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."
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
"... 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."
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.