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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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
No, they put that in to maintain a monopoly on the manufacture of cartridge and software for the NES. They didn't want just anybody to be able to sell their own software directly to customers without Nintendo getting a paid. It wasn't to stop piracy. It was to stop the legitimate writers of software from selling their work.
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 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