Libya SIGINT Jamming Satellites, Towers

h00manist writes "Libya's Gaddafi apparently loves radio hacking. Signal jamming is being used to disable Thuraya satellite phones. Also being jammed is satellite TV network provider Arabsat, affecting vast areas in the Middle East, Gulf, Africa and Europe. Cellphone and internet transmissions are working only intermittently. Soldiers are confiscating electronics, too. This has gone on for days, allowing killing to be carried out largely hidden from the rest of the world, quite different from what happened in Egypt. The locations of the jamming signals are known to company executives — around the capital, Tripoli — but nobody can do anything. Only POTS is available, and it is monitored. Technically speaking, could this happen everywhere? Alternatives?"

Comments

What next?

[mr100percent]

Clearly Qadafi is going to do the full Tiananmen Square on his people, and yet Europe is not doing anything because 9-10% of their oil was coming from Libya.

It's ridiculous, Libya's own ambassadors are resigning to protest him, and the Libyan UN delegation broke from Qadafi and is publicly demanding from New York that the UN step in and do something. Will anyone at least do something now that he's jamming regional TV and phone?

Re:What next?

[williamhb]

I was thinking more along the lines of he'll have purged the majority of his supporters before the UN forms a committee on it. As it's going right now, you've got his thugs running around hacking people up(house to house). You have mercs from some of the bloodiest intra-africa conflicts there, opening fire on people and dragging the bodies away.

Of course there is some heartening stuff like the fighter pilots who ran to malta, or the couple that ditched in the desert and ran like hell. He doesn't have absolute control on his military, but he has enough that a lot of people are going to die.

And regardless of that, this is going to be the status-quo for the next 10 years in the middle east.

Unfortunately, it may be worse than that. Gaddafi has been successful enough in squishing all opposition over the last 40 years that after his toppling the likely result is not "Yay, we're magically transformed into a liberal market democracy" but "Now the tribal leaders get their turn at fighting each other for power in various regions, and tearing any civillians caught in the middle to shreds". The dilemma for the UN and Europe is that there are no certain good options here.

• Topple Gaddafi and potentially watch the aftermath turn it into another Somalia (but much closer to Europe's doorstep) - not so good.
• Invade and try to nation build -- hasn't worked so well in Iraq or Afghanistan and nobody has the stomach (or money) for it any more.
• Hope an African-led UN intervention can take place -- good luck with that.

They are scratching for options and desperately hoping a good one will appear.

You can tell the West is stuck for options by what they say -- they still stop short of saying Gadaffi must go. Obama, Cameron, and other western leaders all troop up to say how deplorable and illegal Gadaffi's actions are and that they must stop -- but they all still stop short of calling on him to resign, even after he has already lost control of most of the country and launched attacks on his own civilians that would presumably be considered crimes against humanity.

hacking is the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Hack cheap 49 MHz FRS/GMS walkie talkies, Arduinos andf WiFi to create an ersatz packet radio communication network. Post the "How To" online in multiple languages. For extra credit, add long distance WiFi links using Pringles can antennae and program everything to sleep and wake up in unpredictable intervals so they're hard to find.

The FRS/GMS radios are computer controlled already, so it's not that hard, but not trivial either as there's a lot of information to collect.

The radios already frequency hop, so there's lots of clever tricks that you can implement.

Re:Solution?

[WillAffleckUW]

even a HARM is fairly expensive. A standard JDAM (originally JATO) would suffice.

I'd say just airdrop some Russian plastique and let the locals take em out - maybe put the coords on a map with the case.

Re:If you support democracy, leave Libya alone

[__aaxtnf2500]

The United States was successful during the War of Independence with French logistical and financial support. That didn't kill the legitimacy of the new government. Your argument is false.

Re:Solution?

[amicusNYCL]

Thing is that the US should not do this. Libya has used the US as a boogieman for a long time.

The UK shouldn't have any problems, now that Libyan diplomats are flat-out saying Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing. And they aren't attacking Libya, they're attacking Gaddafi. Gaddafi and Libya are currently at war with one another.

Re:If you support democracy, leave Libya alone

[c0lo]

And the result of it was a global war between several European powers - the equivalent of a World War in what can be considered "world" at that time (England, France, Spain, Dutch republic + colonies... with Austria/ and Russia the only empires missing).

This is also to put into perspective that what US consider a "local" revolution, many other parties involved had experienced as war.