Slashdot Mirror
Sri Lankan Terrorists Hack Satellite
SorryTomato writes "The Tamil Tigers Liberation Front a separatist group in Sri Lanka, which has been classified as a terrorist group in 32 countries has moved up from routine sea piracy to a space-based one. They have been accused of illegally using Intelsat satellites to beam radio and television broadcasts internationally. Intelsat says that they will end the transmissions 'within days.' Intelsat has been accused of having business links with Hezbollah before, but claim that they are blameless this time and LTTE was using an empty transponder."
... to add 'Tin Foil Hats' to our anti-terrorist kits. At least the duct tape won't be lonely anymore.
warning: The above content may test positive for sarcasm and/or could be a failed attempt at humor and as such should be taken with a pound of salt.
No doubt the transmissions are being used to attemp to justify the illegal war being waged. Very Foxey! I wonder where they got that idea from?
OK, because at least someone on Slashdot knows, I have to ask: how would they do this? Is there some form of access key or security needed to uplink to a transponder, or is it simply a matter of finding the right satellite and frequency? I would hope that the latter is not true, but "security by obscurity" is a well-known (amusingly) procedure in many companies..
Hacks of satellites have been predicted by experts numerous times before; the older ones were, rather worryingly, designed mostly with security by obscurity. Need uplink codes? Probably not a problem if you can get near to the ground station with appropriate equipment, no radio transmission is 100% directional.
IIRC it was one of the Blackhat conference speakers who outlined the nasty possibility of a satellite somewhere in a geosynchronous constellation being hijacked and deliberately crashed into another one. Given that this area is fairly densely populated, the debris could start a chain reaction and do a lot of damage.
What, right after you pick the kids up from school, have a cup of coffee, do the dishes, visit granny, contemplate what to have for dinner?
We are surrounded by incompetence. Dilbert, save us!
After taking a look at your past comments, it seems more likely that you just wanted to rationalize the antics of the violent insurgents that are basically destroying my native country, because you like that they're anti-American rebels. (Although they ARE part of the reason I came to the US, I have to thank them for that.)
Mods- I'm not trolling here-- look at his profile if you don't believe me.
F@-lun gong hacked SinoSat from Taiwan to broadcast their propaganda program to mainland china.
g +sinosat+hack
To read more:
http://www.google.com.sg/search?hl=en&q=falun+gon
This story (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/ 12/1755218) about a DoD router in space says they're contracting with IntelSat.
According to this story, they've a) been hacked and b) have links to Hezbolah.
Why would our government involve a company that's incompetent and has links to terrori...
...never mind.
Terrycloth Lobster
If the positional thrusters are capable of producing enough delta-v for it to come down exactly at the right moment to ram the ascending space shuttle, then I guess yes, the technical possibility to attack the US does exist. Besides that, I can't imagine an attack vector going beyond simply turning the sat OFF, just to piss some US housewifes waiting for their sitcoms to start.
May I suggest you look a bit into the history of Ireland?
The theory how armed resistance can be used to overthrow government is very old and goes along the lines of: provoke the authorities with violence until they start to react as violent, but against their own innocent civilians. Every state action should generate more supporters for your cause until you have a large enough majority to oust the regime, or they just downright give up. If you follow that theory, al-qaida was very successfull with their wtc attack. The US overreacted so violently that they lost all their goodwill in the rest of the world. Indirectly this may lead to the withdrawal of the US from Saudi soil.
Btw, personally I think all violence is wrong, but neither do I like the Myopic US views on 'terrorism'.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Terrorists that "win" get to call themselves freedom fighters because they "won". Terrorists who didn't "win" get called terrorists by the "winners".
That could cover just about any form of violence whether perpetrated by governments or terrorists/freedom fighters, east or west.
America, Home of the Brave.
Whatever they say, the large majority of the terrorists cannot be seriously called "freedom fighters".
People who used terrorism agains nazi occupation in several european countries and to a certain extend some of the intifada fighters may claim that title as long as they only attacked military or police targets of a brutal occupation force or dictatorship in their homeland. Tamil tigers might have fallen in that category, but they really have too much innocent blood on their hands.
But on the other hand, although I hate GWB as much as any other non-US citizen, I refuse that title to people who, for example, come from Iran or Syria (or any other place) to Irak and blindly kill civilian because bringing chaos to Irak serves the political agenda of the country that funds them.
And yes, propaganda can be a tool of terrorism.
That hijacking a satellite is a pretty cool thing to do. Go on, imagine the scenario in a 4 Yorkshire Men style...
Terrorist 1: We hijacked an armoured vehicle!
Terrorist 2: That's nothing! We hijacked a boat!
Terrorist 3: Amateurs! We highjacked a plane!
Terrorist 4: We highjacked a satellite
Terrorist 1: And you try to tell the young people about that, they won't believe you!
Terrorist 3: They won't!
Summation 2
I am a Tamil, born in Sri Lanka, have lived nearly all my life in the UK, and work in a professional job here, as an IT consultant and am PROUD of it. I have been proud to work for my now native country, the UK, and have worked in BAe, and other companies.
Yet, because of the fact I am Tamil, you do gooders are supposed to now be looking at everything I do? It doesn't matter the fact that I have lived in the UK for so long, I cannot even speak Tamil properly.
Its bad enough, going to Sri Lanka, and being sometimes treated like dirt by immigration, customs, and checkpoints, simply because I was born in Jaffna, fearing I would be kidnapped or killed by extra-legal gangs, operating with apparent clandestine approval from authorities.
Should I expect the same treatment from my "friends"?
Should I likewise assume that every "white man" is a potential KKK, or BNP member?
I have many friends who are Singhalese (the 'other side'), who treat me as a brother.
Have a nice day!
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Is it really that hard to hack satellites? Is the security not so great since there are few people who actually have the capacity to try such tricks?
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Very insightful, it is also exactly what is happening in Sri Lanka. I have personally witnessed a civilian being beaten up by the Sri Lankan army: on the main road connecting the capital to the parliament. People who travel to the war torn east of the country have told me such things happen regularly there. I shudder to think what happens out of sight and in more of the way places.
The LTTE are very ruthless and achieved their position partly by killing any dissenters. They are also the world leaders in suicide bombings, both in the number of attacks and the technology used. I suspect if the Sri Lankan forces had been more restrained, the LTTE's own brutality would have undermined them.
They are certainly ingenious and are unique among their peers in operating on land, sea and in the air - they recently used light aircraft to bomb an air force base, and had dropped bombs and got away before the air force get its air craft off the ground.
In the meantime, Sri Lanka faces horrible side effects from war. Corruption, vote-rigging, suppression of free speech, a rise in Buddhist fundamentalism and huge economic damage.
On a more cheerful note, its a great time to go to Sri Lanka on holiday. The hotels are dirt cheap. The conflict is localised, foreigners are not targets, and you would be safe from violence as long as you avoid the north and east of the country. The risks from Sri Lankan driving are another matter....
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons: my profile links to my blog and I do not want to make unnecessarily make enemies in Sri Lanka as I spend a lot of time there. The fact that I feel it necessary to be anonymous should tell you a lot about the state of free speech in Sri Lanka.
No need for covert hacking, most satellites are little more than expensive dumb repeaters in space, anyone with a few thousand dollars can bounce a signal off one without restriction, sometimes without even being noticed for a good length of time, if at all.
:-), it is still vastly quicker to have a human operator run through with a spectrum analyser to figure out what should or should not be there. Back when I was working for the man, the visible part of the clark belt in my section of the sky was filled with satellites having many thousands of transmissions on each polarity in use. Weeding out the pirates is tedious and never ending work for a space based telco.
Given that the best automated methods of scanning and identifying energy spikes is about as good as speech recognition 15 years ago - and don't kid your selves on this point you 3 letter agency drone PHB's
I'm certain Intelsat don't want any non-paid for signals period, though the legalities of pirate transmissions are a bit of a grey area depending on which country you are in. I have seen on many occasions a sweeping CW (carrier wave) running back and forth across what I assume are unwanted transmissions. I'd say there's not really much more Intelsat can do except suck it up and try to identify unknowns a tad faster than they have been doing in the past, and then simply try to disrupt the signal - no guarantee this will work though.
The fine article makes it sound like Intelsat have some sophisticated system that'll let them drop the transmissions with a flick of a few switches - this is an interesting feel good fluff explanation probably more aimed at their investors. What they really mean is that there is sweet FA they can do about it beyond asking nicely for the naughty men to turn off their bad signal, otherwise they'll take their transponder and switch it off for everyone, only for a few minutes though.
LTTE might have started as a group of freedom fighters.
But they are no longer one.
Life is a mystery. There is no point having a mystery if you are not curious.
You were able to support your comments by looking at someone's profile. Then gotted modded to +4. Great - so why post as AC?
No, it hasn't. When I was young (eighties), the US was seen as the great superpower protecting us from those evil Soviets. I vividly remember the horror stories told by my parent of desperate people risking their lives trying to get over the Berlin wall to the West, because it was so bad and repressive in those Eastern European states. Stories about secret police abducting you because you dared to criticise the state. On the other hand, the US were these great guys who protected us from Soviet annexation after WWII. Nowadays, you'll be hard pressed to hear my parents say anything good about the US though.
You're merely deluding yourself into a comfortable "whatever we do, they've never liked us and will never like us anyway, so why would we care what others say/think"-position? I hope you do not confuse that attitude with patriotism.
It might not have been approved by the higher ups either in the family/party. India's Minister for Communication Kalanidhi Maran, is a nephew of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and their family owns the SunTV conglomerate. Tigers are to be feared, their pledge of alligiance to their leader Prabakaran supercedes any other consideration.
Trying hard to present NPoV without my biases. Hope I succeeded.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
These guys ARE pirates and hackers!!!!! I feel membership applications are gonna flow from the /. community...
Res publica non dominetur
According to Asian Tribune, the satellite channel was part of the ceasefire agreement between the LTTE and the government of Sri Lanka. Since Ranil Wickremasinghe hasn't been Prime Minister of Sri Lanka since 2004, this agreement that LTTE could broadcast obviously isn't exactly new.
Speculation time:
Some people are claiming that the LTTE is paying for the broadcasts. It sounds like someone at Intelsat may have accepted a contract based on the ceasefire agreement, only to get burned now that a different political party is in charge in Sri Lanka.
Except the ones who are communist, marxist, nationalist or just plain crazy e.g. Shining Path, FARC, ETA, LTTE, RUF, etc. See US State Department list .
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Exactly, especially considering in Sri Lanka, since Independance, Tamils have been racially and xenophobically put down, by a a majority ruling party, who just happen to speak a different language.
0 07.
See "Black July" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_July and other awful cases of poor human rights and racist actions by a few in power.
I have seen the problem at face, as I have recently (November 2006) been to Sri Lanka myself: as a tourist, and stayed in a hotel, in Colombo, for only 3 nights, to see my girlfriend who lives in Colombo (she is half Singhalese, half Tamil, by the way) Whenever my hotel car was stopped at numerous checkpoints, and they saw on my BRITISH passport, that I was born in Jaffna, I was given "special treatment". I usually responded with a query of the officers Badge Number, as well as reasons for the delay in letting me through, which usually for me, made them back off.
But others are not so lucky.
A friend of mine, was recently spotted as a Tamil at the immigration in Colombo airport, and was kidnapped en route to the capital, and was help, until he paid a ransom of £2000. The kidnapping was done by gangs, supporting the current administration, with the help of the police, and authorities.
Unfortunately the current administration in Sri Lanka, has a unwritten, but oft repeated view that all Tamils are LTTE. Amnesty International has been recently doing a large campaign highlighting the general lack of human rights in Sri Lanka http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA370102
No Tamil Sri Lankan wants to separate from the rest of the country, they just desire to live together in harmony. But when the government does not protect, and then attacks members of their own people, of cause people will support the LTTE in desperation.
It's a really sad tragic situation, and destroying a very beautiful country.
Have a nice day!
You are incorrect regarding antenna size. Satellite communications is possible using COTS equipment such as a Ku-band (about 14 GHz up, 11 GHz down) antenna about 1 m across. If you want to go C-band (6 Ghz/4 GHz), then a dish about 2.5 m across is sufficient. You only need about 100-400 W of power, again available in COTS equipment.
If you're not concerned with some of the requirements for your transmitted signal (particularly beamwidth), you can use dishes even smaller than these, provided you have sufficient transmitter power.
Such equipment must be available on the black market; if groups such as the Tamil Tigers can afford to buy black-market weapons, I can easily imagine the black-market availability of such technology for the right price.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
The difference is one of intent. The people in Iraq and many other parts of the world are INTENTIONALLY targeting civilians as a means to an end. They want to get their message out and to terrorize the population. That is NOT the action of freedom fighters, it is the action of brutal thugs. The Mujahidin in Afghanistan were freedom fighters, the American revolutionaries were freedom fighters. When you intentionally target civilians who are not part of the government machine I really don't think you can be considered anything but a coward and a thug.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"... except Clarke is still alive"
THAT explains the faint tapping at the gravesite...
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The theory how armed resistance can be used to overthrow government is very old and goes along the lines of: provoke the authorities with violence until they start to react as violent, but against their own innocent civilians.
That's a very slanted view. It is commonly put about by those keen to portray resistance movements as cruel and callous, and occupiers as mere 'victims of circumstance'.
In general, the goal of a resistance movement is to weaken and undermine the occupier's rule.
Increased repression and abuse of power is a common outcome, but hardly the primary goal.
Also, if the strategy were as simplistic as you claim, then it could be easily defeated by the occupier refusing to respond violently.
There is little hacking involved. Most older satellites are simple 'bent pipes' which transponds everything it receives on one frequency onto another frequency. So if you are in the antenna footprint of the ground station, you can use that satellite and there is nothing the owners can do to stop you.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
As a satellite network controller, I disagree with your post: 1) They didn't HACK anything. The obtained ephemeris data from some online website, and pointed an antenna at the satellite. 2) Satellites have predicted channel allocations. There's a huge database containing the predicted signal levels, filtering, datarates and modulation techniques. If an unauthorized access occurs, the satellite network controllers see it instantly. 3) The only thing a satellite controller can do to negate an unauthorized user is reallocate the beamweights of the footprint to exclude the transmission area. Sure, this may work in Sri Lanka (where I've worked, by the by), but if someone in the US wanted to do the same thing, do you really think Intelsat would create 0dB directive gain in Virginia? I don't think so. Read up on satellite operations. It'll amaze you how little control controllers actually have.
Vocal minorities are often confused with silent majorities.
Sri Lanka: The Big Hate Mo'
Of course, there's more on the Exile, which is definitely not work safe, unless you work at the Bada Bing or something. However, this article is a good primer.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
I am against war. But the sad fact is that people will find reasons to kill each other and fight wars irrespective of the weapons used, even if they have to resort to sticks and stones. I, for one, am glad we are using smart bombs to achieve our objectives instead of dropping anything and everything that goes boom out of wave after wave of bombers.
The satellites that carry a lot of the TV and telephone transmissions are decades old. They simply aren't capable of doing any of this, and it's impractical to attempt to upgrade them. You can put measures like this in newer communications satellites that go up, but those old satellites aren't going anywhere, and so long as they're still running, it's not economical to abandon them.
It's always been assumed that it would be cost-prohibitive for random malcontents to obtain access to the hardware needed to successfully uplink a signal (or interfere with one) to a satellite, and for all intents and purposes, it is, to this day.
In addition, a lot of the transmissions going over these satellites remains analog, either audio or video. An encryption scheme like the one you're suggesting would only work if the satellite were data-only, which would require costly upgrades for a lot of the people using satellites for analog transmissions today. It's not just the broadcasters (the uplink) that would need to digitize the data, but everyone that receives those transmissions would have to have equipment to decode it.
With that said, digitized signals and data encryption are used on a lot of transmissions today, but the satellites generally play no role in that layer of the transmission. They remain "bent pipes" and simply retransmit what they hear (analog). This can be useful to differentiate on the ground between authorized and unauthorized transmissions (no "hijacking" of an encrypted transmission), but won't help if the authorized transmission is simply overpowered by the interfering one. (And, indeed, even in the data-only case, you'd still have this problem.)
English is like that because the spelling was invented by English people.
A blog about stuff.
650,000. CNN.
I assume that CNN, being a nationalist propaganda machine is likely to round down. But even assuming the real figure is only as high as 200,000, the situation remains unforgivable and the U.S. is by no means "innocent".
Also, 'murdered' is an objective term. If someone is shooting at me and I have a gun, guess what: I don't care if it's a police action, declared war, or what ever, I'm shooting back. Is that murder, I supposed it depends on what side you are on or who shot first.
How nice. But we're not talking about you and your armchair war theory. We're talking about an American invasion army shooting and bombing civilians. It might also be pointed out that the Americans did indeed shoot first. "Pre-emptive", I believe the term was. Based on lies and faulty intelligence.
Further, bombed civilians aren't typically in a position to shoot first. The term 'murder' fits quite well in such cases. As it does when Americans open fire on civilian weddings, school children, fishermen and cars which, "didn't slow down fast enough", among many such countless incidents. --And these are just the ones that the U.S. admits guilt for, (otherwise they wouldn't be handing out cash to stricken family members). When murder is an offense which carries only a small fine, there is something wrong.
The U.S. should not be in Iraq. It wasn't a mistake. It was a willful, criminal act.
-FL
[quote]That the U.S. had goodwill before 9/11 and then threw it away with the invasion of Iraq is a myth. [/quote]
You are the one reciting a myth. After 9-11, Le Monde proclaimed, "We are all Americans". The band outside Buckingham palace played the Star-Spangled Banner. All around the world, vigils were held, marches were held, and US embassies were plastered with flowers. Have you forgotten so soon? Well, perhaps polls will help remind you.
In some countries, positive opinions of America have more than halved.
The big brain am winning again! I am the greetist! Now I am leaving for no particular raisin!
UNSEC 678 authorizes the use of military force to "uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area".
UNSEC 687, sections C through H, spelled out exactly what was required of Iraq to restore international peace and security to the area, including: a complete declaration and destruction in the presence of UN observers of their WMD stockpiles, a complete declaration and destruction of their ballistic missile and UAV programs with a range of at least 150km, a specific prohibition that Iraq was not "to use, develop, construct or acquire" WMD, and that Iraq "will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory", along with condemning any other acts of international terrorism.
Under no stretch of the imagination had these requirements been met. Iraq may well have destroyed their WMD stockpiles, but they did not declare these weapons to the UN, and UNMOVIC had declared them in violation of this up until the March 2003 invasion. Iraq did not dismantle their prohibited ballistic missile programs as was proven by the discovery of the Al-Samoud 2 missiles, and the development of the North Korean No Dong 2000km ballistic missiles. We know for a fact from the Duelfer report, and from the interim ISG report by David Kay, that Iraq did not discontinue the development and acquisition of WMD. Both reports clearly detail WMD development activities that were in violation of UN mandate.
These two resolutions were passed under chapter VII of the UN charter, which mandates all UN member states to participate in their enforcement. All of the subsequent resolutions passed against Iraq, including UNSEC 1441, referenced and reaffirmed these two resolutions, and Iraq was clearly in violation.
As to your WMD point, I would strongly encourage you to at least read the 20+ page summary of the 2004 Duelfer ISG report. No doubt that much of our prewar intelligence was flawed, and that we did not find the remnant munitions from the Iran/Iraq war that we expected to find (because Iraq offered no documentation to prove their destruction, and no UN inspector had observed the destruction of these weapons). But there is also no doubt that Iraq was still in violation of UNSEC 687 paragraph 10, leaving a clear authorization to use military force for compliance.
The United States current presence in Iraq is at the request of the Iraqi government and under a clear mandate from the Security Council (first from resolution 1546, and most recently from resolution 1723. See Annex 1 in resolution 1723 for the letter from Prime Minister al-Maliki requesting the multinational force to stay).
That is an accurate summary of how opponents of the invasion interpret the relevant international law. Suffice it to say that not only do I disagree with that interpretation, but so do the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, former Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali, and the governments of countries like the UK, Australia, Japan, and Italy (to name a few). When it comes to matters of international law, there is no final arbiter on how the laws are interpreted (like the Supreme Court does for domestic law). I hope you can appreciate this.
I don't think that is a fair characterization. Some nations, most notably Russia and China as you pointed out, condemned the attacks. Others, like Japan and Sweden, gave strong endorsements of the US and UK position. The rest of the members of the Security Council, including countries like France and Costa Rica, expressed sorrow at the situation without taking a strong position either way about the legality of the actions. See S/PV.3955 for the minutes of the relevant discussion in the Security Council.
This is completely false. Here is a quote from US Ambassador to the UN Peter Burleigh from the minutes I linked to above:
Following Iraq's repeated, flagrant and material breaches of its obligations under resolutions 687 (1991), 707 (1991), 715 (1991), 1154 (1998), 1194 (1998), 1205 (1998) and others, in addition to its failure to fulfil its own commitments, the coalition today exercised the authority given by Security Council resolution 678 (1990) for Member States to employ all necessary means to secure Iraqi compliance with the Council's resolutions and restore international peace and security in the area. Any Iraqi attempt to attack coalition forces or to initiate aggressive action against a neighbouring State will be met with a swift response by the coalition.
The reasoning he gave here should sound a little familiar by now, and it had nothing to do with the no-fly zones.
Of course they were! Allow me to quote from the 2002 Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq:
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability,
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush