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Brazilian Pirates Hijack US Military Satellites
blantonl writes "Brazilians all over the country are using modified amateur radio equipment to communicate with each other using US Military communications satellites — effectively creating their own CB radio network on the backs of the US Military. Recent efforts to crack down have resulted in arrests of some of the users, however the behavior still continues today."
That's a lot of pirates.
It sounds like the feds have 2 good options:
1) Shut down this capability. This may involve shutting down the birds.
2) Find a way to charge for it
Oh, and maybe a 3rd:
3) Replace the satellites with something secure and sell the birds to someone else and let them worry about it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What exactly are the "pirates" pirating? Does mere communications count as "piracy" now?
Until then, the military is still using aging FLTSAT and UFO satellites -- and so are a lot of Brazilians. While the technology on the transponders still dates from the 1970s, radio sets back on Earth have only improved and plummeted in cost -- opening a cheap, efficient and illegal backdoor.
It kind of reminds me of video game consoles. With the advent of computers, it became possible to emulate things like the NES and SNES on your computer as those consoles became outdated and your CPU could easily emulate the chipset in those devices. With the Dreamcast, it seemed like they still hadn't learned their lesson as there was little to no-copy-protection on the media that contained the game. It was only a matter of time before hardware caught up and Dreamcast emulators were available.
Systems like the PS3 and Xbox360 have learned from this but it is arguable that soon (if not already) that will be cracked and emulated. The military should take note of this battle as now that communication with satellites has become cheap, they are facing the same cat and mouse game. So they have two options: either attempt to crush it politically (like Brazil's Operation Satellite) or live with it and prepare mitigation plans.
Some might argue that if you give anyone enough time with something, human curiosity and boredom prevails against the highest standards.
My work here is dung.
read up, whoever tagged this story with "!pirates"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio
piracy has widespread meanings, from the somali crazies type pirates to software/music/movie/etc. pirates to pirate radio communication.
just like hacker vs cracker, that battle was 'lost' many decades ago, probably before you were even born.
I remember when those birds used to pickup terrestrial FM stations. You could listen to the downlink 'in the clear.' This use of military satellites goes back to, at least, 1978.
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
Bad geek! It's called Pirate radio, and it's been around longer than the Pirate bay!
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
You really can hear rare birds in the rainforest!
With defense appropriated funds accounting for a large chunk of the USA's annual budget, you'd think they could use something newer than 1970's era technology for long range com...wouldn't the time/money/resources spent on busting the "pirates" be better spent on a new (secure) system?
thousands of Brazilians
Trazilians, you mean, surely.
The street finds its own uses for things
Costs a buck an ear!
HAHAHAHAHAH
I kill me.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
One standard amateur VHF transceiver, one frequency doubling circuit, one reasonably high gain antenna. And possibly some satellite tracking software. All easily available.
...would be to give the crews of these satellites some weapons to fend off the pirates.
These are old "bent pipe" FLTSATCOM birds from the 1980s. The transponder tech dates to the 1970s. It's all going to be superseded by the Mobile User Objective System very soon now, so it might even be a good idea to just sell Brazil the old system. Well, assuming the GEO slots aren't needed.
forgot the frequencies, but you should be able to find them by googling. you just need something that can transmit and receive on those frequencies.
back when i was in korea we used to pick up ABC and a few other TV stations with Army FM radios because they supported a few civilian frequencies.
didn't work in europe because over there their freqs end with an even number, in the US they end with an odd number. look at any radio station and the freq will be an odd number in the US
Ninjas don't leave evidence nor any other trace , kinda part of being a ninja. See if a Ninja hijacked a ship they'd also erase all traces of its existence; yes they are very thorough. Then after they were done with that they'd whip out an electric guitar and rock hard. (all my assumptions are based of 80's Ninja movies)
NASA budget: $17.2 billion - DoD budget: $515.4 billion - nuff said...
So now pirate is going to be used for anyone using something for nothing?
So now "prostitute" is going to be used for anyone selling sex?
So now "pilot" is going to be used for anyone flying a plane?
Uh, hate to break it to you, but sometimes the right word is used properly. But if you prefer, we could always call them "hackers" and really stir up the geek shit pot...
Asides from the fact that these operators were way outside their respective allowed band, they did no harm as these satellites aren't even used anymore by the US-Navy (for whom they were built). They should repurpose them for civilian use if possible - which would be cool as they are geo stationary.
If you would have bothered to RTFA, you would have discovered that the primary users of this system are truck drivers and loggers.
But whatever floats your boat....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Based on the description in the article, I'm guessing the sats in question use linear transponders similar to many of the AMSAT Oscar (AO) satellites.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/information/faqs/langdon.php has info on some of the AMSAT satellites.
It sounds like the security of the "as designed" military system was implemented at the endpoint radios with no satellite involvement. For 1970s satellites this makes sense - keep the satellite (the REALLY expensive part) simple, unfortunately it does make the system susceptible to illicit use and jamming.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
durka durka, muhammad jihad.
Ships call for help using a 406 MHz EPIRB. The signal is picked up by the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite network and relayed to a local SAR station. The 406 MHZ beacons are a big improvement over the old 121.5 and 243 MHz beacons, as they support identification and GPS data. The old beacons basically just scream "Help!".
"If a soldier is shot in an ambush, the first thing he will think of doing will be to send a help request over the radio," observes Brochi. "What if he's trying to call for help and two truckers are discussing soccer? In an emergency, that soldier won't be able to remember quickly how to change the radio programming to look for a frequency that's not saturated."
What if he's shot in the field and the *enemy* saturates all the frequencies? This should have been secure from the get go, anything less is criminal.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
We get their soccer team and call it even. Deal?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
If i pirate Music with these Satellites, does the RIAA sue the US Navy for "facilitators of illegal downloading" ?
I would be thrilled to read in the newspapers the next day that RIAA lawyers were water boarded 183 times by the marines...
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
The USA thought long and hard about this.
They needed to shift data around the world and sniff for it.
Huge amounts, everyday, all day.
The last thing that would help is a big slow computer up in space.
Encrypt, bounce (in space), decrypt
You can swap out the ground stations and systems if the Soviets got the info.
Swapping out a satellite is a pain.
Back in the cold war all the Soviets could do was read encrypted traffic.
Anyone can bounce their own 'data' too.
US 'training' staff and private 'consultants' will track your position as you are transmitting.
Now your "arrested" ie your not up on condortel for the SNI to "find".
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
http://www.realultimatepower.net/index4.htm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If the incompetent soldiers at the U.S. Navy can't figure a way to secure their own satellites, why should the citizens of another country on the other side of the planet be prosecuted, fined, or worse, merely for sending out a radio signal that happens to match the same frequency the U.S. military used? This is insanity. It makes me angry that the Brazilian government is cooperating at all with the U.S. Defence Department in targeting these individuals. They should be protecting them! If a U.S. soldier is wounded in the field and is unable to radio for help, he or she should curse himself first, for joining the military, and second his idiot government for designing such an insecure satellite.
I hope more Brazilians and others from around the world get in on this act! Perhaps there's a way we can use it to multicast data as well, that would be brilliant!
The USA thought long and hard about this. They needed to shift data around the world and sniff for it. Huge amounts, everyday, all day. The last thing that would help is a big slow computer up in space. Encrypt, bounce (in space), decrypt You can swap out the ground stations and systems if the Soviets got the info. Swapping out a satellite is a pain. Back in the cold war all the Soviets could do was read encrypted traffic. Anyone can bounce their own 'data' too. US 'training' staff and private 'consultants' will track your position as you are transmitting. Now your "arrested" ie your not up on condortel for the SNI to "find".
Burma-shave.
> Brazil?
What do you know of Brazilian techies? Ever worked with Brazilian engineers? Ever been to Brazil? I can assure you they are every bit as good as any Chinese, Russian, American, Indian, Brit, Czech, Japanese, or Pole I've worked with. Slashdotters may also be interested to know that Brazil has a very open-source, creative-commons sort of culture.
> And not an organized military either. Pirates.
It's likely that the recently reported Chinese cracks of US military systems were freelance.
It's true that our current income tax system is complex... but it's hardly true that this is an essential feature of income tax systems. We could have a simple income tax system, but we've chosen not to. Similarly, excise and sales taxes can be complex, and some of them are... at the very least, they vary wildly from state to state and product to product.
This is utterly ridiculous. The reason for having an income tax is that it can be made progressive (in other words, you can make rich people pay proportionally more), in ways you can't with sales/excise taxes. That's the benefit of an income tax system... and yes, it is in fact a benefit. The carrot & stick effect is by no means exclusive to income taxes, either - excise taxes on, for example, cigarettes, are explicitly a stick being wielded against tobacco use.
Translation:
In the '70s it was more practical to have satellites retransmit a raw signal than to have them decrypt on receive and encrypt on transmit. This system is easily exploited. Where's my mind control signal deflector beanie?
They're pirating bandwidth, which is an extremely scarce commodity in a military situation. Bear in mind that even a small ship has something like 300 people onboard, and most of them have some considerable amount of official business in sending e-mails, making "phone calls" (voice radio transmissions), sending/receiving teletype data, exchanging sensor/intel data, etc, etc, etc. When some of the available bandwidth is "pirated" (for lack of a better term) by folks who really need to talk about the performance of the local futbol team, it affects the ability of the US Navy to do its job.
If you, for example, used a lot of VOIP, (or online gaming, or whatever) and found out that your call quality had deteriorated because your neighbor had tapped into your network connection for his communication needs, how would you feel about that? Do you think it ought to be illegal? After all, this is bandwidth that you are paying for (and the neighbor is not).
Mod parent up. The US is, in fact, building a replacement satellite system (as discussed in TFA). Also, the US is not spending the dollars to bust these guys - the Brazilians are (at our behest, as also pointed out in TFA).
It's also important to note that the 70's technology in question was designed and launched... in the 70's. It's not like we put those birds up there yesterday. As also noted in the article.
In conclusion: read the article before posting (I know, I must be new here).
I'm recently retired from the US Navy, and I guarantee you these satellites are still in use.
See http://www.uhf-satcom.com./ They even have sound samples of the pirates in action.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I'm licensed for the HAM General class. The answer is yes, you can use a HAM radio with out a license as long as you don't transmit. In case of an emergency you don't even have to be licensed transmit to obtain help.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
Once you know the basics of how these birds work it's not a surprise that people are hijacking transponders for their own use. Anybody can hook up a scope to a dish and scan the sky/spectrum for an unused transponder. Then they just need to broadcast on that transponder and the bird will happily relay it back to Earth. Most birds are just bent pipes, they don't have the kind of smarts you would need to authenticate a signal before retransmitting it.
The reason this isn't common is because the satellite operator will eventually notice the extra power drain on the transponder and will pinpoint the offending transmitter fairly quickly (a few hours to days). Then it's a fairly simple matter to send the authorities to impound your pirate equipment. That appears to be exactly what happened here, although the satellite operators were lazy about tracking down the pirates and let them operate for a fairly long time.
I read the internet for the articles.
The 'techie' Brazilians I've dealt with work for IBM (from Sao Paulo) and admit that the only qualification to be an IBM Linux System Admin was the ability to speak (broken) English. No kidding.
Brazilian geek reporting for duty. I can attest that, in the midst of our gigantic stupidity, there are incredibly bright people around here. My PhD advisor came from MIT. My MSc Advisor came from Brown Univ. Publish and Perish is enormously fierce in our scientific establishment. We are stamping out more PhDs per year than Canada or Italy, for instance (but the average quality is lower, IMO). No surprise to see them hijacking US (or anyone else's satellites). That's probably trivial to do, given a little effort.
There are some hotspots of smart people even around the samba-dancing banana republic crazies.
Unless you have a club.
The good, the evil and the vacuum tubes.
This has been going on for years. The US military operates vhf satellite relays
that are open to anyone who knows position and up and downlink frequencies. I
couldn't care any less about their relays being used by third parties, obviously
they put no effort into securing them. Another thing is, if they're too upset about
third parties using it, they can shut it down.
As far as I'm concerned anybody is welcome to use these relays but that's just me.
They could have fitted those realys with some sort of security mechanism such as a
side channel to transmit/receive authentication data to activate the relaying of
the main signal. That wasn't a priority then, why should it be now after the system has
been in use for decades.
What a bunch of sorry losers to agonize over this in the first place.