South Pole Research Station Hacked Twice

Marda writes "It's been known for a while that Romainian cyber extortionists cracked the computer network at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station last year. Now SecurityFocus is reporting that another computer intruder penetrated the station just two months before, and cracked the data acquisition system for the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), a radiotelescope that measures properties of the cosmic microwave background. It turns out the station was insecure 'purposely, to allow for our scientists at this remotest of locations to exchange data under difficult circumstances,' according to internal reports."

Comments

On purpose for a reason...

[Q-Hack!]

The main reason for running unsecure, is that the data pipe running to the South Pole is only open for just a few seconds at a time. You have to be able to transfer your data packet in little bitty windows of opportunity. If you have your data packaged in nice large security packets it will take forever to transfer your files, if at all. As soon as they come up with a better way to communicate with those stations I think they will be the first to secure there data.

Re:On purpose for a reason...

[Phil Karn]

It is not possible to put a geostationary satellite over a pole. To be stationary, a satellite must be in a circular orbit over the equator with a period that exactly matches the earth's sidereal rotation rate. Such satellites are not visible at all from the poles.

It is possible, however, to use inclined orbits to provide good coverage at high latitudes, including the poles. You'll need multiple satellites to provide continuous coverage, though. It's my understanding that the South Pole links use retired geostationary satellites that have run out of stationkeeping propellant. Without stationkeeping, solar and lunar perturbations increase the orbital inclination, the angle between the orbital plane and the equator, which is nominally zero for a geostationary satellite. This causes the satellite to move in a north-south figure-8 pattern, making it visible for part of each day at each pole.

Two good examples of satellites in orbits specifically designed to provide good high latitude coverage are the Russian Molniya series and the new Sirius digital radio broadcasting satellites. (Sirius' competitor XM Radio uses conventional geostationary satellite orbits.)

Both Molniya and Sirius use elliptical orbits with inclinations of about 63 degrees. At this inclination, the effect of the earth's oblateness on the orbital argument of perigee is canceled out. That means the apogee (farthest point from the earth) will always occur at the same latitude, which in these two cases is selected to be the northernmost point of the orbit (since northern latitudes are being served). The result is a satellite that, while not stationary, spends much of each orbit nearly motionless at high latitude.

The Molniya and Sirius orbits differ in that the Molniya orbits have fairly low perigees and orbital periods of about 12 hours. The Sirius satellites are in geosynchronous (but not geostationary) orbits, meaning that even though they do not sit motionless over the equator, they still complete exactly one orbit per sidereal earth day.

The Russians use these orbits because their country sits at high latitudes. Sirius uses their orbits to increase the elevation at which their satellites appear over the northern US and southern Canada, minimizing blockage by buildings and reducing the number of terrestrial repeaters needed in urban areas.

A Sirius orbit can be seen here and a Molniya orbit can be seen here.

Re:??????WTF??????

[arivanov]

You have not dealt with academentia from a system managements perspective I guess. If you had you would have heard the phrase: "I am a professor and you are not even a PhD, you will not tell me what to do".

In btw, I am speaking out of experience here.

Here's a view from the pole

[Raetsel]

I just found Big Dead Place a couple days ago, and read their account of one of these 'hacker attacks' and Raytheon Polar Services' (RPSC) reaction to it.

Short version: Everyone at the pole was pissed. Denver (RPSC headquarters) took away their porn^H^H^H^Hnet access, and thus made a bunch of already deprived individuals even more deprived.

There's a ~500 K newsletter-spoof PDF on the site that expresses some of their feelings.

• "Kudos to the Denver IT staff for quickly responding to a hacker attack on South Pole Station. The attack occurred Friday night Denver time and our crack professional team denied the attacker access by immediately pulling the plug on Pole. They got back to dealing with the aftermath of this knee jerk response sometime Wednesday shortly after the last chocolate sprinkle donut had been eaten but shortly before nap time."

There's also: Top Ten Reasons South Pole Can't Access the Internet

Some other interesting things on the site:

• Raytheon says Antarctica is a 'foreign nation' for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act (overtime) and OSHA (asbestos exposure, etc.)

• However... the IRS considers wages earned while working there the same as if they'd been earned inside the US.

• Some people working there question whether or not the US Constitution applies (specifically the First Ammendment)

• The whole bit about the Symmes Antarctic Intelligencer

• Frontierwatch is a terrifically Dilbert-esque look into the day-to-day goings-on at the Pole.

Re:You gotta wonder...

[dave420]

Low bandwidth is no excuse, but intermittent bandwidth is. If the link is only open for a very brief period of time, you could very well waste all that time establishing an SSH connection or VPN. By the time you came to securely download your data, the link is already closed and won't be back up for ages.

It's unsecured through necessity, not through choice.

RTFA.

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. The life support systems weren't controlled by the hacked system. That was added by the US department of propaganda to make the threat of cyber-terrorism sound scarier.