not in breach of any international treaty !

What about shooting back, ala Star Wars style? It is just a degree of highly-directed EM to cook something.

Jamming from Cuba, the how and why

[InklingBooks]

I once asked a friend who designed satellite antenna system what it would take to take over a channel and he said it would be fairly easy. The typical uplink is 30 watts into the sort of large dishes you see at TV studios. Because the link is FM (regular TV is reduced carrier SSB), a signal about twice as strong would 'capture' the receiver and the legitimate signal would simply disappear.

What's really intriguing about this story is the Cuba/Iran link. For years we've been told that religious extremism in the Middle East was a close kin of religious conservatives (Jewish and Christian) in the US. Yet when Iraq's brutal dictator recently began to cloak himself in Islamic rhetoric, it was primarily the political left in the US and Europe, who wanted to see him left in power. Their old love affair with Stalin was turned on to the foul Saddam.

Now Iran, an Islamic theocracy, is having trouble with dissidents demanding democracy and who comes to its aid but virtually the only remaining Communist dictatorship in the world.

Very interesting. It seems that some groups simply want to see the great mass of people regimented and are indifferent to the ideology used to justify the regimentation. Religious or secular, Marxist or Facist, it is all the same to them. Mussolini was, after all, a communist before he was a facist and Nazism had people who were called "beefsteak Nazis"--brown on the outside and red inside. Then there is the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. Hitler may have intended to break it at the earliest opportunity, but Stalin seems to have been sincerely surprised when Hitler broke it.

Re:Jamming from Cuba, the how and why

[Lord Kholdan]

Very interesting. It seems that some groups simply want to see the great mass of people regimented and are indifferent to the ideology used to justify the regimentation. Religious or secular, Marxist or Facist, it is all the same to them. Mussolini was, after all, a communist before he was a facist and Nazism had people who were called "beefsteak Nazis"--brown on the outside and red inside. Then there is the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. Hitler may have intended to break it at the earliest opportunity, but Stalin seems to have been sincerely surprised when Hitler broke it.

That's just bad history. Stalin was well aware how Hitler would invade sooner or later and wrote the treaty so he'd have time to build up his military after the purges of the 30s.

Re:Jamming from Cuba, the how and why

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet when Iraq's brutal dictator recently began to cloak himself in Islamic rhetoric, it was primarily the political left in the US and Europe, who wanted to see him left in power. Their old love affair with Stalin was turned on to the foul Saddam.

Nice troll, asshat. I don't know any liberals (I tend toward the right myself, but I've always opposed this war) who liked Saddam -- they just didn't want to see Iraqi civilians and US troops dying for the wrong reasons. Jesus Christ you're a fucking moron.

Re:Jamming from Cuba, the how and why

[statusbar]

Does the fact that the interference signal came from cuba mean that Fidel ordered it?

--jeff++

Re:Jamming from Cuba, the how and why

[RevSmiley]

Last time I checked China was still a Communist dictatorship abet with a smiley face.

Re:Jamming from Cuba, the how and why

[el_munkie]

Yet when Iraq's brutal dictator recently began to cloak himself in Islamic rhetoric, it was primarily the political left in the US and Europe, who wanted to see him left in power.

I don't think that that is due to Islamic rhetoric, but who was pushing for the war in the States. The left opposed the war because Bush was for it, plain and simple. Their views were not based on compassion for the Iraqi people, otherwise they would have opposed it when Clinton attacked Iraq for the exact same reasons in 1998.

To those who think that the more recent Iraq affair is based on a pack of lies from Bush, consider this:
Good evening.

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.

The full transcript can be found here .This the beginning of a speech given by Bill Clinton in '98. The rest goes on to greatly resemble the case the Bush made for war on Iraq. Maybe Clinton was in on what the left thinks is a massive Republican oil-stealing conspiracy? Maybe he fabricated the evidence that led to his conclusion that Iraq had WMDs in order to help his Republican successor? Iraq had WMDs, and even used them (proof of their existence) long after it was supposed to have gotten rid of them.

Three presidents in a row have attacked Iraq. The last two have done so based on Iraq not having proven the destruction of its WMDs. Anyone who thinks that Iraq wasn't developing nasty shit does so merely to toe the party line.

Re:Jamming from Cuba, the how and why

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, many of the same anti-war people were against Clinton attacking Iraq (bombing Baghdad, to be more specific), as well.

But it was such a short episode that it got much less attention at the time as well as later.

The funny thing is, the '98 bombings supposedly targeted known chemical weapons facilities. If they were successful, that would be a good explanation for materials that are unaccounted for.

It wouldn't surprise me if Iraq would've refused to report materials as "destroyed by US bombings" out of pride.

BTW: As for "the exact same reasons", Clinton's administration didn't create a new office alongside the CIA to tell them what they wanted to hear instead of what seemed to be true.

But certainly not arms...

[El Camino SS]

Sanctions, yes. Arms? Hell no.

Remember what happened the last time that we gave people in that regions unlimited resources and guns? Let's just go out of our way to make sure that we don't do that again.

Any winner in an armed conflict is rarely going to institute anything but Marshall Law, especially in that region. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (but with new politics), meaning they have to eliminate all of the old political opponents to make the system work... as quietly as possible.

Giving the opposing side rifles would sound a little like this to me:
"YOU WILL HAVE PUBLIC RULE HERE NOW OR I WILL SHOOT EVERYONE!" (Kalashnikov firing)

Good luck Tehran. Democracy didn't come overnight here, we can't send you guns and expect that you will have anything in charge of you other than a gun-toting government from that.

They have to do it themselves. We have to sit by and watch, there is nothing we should do other than that. The intense hatred of anything US backed would simply do what it has always done in that region... make the people we back look like flunkies for the infidels.

Anyway, much love to the Iranian people. We're rooting for you and your own future. Decided by you.

Re:But certainly not arms...

[Javit]

Any winner in an armed conflict is rarely going to institute anything but Marshall Law...

Who's this "Marshall" guy? One of Murphy's cousins? ;-)

Re:But certainly not arms...

[zenyu]

They have to do it themselves. We have to sit by and watch, there is nothing we should do other than that. The intense hatred of anything US backed would simply do what it has always done in that region... make the people we back look like flunkies for the infidels.

There is plenty reason to be hopeful too. There are only four democracies in the region Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Israel. They are all flawed, Turkey has a huge military industrial complex corrupting their politics and think of they Kurdish minority as subhuman. Lebanon is democrartic but most parts of the country are still occupied by Syria, a monarchy -- purportedly to protect them from another invasion by Israel which no one really thinks will attack again. Israel which refuse to give most of their Palestinian population the vote. And, Iran which has popular elections, but gives religious leaders a veto. Plus the religious leaders run most charities and schools, and have their own militia.

They all have some hope, the Turkish parliament recently rejected the military's approval of US transit rights. They needed 90% approval of their action from the populace, but it should build their backbone. Unfortunately I don't see the Kurdish situation improving. They really need to be given their own country, I've known Turks that were perfectly reasonable and intelligent human beings that seemed possessed with evil when the topic of Kurds came up. I don't think the desire to join the EU will overcome this hatred.

Lebanon's benefactor Syria got a moderate dictator by peaceful succession a few years ago that will probably leave Lebanon as soon as they get a peace treaty with Israel. Even without a peace treaty this may happen as the main opposition party in Lebanon wants to disinvite Syria and the current dictator there would likely accept that, if only grudginly.

Both sides in Israel's civil war want peace and accept each others terms pretty much except for some details like compensation for siezed property and water allocation. There are plenty of foreign donors willing to pay for all but symbolic portions of the bill. What really holds them back is that 70-90% on each side completely distrusts the other side. They have perfectly valid reasons seen close to the ground, but from any other vantage point these two semitic tribes have more common interests than anyone else in the middle east, and as soon as the old warriors like Sharon die (from natural causes) the very young population on both sides of the conflict will have every reason to make up.

Finally, Iran probably has the best hope of all. If you read their constitution you see it's pretty decent, it even guarantees representation for tiny minorities, Zoroastrians and Jews each get a seat each in parliment and three seats go to Christians, the biggest problem is the guardian council which can reject any law with a simple majority. But, half guardian council which interprets the constitutionality of laws, who usually reject laws from the currently liberal parliment, is appointed by the judiciary. They serve 6 year terms instead of the four that the parliment's members serve, and while right now it's packed with very conservative clerics that keep rejecting reformist laws, this will change because the generation that has just started voting was born after the revolution and have only known the excesses of the Iranian government and don't accept it just because it's better than the dictator that ruled thirty years ago. Really, the only thing that could screew things up is if we start mucking with their internal politics and the liberals get associated with the foreign interlopers. All that's needed is few years to rotate out older appointments and everything changes for the better. Even "The Leader" is elected from candidates selected by experts appointed by the guardians, but if the majority grows just a little bigger for reform the leader doesn't need to change because he won't dare do anything to get in the way of reform for fear of complete overthrow, sorta lik

Re:But certainly not arms...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly...when a government institues Marshall Law, everything that you do will be wrong.

Re:But certainly not arms...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's martial, not Marshall ;)

Re:But certainly not arms...

[Goonie]

Both sides in Israel's civil war want peace and accept each others terms pretty much except for some details like compensation for siezed property and water allocation.

I don't think this is correct. Aside from the water rights and compensation issues, as I understand it there's a really big stumbling block called the "right of return". The Palestinians want the right to return to their pre-1948 places of residence in Israel proper. There's no way in the world the Israelis are going to agree to this, because it would mean that Jews would become a minority in Israel, a situation which they find totally unacceptable.

Additionally, you've got a minority of Israelis - the settler movement - who apparently want to expel the Palestinian population from the occupied territories and create a "Greater Israel", and a large number of (but it's not exactly clear how many) Palestinians who want to wipe Israel off the map. Whilst you might eventually get majorities on both sides to accept a peace deal, dealing with the hardliners on both sides is going to be a struggle (case in point: the IRA and the Unionist militias in Northern Ireland).

Re:But certainly not arms...

[evilviper]

There are only four democracies in the region Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Israel.

Hmm, Israel must be an awful big democracy to warrant a double mention. Either that, or someone is going around and renaming countries to conflict with existing countries...

From now on, every country in the world is named "Bob". For instance, my country is Bob, but some summers I drive up north and cross the border to Bob. Man will history students love this newe system or what!

Re:But certainly not arms...

[zenyu]

I understand it there's a really big stumbling block called the "right of return".

Yes, but Arifat has stated he'd go along with the UN resolution, which calls for return OR compensation. It's pretty obvious Israel will not accept a unencumbered right of return so this really means a negotiated compensation regime with courts deciding if someone really did live in the house or on the land they claim. This might be resolved with immigration quotas and the option for palestinians to accept cash compensation in leu of their personal right of return (which in reality would mean being placed on a long waiting list.) I generally don't believe in immigration quotas, but in this case I feel like a liberterian that loves public libraries...

Additionally, you've got a minority of Israelis.. & a large number of (but it's not exactly clear how many) Palestinians who want to wipe Israel off the map.

There are very ideological factions on both sides. They are a tiny fraction of the population though, for historic reasons they have a significant influence in politics. Most of the settlers are recent immigrants who are there for economic reasons not idealogical ones. You will hear many palestinians talk of an eventual re-unification of Israel and Palestine, but if you follow up on it they see it as a peaceful unification of common interests. If you read the writings of many early Zionists you will see the same hope expressed, but years of lukewarm war have made it seem implausable. Much of that isn't from fear of their muslim and christian neighbors in the former Palestine, but fear of the neighboring countries. The Israeli extreemists see this as proof of their real desire to wipe Israel of the map, but I think no level headed person would see this hope this way, though some might say it is so for cynical reasons. Personally, I don't think this unification will ever happen, except maybe in the form a of a free trade agreement, and then probably only after a significant portion of the middle east is democratic. I don't think it will ever go further because we won't see democracy in the region until the oil is all gone, and by then it might be a hundred years since 1948, the generation that grew up as next door neighbors will be long dead.

I'm also not making the arguement that the extreemists won't make this very difficult, Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a right winger, Yigal Amir, who wasn't even a settler. It's been reported by Israeli's and some American's that Arifat kept repeating "they will kill me"(meaning muslim terrorists) when the Oslo process was falling apart. But I've talked to dozens of Israelis and Palestinians and never one that held those extreemists views you see on television. My book buyer is a guy who grew up in an extreemist settlement and he once introduced me to someone who lost his friend to the Israeli armi in a peaceful protest. One of my coworkers once talked about his service in the Israeli army and told me there is much more resentment for the settlers than the palestinians in the ranks of the army. He personally seemed to hold resentment for all Orthodox Israeli's. Their idealoges benefit most from the occupation, but the Orthodox don't have to serve in the army like all other jews (Israeli muslims and christians are not subject to the draft during "peacetime").

Re:But certainly not arms...

[zenyu]

Hmm, Israel must be an awful big democracy to warrant a double mention. Either that, or someone is going around and renaming countries to conflict with existing countries...

Heh, well I meant to write "Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Iran." After previewing, I went back to reverse the order of the last to from "Iran and Israel" to "Israel and Iran" to make the structure of the post better, but I screewed up. But it's not entirely off base as is. The occupied territories did hold an election as part of the Oslo accords. Not that one election gives you a democracy.

If you read on I qualified the democraticies of all those countries I meant to name. These four do have constitutions and regular elections where there is no heriditary ruler with a veto like in the other countries "on the road to democracy" like Qatar, Jordan and the UAE. Of those, only Qatar seems to have at least paved the road. The other countries in the region have complete sham parliments, they have no power and are only there to satisfy American and European businesses who want to say their presence helps the people in region. These sham parliments have no significance to their citizens except for breading contempt of western governments and encouraging the belief that we (the citizens of the west) are all dumb fucks.

Lebanon is the country Muslims and Christians flee to when things get really rotten at home and obviously most Jews fled to Israel in 1968 after the six day war. (The seven day war in '48 didn't affect Jews living in other middle eastern countries as much, though many did go anyway for the same hopeful reasons some Americans went. Though I think the tolerance for Jews was much higher in Arabia than America at the time, this has obviously completely reversed since then.) I have no idea if Zoroastrian's fled to anywhere, but I have met one Zoroastrian who left Saudi and Bahai that fled Iraq to the west so maybe other minorities did the same. Or maybe India? There are very old Zoroastrian and Jewish sects there, though the race thing might be a problem (Iranians are white and blue eyed and Semites, well neither looks very Asian.)

Re:But certainly not arms...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Persian roommate just exploded at you calling Iran a democracy. Very very sad that you think such a thing. Vetted candidates, jailed dissenters, and a clerical stranglehold that just seems to get stronger as they ger more challenged is not a democracy.

Re:But certainly not arms...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately I don't see the Kurdish situation improving. They really need to be given their own country, I've known Turks that were perfectly reasonable and intelligent human beings that seemed possessed with evil when the topic of Kurds came up. I don't think the desire to join the EU will overcome this hatred.

Pure speculation on your part. The Turkish government has passed reforms granting Kurds greater freedoms at an unprecedented speed over the past two years - faster than anticipated by the EU. There is an important distinction between anachronistic government policies designed to preserve the integrity of the Turkish state (by preventing anyone, including Kurds, from taking Turkish territory) and what you describe as the irrational hatred of Kurds by Turks. I've met many Turks and none have any hatred for the Kurds; however, the PKK (old terrorist arm of Kurdish political movement) is a different story.

Re:But certainly not arms...

[zenyu]

My Persian roommate just exploded at you calling Iran a democracy. Very very sad that you think such a thing. Vetted candidates, jailed dissenters, and a clerical stranglehold that just seems to get stronger as they ger more challenged is not a democracy.

I'm very glad he exploded. I get the same feeling when America is called a democracy. Undoubtedly true in a sense, but it's not like a simple majority can do anything, and I can't say I enjoy voting for the candidates vetted by the Republicrats. The plutocrat's stranglehold just seems to get stronger as they get more challanged. But if we had more Americans like your roommate we would have some hope.

When I grew up we all thought the world would be devastated by an all out nuclear war, my guess at your age suggests the Russian tank commanders finally refused to fire at the democratic protesters before you were concerned with politics. We do ultimately have control over our governments, people hold those guns and eventually always have the courage to disobey their orders. Iran already has a just constitution in place, but their "Guardians" are much like the Supreme Court that decided Plesy vs. Fergison. While they are undoubtedly an inherently conservative group they are less so than our court because they serve for six years and not for life. It won't take 62 years like Judge Harlan's courageous single man minority opinion that "In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law." The current backlash against liberalism in Iran is generational, and that of the outgoing generation.

Re:But certainly not arms...

[nordicfrost]

think of they Kurdish minority as subhuman.

Not, they don't. There's a small fraction of the kurds making a hell of a racket about this, but the fact is that most (we're talking 4/5s here) of turkish kurds just want to live in peace and is pissed off at the noisy kurds for destrouing their chance.

Re:But certainly not arms...

[zenyu]

Not, they don't. There's a small fraction of the kurds making a hell of a racket about this, but the fact is that most (we're talking 4/5s here) of turkish kurds just want to live in peace and is pissed off at the noisy kurds for destrouing their chance.

Look I've never met a Kurd, I've only met three non-Kurd Turks and they all had hated Kurds more than the average KKK grand dragon hates blacks. One put me in quite a shock because I had been friends with her for years and never heard her say anything that even hinted at bigotry before. I'll concede my sampling wasn't anything near scientific, but it's not like I read some article by a Kurd about their misstreatment. I didn't even know there was any conflict between the groups until I got to know some Turks.

I hope things have changed as much as you and the other poster on this topic believe, I think Europe will benefit greatly from integrating the young entreprising population of Turkey into it's system.

Re:cool , but much cooler things can be done (DSS!

[pigscanfly.ca]

DSS stands for direct sequencing spread spectrum . There for any dump repeater satelite which would listen to a broadcast from there general area would be perfertly acceptable to use for that purpose.

Well it's time for lasers anyway.

[mrmeval]

There are just so many problems with laser communication from orbit.

Another little known bit about satellites is that they will completely shutdown when a high power signal is detected. I don't know for how long but that would cloak the perpetrator.

Double Whammy

[MochaMan]

Bad day for NITV... first their satellite gets jammed, and then we slashdot their site.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[fermion]

and one wonders why the military has such a reputation for egocentrism and lack of culture

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

What have you got against Pakistan?

Racist bastard.

An interesting link...

[WgT2]

That Iranian TV station is a station that has been used in lue of cell phones, and other communications within Iran, to organize protests against the current hard line religious government (because the same government shuts them down). These protests are likely to be precursors to the current member of the 'Axis of Evil' (and I don't mean that sarcastically at all) falling in a relatively peaceful means. Read: U.S. troops not having any intervention therein and the Iranian people freeing and regulating themselves.

The fact that the jamming signal has been found to be originating from Cuba should be telling of what kind of animal the Cuban government is:

It is willing to side with an enemy (hard line Islamist) that has a common enemy (the U.S.) whom upon the destruction of that common enemy (the U.S.) would in turn start its war on them (Cuba).

Besides being telling of the nature of Communist it is also foolish of them.

A 500 watt maser tuned to the proper frequency ...

[JoeGee]

... Point it at your target satellite. Turn on the power. Wouldn't that do it?

-Joe G.

Diplomacy at work. Well done there.

[cliveholloway]

Your post succinctly sums up exactly the attitude that provokes the rest of the world into frustration against Americans:

1. you dismiss a activities alien to you
2. you dismiss countries alien to you

What would you have done if it was NFL playoffs or World Series baseball live?

Just because something isn't important to you, it doesn't mean it isn't important to others.

I guess you have no problem with crivket fans thinking you're a dick - after all, none of them are American, so why should you care?

*sigh*

cLive ;-)

Re:Diplomacy at work. Well done there.

[Darth_brooks]

Where does it say he's american?

You might want to wear a brace around that jerking knee.

Re:Diplomacy at work. Well done there.

[cliveholloway]

whois remail.org

YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD

[Suchetha]

Considering that Pakis are a toprated team and the Banglis are pretty much at the bottom of the ratings the ENTIRE GAME could have finished by then You Insensitive Clod (tm).
Hell we (the Sri Lankans) beat them (their innings and ours) in less than two hours.. and our guys weren't even trying.

Suchetha

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

"why you fucking morons"

Which moronic group from what country are you specifically referring to here? I didn't see anything in the post that referred to country, ship name, etc.

Many countries military's have ships with active radar. And many locations have shitty installations for broadcast. Whose fault is it?

If you didn't know, there are many bad reputations in the world. Last time I was in DC, I couldn't a decent picture of the White House because of all the damn tourists. Damn out of towners. Damn foreigners. No wonder they have a shitty reputation, huh?

Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[jordandeamattson]

While watching the Tinammen Square Massacare and then discussing it at MacHack in 1989, we discussed the fesability of not just taking Chinese television of the air, but actually taking control of it and getting the real message of what was happening out to the world.

After a few hours of discussion with some extremely bright folks, we came to the conclusion that 1) it could be done, 2) that it could be done easily, and 3) that we really didn't want the Chinese security services and the US Department of State and the FCC all coming after us.

What is surprising, is that this hasn't yet been done in any large scale way. The reality is that small forces of 2 and 3 people can wreck havoc in our increasingly connected world. I believe that what keeps this in check is the level of concerns that kept us in check. But what happens we you don't have those concerns? When you have nothing to lose? Then you have the cyber-equivalent of the Palestenian sucide bombers.

Re:Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have nothing to lose? Then you have the cyber-equivalent of the Palestenian sucide bombers.

Bullshit--you act like the Palestinians actually have a cause. They're just anti-Semitic terrorists who do nothing but complain that Israel cuts off their funding for terrorism and defends itself from homicide bombers. They just hate Jews and want to kill every last Israelite on land they stole.

But you're right in one way--malicious acts like this would put you on the level of the Arab hate bombers. If you want to make real change, join a party, get elected, and carry out your platform. Don't be like a Palestinian or a blackshirt leftist freak and threaten people with violence.

Re:Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[tiny69]

It happens all of the time when more than one company/group/organiztion have access to the same satellite. When one of them are having problems with the uplink (excessive cloud cover, etc), it's common that a tech for that company would go out to the satcom modem and boost the signal a couple of decibels. This would usually drown out another companies siganl who would than boost their own. Eventually you would get to a situation where everyone has boosted their output signal way above what is normal and everyone is getting drowned out. The company in charge of the satellite would have to call all of the offending parties, have them cut their signal, and bring them up one by one. It wasn't uncommon for this to happen at least once every six months.

Re:Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[jordandeamattson]

Really?

And what is the difference between the actions of the Israeli's that blew up the King David Hotel (you do remember that piece of Israeli history, the part with the Stern Gang and the future Prime Minister blowing people and things up to drive the British out of Palestine as it was called at the time) and the Palestenian that blows themselves up on a bus?

To be clear, my stance towards the Israeli's and the Palestinians is a pox on both your houses. But I can also understand the frustration of the Palestinians that are seeking a level of autonomy and security. I would love to tell them to join a political party and to seek elective office. But let's not forget that the Israelis have refused to seat legally elected Arab and Palestinian members of the Kenseet. And that many Palestinians don't even have the franchise. There is enough blame to go around on both sides.

But in no case, does this undercut my basic argument. We no live in a world where is someone doesn't accept the "rules of the game", they can step outside the game and wreck incredible havoc.

Re:Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[Anonymous Coward]

Palestinians are semites, you fucking moron.

Re:Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[tunabomber]

Actually, the Falun Gong have done it a number of times.

Re:Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a typical tactic of Jew-haters who want to divert attention from the real issue at hand--that Arabs who hate Jews, and their fellow-travellers in Europe and the American Hateful Left, support the killing of innocent people in pizza parlors, buses, homes, dance clubs, and restaurants.

"Anti-Semitic" traditionally refers to hatred of Jews, and none of your obfuscations can change that.

Re:Surprising it hasn't happened sooner

[evilviper]

The reality is that small forces of 2 and 3 people can wreck havoc in our increasingly connected world. I believe that what keeps this in check is the level of concerns that kept us in check.

No, what keeps it in check is that the established groups have man man countermeasures. For one thing, signals are usually broadcast at many times the necessary signal strength, just so that it would take a huge deal of power to cause interference.

There are also nice things like encryption, authentication, etc. At most, you can only cause confusion for a few days, and even then, only in the places that aren't doing the right things to prevent malicious individuals... There are plenty of steps companies can take, but companies have shown, time and time again, they like to cut costs on the critical items as well. Put idiots in charge, and that's what you get.

Re:A 500 watt maser tuned to the proper frequency

[robogun]

Depends on the distance from the source to the satellite. If the beam can be kept tight, say, a beam diameter within the length or diameter of the receiving antenna (about 2 inches?) it might do it.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious from his diction that he's a yank.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Darth_brooks]

yeah, He ought to be court martialed by the captain of the USS.....oh, wait, He doesn't say he's in the military. The original poster calls himself "communications officer" which implies jack shit.

He also talks about two cameramen running up the gangway. Given our military's stance of peace love and happiness, those guys should've been shredded by gunfire before getting two steps up the gangway.

But hey, what do I know?

Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[securitas]

In addition to the U.S. military base and Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, I seem to recall that there is an NSA/CIA/DIA electronic signals intercept and listening station at Guantanamo.

From the book ''The U.S. Intelligence Community''
At Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are more than 100 members of the Guantanamo Naval Security Group Activity. Employing an AN/FRD-10 antenna system, the unit intercepts Cuban and Soviet military communications in and around Cuba and the Caribbean Basin.

It seems more likely that jamming an Iranian satellite signal would come from the American dishes at the Guantanamo installation than from Cubans.

The Soviets/Russians also had a major electronic signals listening station at Lourdes, Cuba (its largest foreign military base) that was aimed at intercepting American telephone calls and computer communications, but the Russians shut it down in 2002 after pressure and inducements from the USA. The base was set up after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a theory why these American Government agencies would want to jam their own VOA signals?

It seems more likely that jamming an Iranian satellite signal would come from the American dishes at the Guantanamo installation than from Cubans.

It's not an Iranian satellite signal.

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[robl]

"It seems more likely that jamming an Iranian satellite signal would come from the American dishes at the Guantanamo installation than from Cubans."

Armchair punditry at it's worst.

If you'd do some research about NITV The TV station is actually broadcasted from the US into Iran. That's right. National Iranian TV (NITV) is produced in the US. And no, I am not making this up.

NITV, not being state run, has government enemies in Iran for doing things like making fun of the leaders there. So the Mullahs in Iran call the Castro gang in Cuba and get them to do a favor for them.

This is something the US military would not want to block.

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[autopr0n]

It seems more likely that jamming an Iranian satellite signal would come from the American dishes at the Guantanamo installation than from Cubans.

That's like saying that OK city bombing was done by the US military rather then Tim McVeigh because the military has better access to bombs. According to the article, jamming a sat isn't that hard. I'm sure someone in cuba is smart enough to do it, and if not, I'm certan that there are people in iran who could, and it would not be hard to ship those people to Cuba to do it.

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[f97tosc]

From the article:

three sources associated with the broadcast services confirmed that Loral Skynet, the operator of the Telstar-12 satellite used by the broadcasters, had determined the jamming was probably emanating from "the vicinity of Havana, Cuba."

One of the sources said that Loral, working with transmitter location expert TLS Inc. of Chantilly, Va., had further fixed the location as "20 miles outside of Havana." Cuba's main electronic eavesdropping base, at Bejucal, is about 20 miles outside of the Cuban capital. The base, built for Cuba by the Russians in the early 1990's, monitors and intercepts satellite communications.

5, Interesting, eh? More like 0, Stupid. The broadcasts are done by regime-critical expatriots in the US. Why would the US jam anti-iraninan broadcasts based on its own soil?

Tor

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[TheMidget]

That's like saying that OK city bombing was done by the US military rather then Tim McVeigh because the military has better access to bombs.

Hmm, what's the difference? Tim spent more time in the regular army than in the militia

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[Anonymous Coward]

This man is an idiot, please mod this rubbish down to the gutter where it belongs.

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[f97tosc]

Maybe to provide an excuse to invade yet another country?

Except it is a relatively easy matter to figure out exactly where the transmissions came from - thus if it came from G. Bay and not from a Soviet-built site outside Havanna then everybody could tell that that was the case.

Look, I am not a big fan of everything what the US government does either. But I just don't understand when people get so bitter that they are willing to speak in favor of regimes that by all acounts are 100 times worse (like Cuba, Iran).

Tor

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[SedentaryZ]

Hmmm. A plot by the Americans to set up an excuse to invade Iran, or the mullahs in Iran using the Cubans to knock an independent TV station off the air at the same time large student organizations are planning protests against the Iranian government. Who has the largest interest in stopping the broadcast of a US sponsored Iranian TV station, that is used to support pro-democracy forces in Iran?

You decide.

BTW, the protests were largely cancelled because the mullahs made it clear to the student leaders that if they protested they would be facing a Tiananmen Square type reprisal. After the protests were called off, the student leaders were abducted by govenment-sponsored paramilitary types.

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the input moron!

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[Anonymous Coward]

He is just blaming the US because he has a tiny dick and his mommy told him the USA caused his tiny penis.

Re:Cuba / Guantanamo Bay listening stations

[Anonymous Coward]

Resistance to what? You must have a micro-pecker too.

Link fishing

[Darth_brooks]

Wasn't there a story that came up, perhaps here, a while back about a tech at $RANDOM_PODUNK_SATILLITTE_COMPANY, i think in arizona, who found out one night he could overpower Showtime or HBO's satillitte feed? Didn't he then end up with teams of federal agents mobbing him, calling him a threat to national security?

Re:Link fishing

[kalanar]

Basically HBO gets their broadcast screwed, he gets found, and off on a year probation and a decent fine.

Slashdot discussion of "Captain Midnight" in this story

http://www.signaltonoise.net/library/captmidn.htm - Link to the story originally linked in that thread.

Re:A 500 watt maser tuned to the proper frequency

[imsabbel]

Problem with maser:
1. at least half of your 500watt will be lost somewhere in the air (water vapour ect)
2. Maser/Laser arent "ideal", parallism is a tradeoff: you can use a large dish to widen the beam and limit dispersion, but you get a lower energy density in your beam.

500watt wont be enough.

btw: i doubt youll get a 2 inch beam at 40 meter distance, much less at 40000 km, which you need to reach the geo.

This is straight out of a Tom Clancy book...

[KRL]

It's called tickling if all you are doing is messing with it. Frying it is just a matter of boosting the power.

Go read "The Cardinal of the Kremlin".

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Talisman]

And if I was in the military, you might have had a point.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[akb]

What do you do if you meet someone from Pakistan on the street? Spit on them?

You seem like one of those people that would have gleefully herded the Japanese into concentration camps during WWII.

Similar to problems with 2-way satellite broadband

[torklugnutz]

My mom wanted to install a 2 way satellite broadband connection in the motorhome. The DirecWay people said it was impossible to have a mobile dish, because if the uplink signal crosses over into someone elses (like a TV channel) bandwidth, DirecWay gets fined $10,000 per minute. The FCC requires the system to be installed by a professional, as a result. Off the subject now, but it can be done in a mobile situation, by using an expensive ($5000) computerized positioning system. Back to what's relevant, if you tried doing something like jamming a network's satellite signal, you'd be putting yourself at a pretty good financial risk.

Re:A 500 watt maser tuned to the proper frequency

[wfmcwalter]

but you get a lower energy density in your beam.

Quite, but unlike regular applications of parabolic reflectors, we don't want to receive/emit collimated radiation - we want to use a (very) slightly nonparabolic reflector to bring our signal'o'doom to an approximate focus out there at 40000km. We want low energy density down here where the air is thick, and the highest possible up there at the warm end of the equation. Still (as throwaway's very astute comment points out) it's going to need to be a whopping dish on the ground to get this to work. I doubt my Radio Shack storecard will cover the cost...

Aside: man, this conversation is going to get us all sent to Guantanamo. We can hardly claim that we only intend to zap axis of evil comsats, as the most hi-tech weapon in the cuban arsenal is an asthmatic donkey with a straw hat.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, actually a lot of things happen in 20 minutes of
one day cricket game, and that too in a world cup , as opposed to a pathetically dumbed down version of that game called Baseball.

Just think. Typical run scores in a baseball game (lasting about 4 hours, say), are may be 8 per team.

In one day cricket, each inning also lasts about 3.5 to 4 hours. A typical score would be 210 runs (can be as high as 398 and as low as 47). There are a maximum of 10 wickets to fall. Anything could happen in every ball bowled. So on average, a 20 minute snippet from a one day cricket is much more exciting than baseball.

By a similar analogy, what if I jam 20 minutes fo the US president's address to the nation? It is conceivable that many people think that 20 minutes of his speech wouldn't contain anything of substance.

Not Necessarily Cuba

[thelizman]

The signal is originating from somewhere in South America or the Carribean. So, even though Cuba is a bastion of evil, it's more likely coming from Al-Qaeda groups known to be operating in the large Iranian communities in and near Brazil.

Not a minus for Cuba, but it does further demonstrate Iran's hardliner link to terrorism.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[sik puppy]

Never had any trouble in any of those areas - Klaipeda, Lithuania; Poti, Georgia; or Vladivostok. Only around Italy.

Of course no one treats a merchant ship as a threat. Not until someone sucessfully uses an LPG tanker to take out a city or two...

Re:Cuba listening station bull puckey

[Phil-14]

You know, it occured to me that the TV stations in question are broadcast from the United States, and that this jamming has happened at the exact same time that there has been major unrest in Iran by people revolting against the theocracy there. The US does not approve of the Iranian theocracy; remember the "axis of evil" speech? That the jamming happened when it did seems to indicate that it was intentional, and was to the benefit of our enemies. That you therefore conclude that it was done by the US says a lot more about you than it does the US.

I would instead direct your attention here, and here. If Iran and Cuba have been working together, this suggests that the Cuban government really was the source of the jamming. If you feel sympathies towards the Cuban government such that you're unwilling to believe that they'd support the Mullahs, I suggest you reconsider them.

Evidence Tailsman is from the US

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many think of the U.S.A. as a prime example of such a practice, but we didn't pioneer it."

-- knunov@remail.org, http://www.remail.org/ (link from Tailsman's post's header, emphasis mine.)

Re:A 500 watt maser tuned to the proper frequency

[robogun]

Guantanamo is in Cuba, is that not the source ot the signal that took out Iranian TV? Are you suggesting we might get sent there to *work* on it ?? :)

How about a "death star" setup where several *asers are aimed at the target from different angles.

It's been done-think Captain Midnight-1986

[BigDish]

Damn Slashdot Lameness Filters-won't let me post the article itself, complaining of too much whitespace. Anyway, go here to read it, very interesting: http://kaizo.us/mirrors/phrack/phrack06/p06-10

Um, hello

[autopr0n]

Why would the iranians use a satalite dish for their own local channel? NITV is broadcast from LA by expat iranians and calls for the destruction of the current government.

Class B vs. Class A

[autopr0n]

Havn't you ever noticed the 'class B computing device' sticker on lots of hardware? It means that the device doesn't give off too much radiation. And you are allowed to broadcast on the FM band as long as it's low power enough. I doubt your wireless mic would have any effect more then a couple meters away.

And not only that, but to jam a satalite dish, you need to have a directional antenna and a lot of power...

Re:Class B vs. Class A

[jovlinger]

true enough (sp?). The mic was good for a few meters, no more. Not even across the house.

Bad History?

[maroberts]

I'd be interested to know what steps Stalin did take to rebuild the military - he seems to still have been caught with his pants down in June '41

Re:Bad History?

[Lord Kholdan]

When Hitler attacked soviet forces had over twice more tanks and planes, an obvious result of a military buildup. There were also the military reform after the Finno-Russo war and the creation of the buffer zone between Soviet Union and Germany (Consisting mainly from the baltic states and eastern Poland)

However, the time of the attack was a surprise, Stalin wasn't expecting invasion until '42 (And had the balcans offensive lasted a while longer, it might have postponed the offence to the next year). However, considering how large and growing military Soviet Union had at that time, it's hardly a surprise to say that Stalin was oblivious of the german threat. It could even be said that Stalin was the first person to realize it when he was backstabbed in the question about the thechoslovacian (sp?) territories!

Re: the Cuba/Iran link

[Anonymous Coward]

The main common ground between Cuba and Iran is the enmity of the United States govermnent. And they have a common interest in trade -- Cuba needs oil, Iran sells it. Why look for an overt or covert ideological justification?

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Can somebody please mod parent down. The poster has missed that the broadcasts are based in the US and very critical of the Iranian government.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT UP.

Nice idea but

[maroberts]

Your audio channel would consume satellite power, and the company running the satellite gets very interested when the satellite is using more power than they've calculated it should. Especially if as a result the satellite goes into overload.

Also those unused frequencies may be allocated for military purposes - pissing off an army is not a good idea....

Re:Nice idea but

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking mainly of the "Sky" satellites - you know, the ones that are used for Sky, etc.

There are lots of subaudio channels to each video channel, and not all of those are used. Have a play around sometime - watch a video channel, and change the audio - sometimes they're another language, but sometime they are just blank.

All you need to know...

[john_smith_45678]

(Weiss reads off the uplink code numbers to Amber.)
Weiss: Eighteen, twenty four. C'mon.
Amber: Eighteen, twenty four.
Weiss: Sixty one, B. Say them. Say them!
Amber: Eighteen, twenty four, sixty one, B. Can we go now?
Weiss: Not yet.
Amber: Not yet? What do you mean, not yet?
Weiss: Seven, seventeen, seventeen, four.
Amber: Seventeen, seven, four.
Weiss: Seventeen, seventeen, four.

http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/80schild/runningman 1. html

The Running Man?

[checkyoulater]

Didn't Mick Fleetwook and Dweezil Zappa do this in The Running Man? Remember the scene towards the end where Ben Richards discovers the dead bodies of the so-called winners of the Running Man game? It is at that time he is captured by the resistance (for lack of a better term). He then helps them capture the satellite. If I recall all they had was a bunch of machine guns and one clever geek who made that girl remember the uplink code.

Re:Raspberry?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only one person would dare use raspberry...

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[August_zero]

Pakistan.... is that anything like Pokemon?

A number of reasons

[Sycraft-fu]

The main one being frequency liscencing. In the US at least, the radio spectrum is regulated by the government. There are some sections of it that are opened to public, unliscenced use, such as 2.4ghz and 5ghz, but even then devices must comply with regulations such as maximum power output. For the rest of it, you have to have a liscence. Like HAM radio, it is basically just a bunch of people talking to each other about a whole variety of things. It isn't used for any critical government work, or as a commercial broadcast. However, if you want to play, you have to get a HAM operators liscence. It's not difficult or expensive to get, but you need to have it and have your callsign if you want to legally use the HAM bands.

Then there is also the idea that you aren't supposed to deliberatly interfere with others' communications. Both you and I are welcome to operate devices in the 2.4ghz specturm without liscence. Perhaps I want to operate a phone, and you want to operate a wireless data link. However, if you make a device for the purpose of interfering with my phone signals, expect to get in trouble.

It seems to me that kind of a common hacker/cracker logical fallicy is that just because you have the ability to do something, means it should be ok to do it, that if the other side can't stop you technologically, it is ok for you to walk on their rights.

Well I like to compare breaking in to a system, even with no intent of doing damage, to breaking in to a house. See most residential locks are very easy for a trained locksmith to pick. With the right tools, a few minutes of work is all it takes them. Now, how would you feel if you come home and there is a locksmith poking around your place. You get mad and he tells you "You should have had a better lock." He'd have a point, the falws with your lock are well known and documented and you can get better locks with just a little effort. So you go and locate a Medeco dealer and get yourself a high security lock. These are much harder to pick because of their odd pin design. However harder does not mean impossable, and good locksmiths can still do it given time. So again the locksmith is back. Where do you go from here? There are solutions out there, you can get a system that not only requires a phusical lock to be unlocked, but a code to be entered to electronicly unlock a second lock. However that too has problems. And of course the real problem with these increasing solutions is that they are increasingly expensive. A Medeco deadbolt costs almost $200, all said and done. That's a hell of a lot more than an average lock. Most of the electronic locking systems are a good deal more than that, and are kind of difficult to track down as an ordinary person.

So just because you can hack past someone's computer security or just because you can override someone's satalite signal, doesn't give you the right to do so.

Re:A number of reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Like HAM radio, it is basically just a bunch of people talking to each other about a whole variety of things. It isn't used for any critical government work, or as a commercial broadcast. However, if you want to play, you have to get a HAM operators liscence. It's not difficult or expensive to get, but you need to have it and have your callsign if you want to legally use the HAM bands.

Dude, ham as in ham radio is NOT an acronym.

I'm not trying to be an asshole, really. But it's jarring to see it written HAM.

Sincerely,

Anonymous Nitpicker (licensed ham for 27 years, since I was 11)

Get better evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

There's major unrest all the time in some part of the middle east, so arguments such as yours are weak.

[OT] Re:YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD

[Anonymous Coward]

Not often Cricket gets discussed on Slashdot, so I must take this opporunity to congratulate England on their demolition of the once mighty South Africa today.

Now if only the Aussies weren't so much better than everybody else...

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Nah, I discounted Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania because they are on the fast track to EU membership and no longer play by anything remotely resembling Soviet rules.

Bulgaria (not an ex-Soviet Republic) and the Ukraine are on the Black Sea which is not something you just pass through on the way to somewhere else. The Ukraine were holding a military exercise in the area a couple of years ago and shot down a passenger plane. It turned out that their air-to-air missiles had a far 'better' range than they thought. Looks like they treat it as a domestic lake.

Phil-14's reactionary bull puckey - History lesson

[securitas]

The fact that you decided to resort to a personal attack and innuendoes says far more about you than anything else you had to say. Instead of behaving like a reactionary, McCarthyist zealot and making claims about all sorts of conclusions that I supposedly reached, try reading a little closer.

I said it seems more likely that a signal would have come from Guantanamo. Considering the massive signals operation there, that's perfectly reasonable.

Someone else mentioned in the thread that it's possible that it was an accidental jam if it was the USA because mistakes like that have been known to happen. A more cynical view would be that it was intentionally done to manufacture an incident like the Gulf of Tonkin hoax that was eventually used to justify the Johnson administration's massive expansion of the war in Vietnam. The final possibility that is mentioned in the article is the Russian-built Cuban station. It seems strange that the Russians would have two stations that were only seven miles apart (before the closure of Lourdes), but that is also entirely possible.

The fact is that neither you nor I have any concrete proof of who was responsible for the jamming. Everything else is speculation.

The CNN Los Angeles bureau reported in June that the backers of the U.S.-based Iranian dissident satellite television stations are Shah-ists, showing the portraits of the Shah plastered all over the studios. We now know that a 1953 coup orchestrated by the CIA, helped overthrow the short-lived, democratically elected Mossadegh government and snuffed out budding democracy in Iran. The U.S. then installed the Shah and trained his notoriously brutal SAVAK internal security forces. The Shah went on to become one of the most savage dictators of the 20th century until the Iranian revolution in 1979.

To get back in bed with the Shah's supporters today is directly counter to the stated goal of fostering a democratic, free society in Iran which might have thrived if not for the U.S.-backed coup 50 years ago.

To Phil-14: The last time I checked I have the right to free speech. It seems you would prefer that we live in a Stalinist, Communist regime that would put an end to anyone who didn't agree with your narrow point of view.

The MSNBC report may be 100% correct. An open mind will at least acknowledge that there are other possibilities.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

its funny... laugh!

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Ulumuri]

Are you sure? Pakistan and Bangladesh never played in the world cup (They were in different pools)

KISS

[Detritus]

One of the principles of satellite design is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Complicated designs kill your reliability and increase costs. Another principle is that if you have the choice between doing it on the satellite and doing it on the ground, you do it on the ground. You can always repair and upgrade ground-based equipment.

There are several advantages to the simple transponder. One, is the low component count, improving reliability. Two, it supports multiple types of services, even services that had not been invented when the satellite was designed. A single transponder can simultaneously support multiple sources of voice, data and video, whether digital or analog.

To be jam resistant, a spread spectrum transponder is going to need a very large and linear dynamic range, plus a very wide bandwidth. Otherwise, a single strong carrier will be able to suppress any weak signals.

An Iranian's View on the matter... the REAL story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello there, I would like to clear some things up and shed some light on the matter. (excuse the bad English) Firstly, a satellite related history about Iran:

We have 6 channels. One is news, one is sport and the other four are mixed channels, showing anything from soccer to documentaries to dubbed American films and series (yeah, death to america baby!!) to English films in original language to japanese samurai black and white films to cartoons etc.. you name it. Ofcourse the news biased towards the evils of America and the poor Palestinians getting killed and so on (one interesting thing is that when 5 Palestinians get killed, they are Martyred (and if there are any kids / women in between the killed, they are mentioned loudly, but if a school bus of Jew kids are killed, then "20 zionists were killed" ... anyways). Since the channels mostly show boring old films or even more boring documentaries, most pople have digital satellite receivers and just watch show and Iranian channels.

Satellite Receivers and Dishes are 'illegal' in Iran and every now and then the media's attention is focused on the matter and so the local police bitches about and raids a few houses, taking away their equipment and fining them... then gives up. This has become the norm. Since Tehran (the capital city) has over 14 million in population, going round every house and taking away their equipments was not a feasable task. I have written (at the end of this post) what they have done NOW to get the channels jammed and it seems to be working... 90 cm dishes are the norm here. They're big enough to do the job and yet small enough to be concealed easily. 60 cm versions are also available but you need a *really* good LNB (such as Nokia) to get a good signal. Now on to the NITV matter:

The National Iranian TV station (NITV) is a station based in USA and it mostly broadcasts talk shows and documentaries AGAINST the current regime in Iran so they are America's friend and Iranian government's enemy. Currently, there are 6 or 7 Iranian language satellite channels that can be received in Iran. All are transmitted from "TelStar 12" satellite. About two years ago, the only Iranian satellite channels were NITV and another one I can't remember. Both used to be broadcasted from Hotbird satellite. That
was until their signals were jammed multiple times (after a few months of broadcasting) and at the end they made the decision of moving to TelStar 12. I remember they issued a statement that Hotbird has received jamming signal FROM IRAN that has worked against the Iranian channels and so on... the funny thing is that the Iranian gov. broadcasts 4 or 5 propaganda channels to the very same "hotbird" satellite and they continued to broadcast their programmes even after Hotbird had found about their dirty trick. Don't you think those hotbird guys should have stopped broadcasting their programmes as a result ?

Since then, everyone has had to either add a new satellite dish or just add another LNB to their dish (which is set to Hotbird to get those music shows) and receive the Iranian channels as well. Recently there was a lot of talk in the "Majles" which is parliament about jamming signals being broadcast locally to stop people receive the
channels. And there was debate on whether these signals could be cancerous or not. At the end, they started to send jamming signals while the case remained open in the parliament.

At first, I laughed at the idea because a satellite dish works by concentrating bounced microwaves to a point where the LNB receives them and converts them to electrical signal. But if the government broadcasts signals locally, then the point of concentration would not be at the LNB part and so it shouldn't really matter huh ? Well, I am wrong and they have been successful (up to a certain level) to annoy the hell out of people and in some areas people can't get a signal. The jamming they are using is sweep based. From what I experienced at a friend's house, the sweep signal was on *any* channel

foolish analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

NITV, run by zia ataby, has been jammed before by the iranian government. There has been massive civil unrest there lately. On K5 there was a story a month ago about some legislation to actually support NITV.

I highly doubt America had anything to do with it.

Obligatory Simpsons Quote 2

[RedSynapse]

McGwire: Do you want to know the terrifying truth, or do you want to see me sock a few dingers?
Crowd: Dingers! Dingers!
[McGwire hits the long ball]
Oooh!
McGwire: [takes printout] Yoink!
[tucks it under his hat and looks around, suspiciously]

snpp.com

Re:Raspberry?!

[Anonymous Coward]

LONESTAR!

Re:Phil-14's reactionary bull puckey - History les

[Anonymous Coward]

My god you're dumb. Contrary to what you suggested, Phil-14 said nothing that would threaten your right to be a moron. If you think the US would jam the broadcasting of a TV show as a pretext for an invasion you're even dumber than your first post suggests. The US does not fund or support the broadcasts in any way, and in the article it says Iran has blocked the exile tv shows numerous times before. If you really believe this bullshit go over to INDYMEDIA or International ANSWER you fuckhead.

Test pattern? How quaint.

[graybeard]

Once upon a time, the announcer would announce, "This is the end of our broadcast day. Please rejoin WWWW at 6AM." Perhaps this announcement followed an inspirational moment from the Reverent Billy Bob Cross, or the Navy Hymn, or the Star-Spangled Banner, complete with fly-over. If one were lucky, one had just seen the Late Movie, or the Late-Late Movie. Now, it Infomercials as far as the eye can see.

NITV is not monarchists

[Anonymous Coward]

Reza Pahlavi has been advanced by some but he is a public speaker and hence the TV station has had him on multiple times to speak. However NITV has also had other dissidents on yet some want to center on the Shah's son. He has spoken across the US yet nobody calls the colleges he has spoken at monarchists because just broadcasting Pahlavi doesn't mean you are for returning his family to power. Many of those that support a regime change in Iran have been plastered with negative commentary by the NIAC, Ehsassi, and others who are basically clerical appoligists that have been trying to gain legitimacy for the Iranian theocracy from the West (and sadly they have done a very good job of it). HR505 was legistaltion introduced to this effect.

I suggest you learn more about who is making accusations and what the real motives are of people before trying to sound like you know everything.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey he might be Indian and since Pakistanis and Indians are the same race, he's just be a nationalist bastard which doesn't sound nearly as bad.

Re:Hah! That's nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! I learn something at slashdot every day. Today I learned that the people in Pakistan are their own race!

What race are you from? It could use a little genocide.

Re:ILLEGAL

[xombo]

Oh look at me, look at me! Oh no, I'm going to jail! GAHH! Take me in *snickers*

Re:Cuba listening station bull puckey

[RevSmiley]

Other than the fact they fund and train terrorists and have an active nuke program and hold "death the rallys and call the USA "The Great Satan" Nothing. I actually like the people. However since these stupid mullahs who run the country have a program going to destroy my country and kill me I think we could stand to be a bit proactive.

Re:Phil-14's reactionary bull puckey - History les

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't have any anti US bias. Just about everything you pointed out in neagative on the USA.
So much for your idea since you are bias a fuck and would rather hate the US first and formost.

Great

[Master of Transhuman]

I submit this story at 5:16 AM on Saturday, some "anonymous reader" submits it at 11 AM and he gets it. MY submission asked whether this sort of thing will stimulate more of the same from satellite hackers who already know how to do this which is more important than who is doing it to the US broadcasts to Iran.

There is no justice on Slashdot...

Go ahead, mod me down...Then stuff it up your ass...

Target practice

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

the only remaining Communist dictatorship in the world.

North Korea?

Mussolini was, after all, a communist before he was a facist

He was a socialist, he wrote for a socialist newspaper.

About the jamming, my guess is that it could be target practice. I suspect Castro has some stations in his black list.

Israel and Israel

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

There are only four democracies in the region Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Israel.

This reminds of a quote attributed to Churchill on the partition of Germany: "I do not hate Germany, I like it so much that I want two of them".

The proper way to do it

[MrLint]

is to steal the uplink codes, take over the network satellite while arine goes and beats up richard dawson. And dont forget kids, drink cadre cola!

Who loves you and who do you love!?

Step by step instructions for this process?

[jamesbondsv]

Okay, we haven't gotten to the good stuff yet. Where is the step by step instructions on how to really jam a satellite and what are the legal consequences as a US Citizen?

Steve

Re:Step by step instructions for this process?

[interstellar_donkey]

That's exactly what I want to know. Get a couple cases of beer, call over some of my buddies, pull the old 6 foot dish out from the side of the house and get to work.

A few hours of work on a Sunday, a week or more of the wife not getting to watch HGTV. Sounds like a plan.

I Call Bullshit (was: Re:Hah! That's nothing.)

[Byter]

Pakistan was in pool B. Bangledesh was in pool A. (or the other way around). Neither made it into the Super 6, so they NEVER played each other in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

Oh, and the game for Day 1 was West Indies vs South Africa, btw.

Oh shut up

[autopr0n]

A post filled with paranoid ahistorical, anti-liberal, boring retoric. And it gets' a 4.

Re:Phil-14's reactionary bull puckey - History les

[FooGoo]

McCarthyism...Check
American Military Conspiracy...Check
Reverse accusation of communism/fascism....Check

Another liberal commie picko. I'm surprised you didn't bring up Alger Hiss.

Castro infidel.

[Agent R]

Does this mean that Khomeni will have a jihad against Castro? :-)

Re:Castro infidel.

[Anonymous Coward]

you got loads of reading up to do man.
He died some 15 years ago.

Really Big...

[The Raven]

Oil Rig. Fixed, big, International Waters, owned by profit-minded corporation that can be bribed.

You missed a few crucial details...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems more likely that jamming an Iranian satellite signal would come from the American dishes at the Guantanamo installation than from Cubans.

1. Guantánamo is nowhere near Havana. It is on the opposite side of the ~800 mile-long main island. Satellite triangulation cannot be off by 400%.
2. Cuba has been jamming Radio Martí ever since its inception. They have gone so far as to jam some TV stations in South Florida. Jamming technology, towers and anti-americanism are nothing new there.
3. The Cuban constitution gives the government exclusive rights for distribution of information. Any press activity by Cuban citizens (and now even foreign journalists) can be punished by decades of torturous jail time. Thus, a broadcast tower within 20 miles of the largest city would be shut down instantly if it were not officially sponsored.
4. A normal Cuban citizen could not possibly keep a broadcast tower powered for days with the grid in Havana going off and on like it is.

Thus, it has to be the Cuban government itself. Their motive can be explained by the fact that they are in a cash-crunch right now, with a debt of $12G, exceeding GDP. A default is inevitable even if they want to pay it back.

Their recent executions and jailings HINT at the remote possibility that constructive engagement might not bring true reform, making a respectable source of new credit (subsidy) that much harder to find. To continue to prop up the regime without hard cash, their style is to make barter agreements with oil states: doctors, in exchange for oil. Iraq is gone, so they need to expand their agreements with Venezuela and Iran. Venezuela reportedly is willing, but I suspect Iran will not need as many specialists. What other non-monetary resource could be bartered? Hmmm.

The simplest explanation is that the Cuban government is sponsoring the jamming as a service in return for more oil from the Iranian government. Now, who wants to give their gas tank for them to jam the CCC satellite? :)

Cuba overlays certain mainland radio channels too.

[Shivetya]

One of the local radio channels here in Atlanta is forced to broadcast at very low signal strength from 6PM Eastern to 530AM Eastern because of the actions of Cuban stations.

The station is a news / talk-radio format on the FM side. If they go above a certain amount of power the Cuba stations just blanket the airwaves with noise.

Real nice of them...

Re:A 500 watt maser tuned to the proper frequency

[Anonymous Coward]

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is currently the holding spot for any overseas captured/held terrorist still going through a "debriefing" after nearly a year without _full_ access to a Red Cross rep - only monthly visits for them.

So

[ErixTr]

Give part of your own country to Kurds. Not ours. A citizen of Turkish Republic.

hahahaha

[Phil-14]

Hmm. You accuse me of wanting to restrict your speech. This is an ad-hominem attack; at no point did I say you should be arrested and jailed for what you believe. The bit about the TV stations being supporters of the Shah... it's unproven, and it sounds like you're trying to change the subject. First it was, "only the evil Americans would jam the TV station," and now it's "you know, we really shouldn't be cooperating with that TV station."

CNN are the people who admitted to censoring various news broadcasts out of Iraq in the days when Saddam was still in charge there, so he wouldn't kick them out. I wouldn't be suprised if they'd do the same for other middle eastern dictators they needed to "keep access to."

I don't know if you've been following the news, but also, this week, student protests against the regime, by people who want democracy, and not the Shah back in power, were brutally suppressed by the government and what the press has been calling "pro-government vigilantes," which are not vigilantes but in reality Syrians and other Arabs hired by the government as enforcers, because they don't even trust their own people in the security apparatus anymore.

Given that set of events, the same week, and the fact that the signals came from Havana, I think we can rule Guantanamo out for now.

I wouldn't be suprised if future jamming came from the Cuban side of the border between Cuba proper and Guantanamo; it would be a nice way of utilizing all the useful idiots in the west.

It's suprising that everyone's so suprised to find that the Cuban and Iranian governments have been cooperating already for years. What's one more instance of cooperation in this case?

I would suggest that in your rush to blame everything on the United States, and not even believe that one dictatorial regime (Cuba) would support another (Iran) you actually share characteristics with some of the anticommunists of the 50's, who in their rush to combat communism wound up in bed with people like the Shah, or Ferdinand Marcos.

I mean, look at your use of the term "McCarthyite." It's functional use is for any conservative that argues back against a progressive. It's a stick the liberals have been using against the conservatives for the past forty years. By pontificating on behalf of the Cuban and Iranian regimes (and the "it must have been the US doing the jamming" counts as that, I think) you run the risk of making all the same mistakes, and winding up with the same fate: forty years from now the word "Progressive" may be similarly devoid of meaning, except as a stick to beat people with.

Re:hahahaha

[Paradise Pete]

Hmm. You accuse me of wanting to restrict your speech. This is an ad-hominem attack

No it's not, it a Straw Man (misstate the position, then attack that). Ad hominem would be if he said you're wrong because you're a moron.

All this talk about easy satellite hacks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut it out, guys, you're letting the Terrorists win.(tm)

Gyro Stabalised

[Porag_Spliffing]

I Sail on a rather small boat with sat comms using a gyro stabalised dish in a little dome. If you take the dome off it is some fun to watch the thing stay pointed while the boat pitches and rolls every which way (as long as you do not suffer from seasickness*). It does a fantastic job of keeping a (two way) signal even in rather rough weather.

* Watching the dish track is not the problem, getting the bloody dome on and off in bad weather is sure to send you for the leeward rail

Re:Countermeasures: On-board interferometry

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, locating a transmitter is a lot easier than all that fringe radiation stuff. Every comm sat launched by the US has a TLS 2000 radio interferometer, or equivalent competitive receiver, on board. Strength and location of interfering carrier signals is "easy beans" with an on-board interferometer. That data gets downlinked to the satellite operations center. Operations just gets on the horn and lodges an informed complaint with the FCC. International treaties cover the process of lodging a complaint with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) - and governments can then take the appropriate action well within their interests. Since some of Telsat's transponders are leased to ITU members in Britain and other states of Europe, it then is just a matter of approaching an appropriate legal jurisdiction, which can make a ruling to seize the assets of an offending nation. Since the Cuban's have accounts in Canada, Britain, Benelux, France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland, I would guess that they might find their balance of payments suddenly impaired in about a year, if they fail to stop interfering with Telsat-12. I'm sure that this issue has already been presented to someone's Charges D'Affaire and that consulate officers are running around making sure that the Cuban Government understands. There are always international consequences possible. It just takes some clever legal footwork and finding the right course of action is the key. An indirect answer as to why the technology is jammable: It has always been theoretically possible for the command channel of a satellite to be pirated. The satellite could then be moved into a different orbital slot and used to broadcast unauthorized signals. Being able to jam your own satellite is an essential defense mechanism against successful satellite piracy. The only other alternative is to issue self-destruct commands to a pirated satellite -- and the satellite insurer's do not look favorably on that course of action. Debris in geo-sync slots has a nasty way of getting swept by solar winds and lunar tides into other geo-sync slots.

Oh yes, very easy

[dcm1101]

All you need is a big old satellite antenna, a spectrum analyzer, a frequency generator capable of tuning to a stable 6 or 14 GHz (C or Ku) signal, an amplifier capable of amplifying that kind of signal up to about 100 watts, some waveguide... hmmm. It would probably also help to have a fast car for when the FCC arrives 30 minutes later.

This is sort of like saying that flying to the moon is easy - all you need is a big metal tube and some propellant.

Re:Phil-14's reactionary bull puckey - History les

[SubtleNuance]

no mention of GoTonkin && Cuba can go without a quote from this, choice declassified document:

From: http://www.antioffline.com/uscuba.html

19 May 2001. National Security Archive.
Source: http://128.164.127.251/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc 1.pdf

James Bamford writes in Body of Secrets (2001) that this "may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government."

Read below for choice excerpts:

ANNEX TO APPENDIX TO ENCLOSURE A

PRETEXTS TO JUSTIFY US MILITARY INTERVENTION IN CUBA

1. Since it would seem desirable to use legitimate provocation as the basis for US military intervention in Cuba a cover and deception plan, to include requisite preliminary actions such as has been developed in response to Task 33 c, could be executed as an initial effort to provoke Cuban reactions. Harassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized. Our military posture throughout execution of the plan will allow a rapid change from exercise to intervention if Cuban response justifies.

2. A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.

a. Incidents to establish a credible attack (not in chronological order):
(1) start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
(2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform "over-the-fence" to stage attack on base.

(3) Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.

(4) Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).

(5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.

(6) Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage).

(7) Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.

(8) capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.

(9) Capture militia group which storms the base.

(10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires -- napthalene.

(11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims (may be lieu of (10)).

b. United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.

c. Commence large scale United States military operations.

3. A "Remember the Maine" incident could be arranged in several forms:

a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to "evacuate" remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.

4. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement, also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

5. A "Cuban-based, Castro-supported" filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation (in the

Phil-14, Excellent troll

[securitas]

The subject says it. I have to applaud such an excellent troll.

That said, I find the level of hostility and even outright hatred directed at me for a casual comment - that was not even the substance of my post - astonishing. My initial post was intended to point out that Cuba has long been used as a major base of operations for electronic signals intercepts and espionage by both the USA and the USSR/Russia. Nothing more, nothing less. If you choose to read it in a paranoiac manner that you believe implies malice where none exists, that is your issue, not mine.

Some of you have gone so far as to make attempts to learn details of my identity (you know who you are and now so do I - don't worry, I won't publish your identities or other personal information even though it would be an excellent object lesson). If you have something you want to know, just ask - I just might answer. There's really no need for your kind of subterfuge.

Now, despite my better judgement, on to the rest of your response because the record needs to be set straight.

Pro-Shah U.S. satellite stations and CNN's reliability: The report I referred to was broadcast from Los Angeles without any restrictions by government censors. Your comment that "CNN are the people who admitted to censoring various news broadcasts out of Iraq" is supposed to cast doubt on the reliablilty of the L.A. report. What you fail to mention is that every major news organization in the world has to submit to government censors of one kind or another when reporting from a war zone. If you were inside Iraq like CNN, BBC, CBC, AFP, AP and others, you had to submit your reports for vetting by Iraqi government censors. If you were an embedded reporter with U.S. forces, you had to sign a (leaked) contract and agree to restrictions before you were even allowed to be embedded. Reporters are still forbidden to disclose the terms of the contract or the penalities for doing so. Journalists were then required to get the authorization of the company commander to send their reports. At CENTCOM headquarters, information was tightly controlled and heavily censored before it was ever presented to reporters so that they never got anything less than the rosiest possible picture. This was preceded by blanket U.S. government censorship in the first Gulf War and subsequent conflicts. Intelligence Onine, a respected global intelligence community newsletter, documented that the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina were active employees of CNN who participated in news production. In the U.K. and Northern Ireland during the worst days of the fighting, it was illegal to broadcast even the voice of an IRA or Sinn Fein member. If you're a reporter in Israel/Occupied Territories, you must sign an agreement to submit to Israeli military censorship as a condition of working there. The list goes on and on. It goes with the territory if you're reporting from a conflict zone, not from a studio in suburban Los Angeles.

Ad hominem attacks: Read very carefully. I made no accusations against anyone. In fact, it was you, Phil, who attempted to equate me with "our enemies" and wrote of my supposed "sympathies towards the Cuban government." You're hardly without sin, so you certainly shouldn't be casting stones, or aspersions for that matter.

Student protests: Iranian students were protesting against plans by their government to privatize its university system - the system is currently government-subsidized - which would result in massive tuition increases and deny access to a post-secondary education to all but the wealthiest Iranians. That is the context in which the protests were taking place and that is

Is it possible to get the kind of power needed ...

[JoeGee]

... from a microwave oven magnetron?

(Attn: FBI, this is a thought exercize, I cannot solder two pieces of metal together, much less a circuit board, and when I rewired a switch a few years back I electrified the house's plumbing and almost qualified for a Darwin award.)

Since you're talking abut 30 watts or so at the receiving end, you'd need basically a diffuse directional source focused by a LARGE dish. Might one be able to use a smaller Fresnel type reflector instead of a dish to acheive the same effect? Say, a Fresnel reflector made out of steel and wood, placed on a house roof. I remember seeing plans for something similar in Popular Science back in the early 80's using wire window screen, to focus a signal for C-band reception.

As for Gitmo, three squares a day, tropical weather, government healthcare ... :/