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Cracking the GPS Galileo Satellite
Glyn writes "Newswise is reporting the the encryption in the Galileo GPS signal has been broken. The pseudo random number generator used to obscure the information stored in the Galileo GPS signal has been broken. From the article: 'Members of Cornell's Global Positioning System (GPS) Laboratory have cracked the so-called pseudo random number (PRN) codes of Europe's first global navigation satellite, despite efforts to keep the codes secret. That means free access for consumers who use navigation devices -- including handheld receivers and systems installed in vehicles -- that need PRNs to listen to satellites.'"
If is possible to chenge the key used to avoid this?
Galileo is the European System, GPS is the American. "GPS" is kind of generic, so I guess it's going to be the name for the whole category, but I'd be nice if we could use something different to distingish between "some" GPS and the "American" GPS.
Fleur de Sel
Street signs or maps work for me!
AFAIK the PRNs are not really encryption keys. They're merely a technical detail that can be kept secret. GPS and Galileo are spread spectrum applications and the PRNs define the way the signal is spread. If you don't know the spreading function, you can't tell the (unencrypted) signal from the noise. It's really security by obscurity.
Galileo's sub-meter resolution is now available? I think that North Korean rocket scienties are having a party today.
Sigh, how did READING the bits on your own CDs/DVDs ever become illegal? Freedom of speech implies a freedom to read what you want. (Yes, I understand the DMCA, but I'm still in shock - I always considered laws making it illegal to read "signals", etcetera "not intended for you" very British but very unAmerican. And I say British because I'm getting those quotes from British laws circa WW2 and probably before.)
Props to Cornell.
Why? So they know where exactly their rocket was when it failed? Don't you think that positioning a nuclear bomb with sub meter precision is a little too control-freakish?
The article is inacurate and makes a big deal about nothing (BTW did you notice it was written by a guy from Cornell ?) First, Galileo is not ready yet. The article claim they plan to charge for the keys. This is plain wrong, the base precision signal (which is the one we are talking about) will be available free of charge. The system is simply in testing phase right now and they don't want anyone playing with it, that's all. Second, this PRN sequence is not supposed to be difficult to crack at all, since it will actually be made public in time. This is in no way an achievement. It is was the high precision signal, this would be another matter.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.
PRN is not really encryption.
But anyway, there is no such thing as an encryption scheme that cannot be cracked. It is just a matter on how much time it will take to crack it.
Encryption will always be crackable, we are just playing with the fact it would take 512 or so years to crack a particular scheme with the actual technology.
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
Anybody want a peanut?
But they get the credit regardless of where their rockets land.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If a European tried doing something like this with a US GPS satellite, they'd get arrested for being a terrorist long before they had chance to write a paper on it.
Or, alternatively, you could just about hit here with a trebuchet from North Korea, and there are 11 million people there.
North Korean nuclear strategy is likely to revolve around killing lots of people, not taking out hardened military targets with precision weapons. For that, accuracy measured in miles will do just fine.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
For a nuclear warhead, traditional GPS' 5m-accuracy should be quite sufficient. It's not like they'd be trying to avoid "collateral damage"
Fleur de Sel
Cornell demonstration is pretty useless.
First Galileo is only in testing phase, therefore nothing tells you the signal encryption they are using is the definitive one. I would rather think they are testing and they don't care if someone is getting it.
Second have you ever heard of firmware upgrade ? I guess encryption will be updated when the satelites will be in production, and there will not be any problem since it is not being used in any device yet.
Thank you Cornell people for this useless article. Another Cornell box ?
If I read this, and the GPS article in the Wikipedia, it would now be possible to build a Galileo system out of off-the-shelf parts and some moderately clever software. Is this the case, or is there something I'm missing?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Well now... Just when are the codes for the Windors voting machines going to be released??? How 'bout codes for dem Windors ATM machines too.... Fine world when MOST of our most important is guarded by a swiss cheese OS... Sorry for the offensive remark refering to "swiss cheese" NOT Windors. Secure MSOS... Yea, Right... In Redmond dreams......
:-\
yeeesh. what happened to cracking something for the sake of cracking something?
"North Korean nuclear strategy"
Actually, like most such strategies, North Korean nuclear strategy is most likely to revolve around not having to actually fire such weapons; if you at any point need to actually launch, you've already lost, they can only be used to make the enemy and the rest of the world lose too.
Taken to the natural conclusion, see the Dr Strangelove version of Doomsday Machine. No precision needed at all, and you dont even need a trebuchet.
It's used for setting course early on. Most of the way, warheads are just coasting. So little direction and position errors early on are magnified at the other end. Still may be overkill, as you suggested, but maybe not for all we know.
The US GPS system also has two encrypted channels, P1 and P2, which use undocumented PRN generators (or at least I've never found them). Has anyone ever cracked them? The CA signal is what the civilian systems use.
Given that these codes are in place to sell premium products to consumers and recoup the investment made with putting the satellites in orbit - how is this any different to breaking codes for satellite TV and/or DRM?
I really hope the folks at Cornell start working on something that would have a legitimate use such as the ability to make a backup of a legally purchased HD-DVD movie... oh wait... that would be illegal :-(
Excuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
As far as I'm aware there is only one.. at most two of the satellites up there, so your properly not going to get any advantage from adding them to your GPS system right now. At the end of the day its going to be more freely available than the US GPS system anyway, so for the average person, why bother with the cracked encryption?
:p
The EU has developed Galileo for the people and not for the military. It even has financial backing from states that are not part of the EU, including China! So if the US was planning to turn off GPS when the nukes started flying, they better have a plan B.
There you have it, encryption doesn't work.
o hai
It's perfectly legal to have and use a scanner/radar detector/whatever in the UK, even to listen to transmissions on the unlicenced band.
However, it is against the law to act on such information you receive from those transmissions.
They have to learn to make them fly before they worry about where they land...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Not many people remember it, but there was a third competing system for Global Positioning.
GLObal NAvigation Satellite System
Started by the Soviets, cont. by the Russian Federation, and now with India on board,it is expected to be fully operational again in 2008. (Like all things expected to be complete in 1991, the money situation made them push it back further than Vista.)
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
A stronger arguement can be made: since they have agreed to make the codes open source they have no right to enforce copyright. You just can't say they aren't creating anything.
"I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness" - Leela
"Imagine someone builds a lighthouse," argued Psiaki. "And I've gone by and see how often the light flashes and measured where the coordinates are. Can the owner charge me a licensing fee for looking at the light? ... No. How is looking at the Galileo satellite any different?"
You would expect it to work that way, but NO. Today, it really is possible to transmit information into publicly receivable media and still be able to prohibit the use of it and to do the research necessary to make the signal useful (in the above case: measure the coordinates).
For example, when someone sends a TV signal from a satellite you can look at the signal but it would be illegal without the proper license to try to find out how the bits sent down can be reconstructed into a viewable TV picture.
Sure this used to be legal, and that is what you would expect, but the big media companies have convinced the politicians to pass laws that prohibit this.
Acoording to a friend working on the Galileo project they came up with a new encryption algorithm specification a week ago. Quite annoying with such changes this late in the project, they thought. I guess this news kind of explains it.
- El riesgo siempre vive - Private J. Vasquez
Soeul is already within artillery range of the North, they could jsut lob a nuclear tipped shell over and do the same damage.
"So long as they go up, who cares where they go down."
-- Werner von Braun (paraphrased by Tom Lehrer)
"The human race's favorite method for being in control of the facts is to ignore them." -Celia Green
Re-read your statement, think about who you're talking about, then go look up the definition of irony.
*grin*
What does this mean to me? Can i reprogram my portable GPS to this new code? And what does it give me if i can? I already get free access to GPS now ( well i paid my purchase fee on the device ) and didnt the US government lift restrictions on accuracy recently ?
No i couldnt get to TFA to read it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Imagine working for years and noone is paying you.
So much about the lighthouse bullshit.
Suckers.
They could even get in with bio-weapons. Launch a cow that has mad-cow disease.
Good to go!
I think the idea came from a lot of editorials. There were 2 Canadians and an upset cow, in a sling getting ready to go over the border. The quotes were 'Canadians develop weapons of mass destruction, that can be launched within minutes.'
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
...you preening Euroweenies have been trying to crack American military GPS satellites for many years, but simply don't have the mad skillz that the Cornell boys do? Nah, much better to play the hypothetical victim, no?
Ovchinnikov's Law: As an online discussion on Slashdot grows longer, the probability of alarmist leftist rants involving some mention of Bush, Cheney, Halliburton or Gitmo approaches one.
Why it was necessary to break up someone's business like this? Now instead of paying monthly for access, they are going to have to license the access right to the manufacturer. Space is expensive. So when satellites need repair or replacement, how is this going to happen ?? All you will see is either the company will figure out a way to update the codes all the time(Like sat. tv) or, a massive increase in the cost of GPS units, to cover the license cost. Now someone that has a small hobby like geocaching might not be able to afford it.
What about the DMCA? How likely would this company try to sue the university, and the students, for breaking the code. I'm sure that they would go after the magazine as well. Why did they have to name the company? Why couldn't they just say they cracked a type of code this way? Did they even inform the company that the code was cracked in order to give them time to fix it? Just because you don't like the Pay-per-use model, doesn't mean that you have to use it.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
-- Werner von Braun (modified by Mort Sahl)
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
North Korean nuclear strategy is most likely to revolve around not having to actually fire such weapons
The assumption is that the North Korean government is sane.
I seriously doubt any government that systematically starves its own people to death over a few decades would have any trouble watching the same people die in a "glorious" fire.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I realise that its dangerous replying to trolls, but everyone who really wants to has already cracked the US GPS high precision code. I don't know how much of a secreat that is, but I've been told by people who know that its been done. The government is aware, but I think they still retain the posibility of switching it if they need to and having all of the military GPS work without modification. No, the US doesn't like the Euro Gallileo, because as far as we know, they lack the ability to block, or change the signal. But, I haven't heard any complaints recently. I wonder if they've figured out a compramise.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Sky have a method that CAN be broke, but, they thought of that. to watch encrypted content (stuff you need to pay for to watch), your sky box requires a phoneline, where sky send new encryption codes every 3 mins, which your box uses to decode the info being sent to it via the satalite.
so, when you break the encryption, and flash a homebrew sky card with the codes, they expire after a few mins anyway, and you need to do this all over again.
portfolio
This time that happy-sappy capitalist running dog doplhin gets it with our new Precision Guided Silkworm Missile! Take that, Flipper! Bwahahaha! -- Hey, its not any LESS crazy than what passes for the real North Korean government.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
You might not be aware of that, but quantum encryption cannot be broken (as far as we know). Plus there is experimental evidence (can't find the darn article) that you can establish a secure link between a low orbit satelite and a ground based receiver.
As usual - don't know whether to laugh or cry - when I read here and elsewhere - about how easy it is for the self appointed rich elite to get laws they want passed in order to socially engineer "us" - to control "us".
Naturally these controls - called laws- stifle the social/cultural development of people around the world. Former "gun slinger" Tom Delay got caught with his pants down bribing law makers for the elite in the USA. I am sure the elite are busy finding their next "gun slinger" - to keep the self appointed elite richer and happier.
Now if laws created for the elite were useful and protected the small guy/girl who brilliantly devised a unique "something" and stopped the elite from stealing the unique "something" - then that would be wonderful (dream on).
We all know that the World Cup is on today - have the refs been bought by the elite (like in Italy a couple of weeks ago)? We know the elite love stealing other's ideas - Jobs stole the icon driven desk top GUI from Xerox - and so on.>
(Not According To The FA)
The article says that the Cornell GPS group tried to get the information but failed, as did several other groups - so :
does not seem to apply. Furthermore, there are other parts of the article that hint that the signal encryption used is indeed the definitive one.Now, as to the satellite/receiver firmware being updated - that is certainly always a possibility and nothing in the article contraindicates that.
In wartime the US can, will and does turn off the GPS in the warzone. Galilieo isn't under the same controls, and for that reason is popular with some governments for their guided weapons programs. Further, the civilian GPS receivers still have certain height and velocity restrictions artificially put in by the US to prevent guided missile uses. Only recently was an agreement made that would allow the US and EU to block signals in warzones without disabling the opposing system.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I must confess I've never seen the logic of the Galileo system. This is so clearly about nothing but Euro-prestige, and it makes you wonder if the Europeans understand fundamental economics. Everything Galileo will do is done by GPS (which, btw, is not a generic name, though I'm sure the Euros would love it to be to confuse the marketplace) or will be done when planned upgrades are in place. Bogeyman scenarios of the US cutting off GPS are ridiculous as I'm not aware that the US military has ever shut off access even in Iraq - and the US military would jam Galileo if they wanted to in any case.
The Europeans could have had a free ride at the US taxpayers expense. Instead, they decide to spend billions to build a competitor system. So how to recoup that? It's obvious that the EU will force all mobile phones, cars, planes, etc. sold in Europe to use Galileo. The free market would never adopt a new alternative that is not technically or functionally superior, is going against an entrenched competitor with a huge install base, and costs money where the alternative is free. So you can bet it will be regulated into existence and the huge fees everyone is forced to pay for this (hidden inside the price you pay for these devices, of course, just like VAT) will be touted as how "successful" the system is - as if adding a multi-billion tax on your citizens while everyone else pays nothing is a benefit of the system. Look for rules requiring Galileo on any aircraft which uses EU airspace, necessitating costly refits to the worldwide fleet of planes that already have GPS installed and other costly items that will actually be an economic drag.
GPS is like an open source project or classic economic "public good". Galileo is a like a gratuitous fork. It's also the attempt to turn a public good into a private one by the use of new technologies like encryption/DRM.
Building Galileo also ignores the law of comparative advantage. Why not focus at where you have the greatest comparative advantage over other people instead of fighting to replicate everything everyone could ever do? No one questions that the Europeans have the technical expertise and financial resources to build this project. The question is whether Galileo is the best use of those resources. Better to put them towards something that would be game changing, not a "me too". Why not use that to figure out how to make hydrogen fuel cells really work? Or build a space probe to do something no one has every done before. There are a million potential projects that Europe could do that would benefit humanity and turn them into an unquestioned economic or scientific leaders in varios area. Unfortunately, the EU seems to consistently want to do these type of me-too project instead, whether that be Galileo, the A380 or A400M, Jacques Chirac's new French search engine, etc. The playbook seems to be cloning someone else's ideas, making them slightly bigger and better, then touting them as the best thing since sliced bread. All of these can be successful in a nominal sense, but I question whether they were the best economic use of the resources.
Europe has vast treasures of intellectual talent, largely top notch infrastructure (London transport excepted, thank you), awesome culture, high productivity, a mostly-common currency and open borders, and a history of great economic success. I've got to believe the ingrediants are there for a great boom - particularly with the influx of new Eastern European members - if the EU governments would just put the right policies in place to make it happen.
Meanwhile, the US economy has grown by 20% since 2003 - adding $2.2 trillion in GDP. In other words, we just added an entire China to our economy in the last three years while also adding millions of new jobs. Considering the doom and gloom generally reported in the media, that's something to think about.
The assumption is that the North Korean government is sane.
Lol! I was just going to post a joke about how we are suppossed to believe the standard demonization that our enemy is a "madman."
I seriously doubt any government that systematically starves its own people to death over a few decades would have any trouble watching the same people die in a "glorious" fire.
You should doubt it.
Only in movies do insane people end up runnning countries. Letting the population starve is not a symptom of insanity - it is a symptom of a ruling class lacking accountability to the citizens.
The North Koreans are not insane, they just have a different perspective than the one our news media feeds us. Were Bush and Rumsfeld insane because they ignored counsel from the pentagon about how securing Iraq would require 2x-3x more troops than they wanted to allocate? No, they just saw the facts differently - incorrect they were, but not insane.
Same thing goes for North Korea's government. For example - they still consider themselves to be at war, no truce was ever signed - only an armistice which is just a little bit stronger than a "cease fire." To an American, 10,000 miles away, it sure seems like the korean war is over - but anyone who gets near the DMZ and sees the patrols on both sides (or has even just seen the movie Joint Security Area), it isn't so clear any more. North Korea has always felt like it needs to be prepared for an attack at any time and has thus kept its military at a full state of rediness.
North Korea has made a lot of dumb decisions, but that doesn't mean they are insane any more than Bush's (mis)handling of the war in Iraq means he is insane.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Sorry?
We already have tolls in some highways. If the highway from city A to city B is 100 kms long, we do not need a satellite to tell us that a car that went from A to B has run from 100 kms... maybe in USA it is different, but here in Europe that ride would be always of 100kms.
And as for a toll "for each kilometer a vehicle runs, in any road", we have taxes on gas for serve to mean a cost per kilometer/type of vehicle.
Why can't
. Letting the population starve is not a symptom of insanity
I guess you have a different definintion of sanity than I do.
I understand your point - that the two Kim's of NK are really more ruthless than anything - but their actions lead one to not trust in them when it comes to sensabilities that you and I have.
NK, IMHO will lob a nuke much more readilly than say china - even though China has killed millions more humans in the last 50 years. Russa as well - Stalin's purges killed 30 million or so, but there was a method to his madness that Kim lacks.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
The North Koreans are not insane, they just have a different perspective than the one our news media feeds us.
I don't know what you mean about "a different perspective than the one our news media feeds us." As just one example of this "different perspective," the people of North Korea are taught that pictures of traffic jams in South Korea are propaganda, and that there really aren't so many cars there. This is not a question our news media, it is a matter of easily verifiable reality.
And as for a toll "for each kilometer a vehicle runs, in any road", we have taxes on gas for serve to mean a cost per kilometer/type of vehicle.
I'm aware of those objections to digital road tolling, and I agree with them. It doesn't mean that the government won't try to implement electronic tolling - government is always looking for new ways to take money from the people! Also, being able to track movements of cars (and, thus, people) is a nice side benefit.
http://www.mapflow.com/press23-dto_armas.htm
-b.
Us Brits, while we were the richest nation on earth, let 8 million of our citizens in Ireland starve to death over six years while exporting food from Ireland to mainland Britain and not that long ago (1845-1851)
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Even easier than that - all they need is to be able to predict where they are when they *stop* flying.
Now if only there were some sort of System that could tell them the Position of those rockets, Globally.
mitch
If the developers were smart, they would have developed a method to remap the coordinates in times of need, such as when a missile launch is detected. Using that, they could most likely divert any missiles which attempt to use global positioning technology for guidance.
Sub-meter accuracy for a nuclear missile is quite pointless. Usually they are detonated far above the ground. Anything within a couple kilometers will have more or less the same effect. And since they are a deterrant, you don't even need that.
In order for them to be effective, you only need your enemies to think that your missiles could be accurate to within a couple kilometers if they do something to provoke a launch.
Within a certain size range, making a uranium-powered nuke is quite easy.
Artillery shells are not in that size range. It's damn difficult to get
one to work. More likely, you'll just make one building mildly radioactive.
The satellite moves, as does the Earth. This gets you multiple positions, plus you get the Doppler effect.
Get an atomic clock, sit still, and you'll have your position.
The answer is: when you go from city A to B via express highway there will be a different tariff than when going via secondary road, even though the endpoints of the route may be the same.
To avoid having to have tollpoints or other forms of detection at every intersection (which was the original implementation idea) it is now considered to track the vehicle movement and base the toll on that.
Of course it had privacy problems, in the past. That is why global terrorism is so convenient: it comes in to help as an excuse to track everyone's movement anyway, and some people even believe that this is a good idea. So it removes the privacy problem.
Duh. Galileo isn't built yet, and they wouldn't mandate a foreign GPS system. Soon enough, Galileo will be mandated. You'll see.
"Galileo is functionally superior. The free precision will be better than with just GPS."
Nope. It will be the same, because the free GPS signal will be upgraded in response. Don't imagine for a moment that the US will sit by while people become dependent on a system that is in foreign control. We will do whatever is required to ensure that you don't beat us, even if that means opening up the highest precision.
I'm completely serious. The newer satellites have the ability to transmit some extra signals for this purpose, so that we can transmit the highest precision without risking the anti-jamming feature of having an encrypted signal.
I think that North Korean rocket scienties are having a party today.
At least the ones that didn't get executed.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The Euro-peons are thinking about using the Galileo system as part of an electronic road tolling scheme... So, bearing in mind the surveillance potential of such a scheme, I'd think the best way to "crack" one of the Galileo satellites would be an ASAT missile...
Ohh, those silly Europeans... that kind of thing would never happen in the US!
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
This is really interesting. Will Cornell come and defend me in court if I get caught with a radar detector in a state where it's legal to own them but illegal to use them? After all, it's just telling me my position and speed relative to a police car!
Here's the link:
o r_Galileo_-_Reception_And_Analysis_Of_Signals_From _GIOVE-A_-_GPS_World_Jun_2006.cbz|2798050|3133A37D 5949B7A938083DBADFB7B684|/
ed2k://|file|PSIAKI%2C_Mark_And_Al._-_Searching_f
Cheers,
Except that the Europeans are already doing it on a mass scale, albeit with different technology (number plate recognition cameras). See: the London congestion charge. We may be 'testing' this system, and it's unlikely to fly now, since the gas tax provides an equally-good solution while encouraging the purchase of more efficient vehicles (there's a big outcry about Middle Eastern oil use and/or global warming on now). If gas tax revenues are lost, they can always the raise the gas tax over a period of years to "keep up with inflation."
-b.
No, Kim Jong-Il likes the South Korean actresses too much. Also there's the matter of fallout.
Correction - OTPs are unbreakable if the pads used are cryptographically random - i.e. there's no obvious structure in the original pad. If OTPs are generated naively, using, say, a standard computer Linear Congruential Generator, then they aren't very secure at all. (For Linear Generators, you can look at serial correlations that are violated, and hence figure out what changes have been applied to the pad.)
"Us Brits, while we were the richest nation on earth, let 8 million of our citizens in Ireland starve to death..."
Why are people let onto the Web with only one brain cell? 8m was more than the total population of Ireland at that date. Check the Wiki and you will find that the most accepted figures for deaths are 700,000 to 800,000.
You will also find that there was not much the authorities at the time could do, and what little there was, they did. Famines of this type were quite normal at the time. The Irish later expanded this episode into a legend to attack the English with, though they ignored a similar famine they had in 1740-41.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Potato_Famine
Seriously, this is great work. But it's not like they can't just go and change the codes.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I would like to point out that Galileo doesn't exist yet in a production system. It's just a test satellite. So it currently doesn't have higher accuracy and doesn't work better than GPS.
And you can get centimeter accuracy with GPS as it is right now using DGPS and some very nifty tricks like using the clock of the military channels and correlating it with the normal channel to determine effects of the ionosphere.
Basically, a dictatorship doesn't care too much about sub-meter precision for their bombs. If the miss a target and destroy a child hospital instead of a command center, they have no media to complain about it and make them risk loosing an election (which, by definition, are also non-existent or fake in a dictatorship) And for atom bombs, well.... Do you think it really makes a difference it you miss the target even for 1 or two kilometers. Of course we are not talking about the kind of atom bombs designed to blast underground bunkers, but also, in that case, the north-korean death doctors still have a lot of more pressing developments to acchieve before they have to care about sub-meter precision.
Your ad could be here!
ummmm...isn't this as illegal as cracking DVD encryption? do they have good lawyers?
Well, you keep laughing while they keep working on it.
any more than a Ford is a Mercedes. Galileo is the name of the EU system. GPS is the name of the USA system. Both are examples of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why the fuck did they encrypt a system that was entirely paid-for by European tax-payers? Fucking assholes.
Freedom of speech implies a freedom to read what you want.
I would like to believe you, but I'm not sure about your statement. (IANAL)
Also, the terms of the DMCA seem to suggest that even **talking** or **publishing** ways to read encrypted signals (for purposes of breaking copyprotection) is illegal (The importation of such technology is forbidden).
Now if the owners of the european satellites can claim that the contents of their signals are protected by copyright, (and they seem to be charging a fee for some types of access), then I can see a good case for them using the US DMCA against the researchers.
Although academic cryptology research is permitted under the DMCA, but I'm not sure if open publishing/disclosure of discovered methods to break it are permitted).
According to Cornell's lawyers, the DMCA was not a concern because navigation data is not, and cannot be, copyrighted.
Whoa!
Does this mean that the data files to Microsoft Streets and Trips can be published freely?
Does this mean that online maps can be used without any type of license/permission from the "owner"?
Yes, I understand I cannot copyright my mailing address. But what about a collection of addresses? What about a collection of addresses, and roads? what about a collection of addresses, roads, and landmarks? What about any of these collections displayed in graphical form?
Look at the companise that exist solely by selling atlases. Their works aren't copyrighted? Whoohooo!
I'm not seeing to many peaceful uses that aren't already covered by one of:
:-)
a. standard GPS
b. standard GPS plus a differential signal (good for airport approaches)
c. carrier-phase (sub-centimeter but slow, for surveying)
I'll grant that differential signals can make airports easy targets.
For what are you needing the combination of precision, accuracy, fast measurements, and a location that hasn't been set up with a differential transmitter?
C'mon, tell us how you REALLY feel! :wq
Three satellites form a plane. Your location will be one solution to the problem, the second solution will be a point mirrored across the plane formed by the three satellites. You can throw the ridiculous solution out.
Agreed! Couldnt the "hackers" have spent time doing something worthwhile?
---
Those batteries look great, where do I get the rest ? ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
North Korea is trying to deter others from attacking it. To deter that, it wants a credible threat that unnacceptable destruction will result from such an attack. Killing a few hundred thousand Koreans, Japanese, or Americans counts as unacceptable destruction. Hence, no attack will occur, and the missiles stay in their storage facilities.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Why is this ok? Is Cornell in the pirate game now. Will they hit the pesky DirectTV encryption next and provide us all with free tv? I'm not usually one to call foul but did it ever occur to them that the people who spent many many many millions of dollars to put the damn sats up there have the right to encrypt the signal? Doesn't Cornell have something more useful to do? Like say invent something?
"Imagine someone builds a lighthouse," argued Psiaki. "And I've gone by and see how often the light flashes and measured where the coordinates are. Can the owner charge me a licensing fee for looking at the light? ... No. How is looking at the Galileo satellite any different?"
If DirecTV have the gall to flood my rooftop with radio waves, how can it be illegal for me to decrypt them ?
Over on wikipedia's Satellite navigation system page I find it amusing that in addition to the current world super powers - France is working on their own global navigation system. Only it appears to work in reverse (terrestrial emitters and space based receivers) - interpret this how you will.
Yes, but whats that got to do with the price of tea in D'ni?
They just need to include a sound track of Top 10 hits on the UK Pop Charts in the signal...
Then you can't hack the signal because it has copyright info!
Genius. Just like the laws that ban bayonets and underbarrel cleaing rods on semi-auto guns.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
from TFA : "Imagine someone builds a lighthouse," argued Psiaki. "And I've gone by and see how often the light flashes and measured where the coordinates are. Can the owner charge me a licensing fee for looking at the light? ... No. How is looking at the Galileo satellite any different?"
.. this is also justification also for decoding any signal in the eloctromagnetic spectrum, such as pay-per-view etc.
So
damn, looking at my source again it is "a million", I read it as "8 million"
> You will also find that there was not much the authorities at the time could do, and what little there was, they did.
This, though, is not true according to historian Simon Schama. The richesr nation on earth could easily have stepped in but decided the free market should solve issue.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Maybe other uses could be GPS enabled cars, and cargo trucks? The usefulness of the GPS enabled auto could be used to reduce the traffic, and the cost of shipping.
And yaaaa, this could be used unwisely to, but so can a rubber band.
Where they just ban rave music, send swat teams to raves, try to ban all forms of live electronic music(including rock and roll) in florida, assault marching bands, consider heavy metal (along with most punk and industrial music) as 'satan worshiping' music fit for blacklisting, keep european musicians from being able to enter the country, and choosing the wrong media to listen to music through as a music fan can get you sued into the gutter. You are left with music in america, it's true, and you can say 'well, those kinds of music are illegal there for a purpose' to any of the above, I suppose, but that would be hypocritical.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
North Korea has made a lot of dumb decisions, but that doesn't mean they are insane any more than Bush's (mis)handling of the war in Iraq means he is insane.
Oh god... arguing that Kim Jong-il is no more insane than Bush. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Oh god... arguing that Kim Jong-il is no more insane than Bush. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
There are striking similarities. Both are the sons of privilege and former rulers of their respective countries. Both were massively irresponsible party animals in their youth. Both go to extremes to demonize the other to their citizens. Neither get as much respect as their fathers did when they had the same job. Both use highly inflated threats of attacks from outside to justify most of their policies. Both have been buddy-buddy with Pakistan in order to achieve their own objectives. But there are a few differences too. Only one has ever invaded even just one country. Only one pretends to represent the will of the common man. Only one of them takes personal direction from God.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.