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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.
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 It's all going to be superseded by the Mobile User Objective System very soon now, so it might even be a good idea to just sell Brazil the old system.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...
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
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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.