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US Wary of Allowing Russian Electronic Monitoring Stations Inside US
cold fjord writes "The New York Times reports, '... the next potential threat from Russia may not come from a nefarious cyberweapon or secrets gleaned from Snowden. Instead, this menace may come in the form of a ... dome-topped antenna perched atop an electronics-packed building surrounded by a security fence somewhere in the United States. ... the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing ... the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen ... monitor stations, on United States soil ... These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow's version of the Global Positioning System ... The Russian effort is part of a larger global race by several countries ... to perfect their own global positioning systems and challenge the dominance of the American GPS. For the State Department, permitting Russia to build the stations would help mend the Obama administration's relationship with the government of President Vladimir V. Putin ... But the C.I.A. and other American spy agencies, as well as the Pentagon, suspect that the monitor stations would give the Russians a foothold on American territory that would sharpen the accuracy of Moscow's satellite-steered weapons. The stations, they believe, could also give the Russians an opening to snoop on the United States within its borders. ... administration officials have delayed a final decision until the Russians provide more information and until the American agencies sort out their differences.'"
It must be a doomsday device. There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.
Somewhere in the United States (dramatic pause)
the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon (dramatic pause)
have been quietly waging a campaign (dramatic pause)
to stop the State Department from allowing (dramatic pause)
I can't be the only person who is getting this out of the overuse of ... in the summary.
... If... you use an Ellipsis... frequently and... hastily people will think... you are William Shatner...
KAHN!
"But the C.I.A. and other American spy agencies, as well as the Pentagon, suspect that the monitor stations would give the Russians a foothold on American territory that would sharpen the accuracy of Moscow's satellite-steered weapons"
Begging the question "aren't current nukes sufficiently accurate"?
The smart countermeasure would be to monitor the monitoring stations and be ready to destroy them at no notice. Have both HERF/jamming and explosive capability available.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
We need the jobs assholes!
Our economy is in shambles and these morons are worried about the Russians listening in - on what? Talk Radio?!
Police chatter?
I think I read in the NY Times that the US does not have any GPS ground stations in Russia. If we did, it would be a hard thing to say no to.
No it doesn't. If you bother to read the story it states, "The United States has stations around the world, but none in Russia."
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
No. The USA has stations scattered around the world in multiple locations, but none are in Russia.
Casual web search just turns up articles about the new stations in the US.
If we don't already have equivalent stations in Russia, we could offer them a trade. They get theirs when we get ours.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
This was my reaction too. Allow you to monitor and refine your version of GPS so you can more easily and accurately target their weapons which may be pointed in my direction? Um.. No, not in my back yard. Also, I would fear that these systems would be used to collect intelligence. So, no again.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
After all, that's what America would do if the situation were reversed ....
Absolutely. You can't blame the Russians for trying .... and you can't blame the Americans for saying "no".
Or any of the former satellites of the CCCP for that matter. The authoritative list is here.
There's really no good reason for the US to allow this. But it raises an interesting question about US outposts abroad to admit to that, doesn't it?
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Here's the US ground station map. http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/control/ Nothing in Russia.
Can't the Russians just put theirs in Cuba?
One interesting thing I learned from the article is that many (?most) current smartphones use both Glonass and the US GPS system for position fixes.
One motivation for this is the Russian requirement which heavily taxes devices which don't support Glonass. Apparently the iPhone 4S started support and many others also added support.
I guess it's good to have two systems (with a possible third with the EU system). This can provide redundancy and improve reliability. Of course these are useful tools for warfare which is why we have several systems ("We've always been at war with Eastasia").
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Citation, please? I can't believe Russia ever let the US put any such thing in place - I remember the insistence on local labor building the American embassy in Moscow, which had so much monitoring built into the walls that it was heavily rebuilt as soon as it was handed over.
Besides, what does GPS need ground stations for? Homing beacons?
The State Department position reminds me of Keith Laumer's Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne. I suppose that was art imitating life, so no surprise that the next generation's life imitates that art.
So, the Russians want to monitor stuff inside the US borders. Ok, so what?
To flip what we've heard from the NSA around, "If we're not doing anything wrong, we don't have to worry."
In point of fact, letting the Russians monitor internal military chatter sounds like a good idea to me. That way, they -know- we aren't planning on attacking them. And.. by the way, we -aren't- planning on attacking the Russians, are we? If we are, _I_ would like to know about it, forget what the Russians know.
The days of Red Baiting should be over. We should have an open society, and if the Russians want to eavesdrop, more power to them. Truthfully, I'm a lot more worried about what our own government wants to keep track of than I am about what any Russians (or Chinese) want to track. And if it improves the accuracy of their weapons, does that mean that they're more likely to blow up a military base than the local YMCA? That's good, isn't it?
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
The smart countermeasure would be to monitor the monitoring stations and be ready to destroy them at no notice. Have both HERF/jamming and explosive capability available.
It only seems smart because you don't know a thing bout what you are talking about.
A monitoring base station, used to tune and improve the accuracy of GLONASS, would not be missed by the GLONASS system after your theoretical "smart' countermeasure. Your countermeasure would also completely fail to mitigate against the risk of this monitoring station being turned into a Russian SIGINT listening station on U.S. soil. Think of it in terms of the CIA building a listening post in Moscow, an idea that the Russians would not likely agree to.
My thoughts exactly. They already have one in Brazil.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Counter-offer with a bi-lateral agreement, allowing us to put as many monitoring stations in Russia ;-)
In Soviet USA not allowing Russians something is like not allowing mother into her own home.
USA IS new Russia with overbuilt military industry and security forces everywhere.
What's the big deal? The Russians have had a monitoring station in the US for decades. Specifically, there's a spot in the middle of the US that has line-of-sight to all satellites that carry phone calls in/out of the US. And there are three trailers there, one run by the NSA (remember, it was clearly illegal until quite recently, for the US to tapping all calls into and out of the US, which is what they've been doing for decades, though a shell corporation), one that operates for the Russians, and the third a private US corporation that captures and sells data as a business. I've been told (can't say by who) that they know about each other, and aren't even located far from each other.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
...and you can't blame the Americans for saying "no".
You certainly can't. I find it somewhat telling that the US is so eager to raise concern over this. It's as if they're saying, "we can't let them build those stations here, it will make it so easy for them to spy - and you can trust us because we already know how easy it is!"
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
for adjustment. you know, to go from 5 meters to 1, like it mattered for the kind of bombs they're afraid of.
I'd be really surprised if they didn't have one in their embassy in Moscow.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Except that... the USA... already have lots of those... stations... in Russia themselves, iirc about 17.
Mr. Shatner, what are you doing on Slashdot?
Maybe they need something further north. Try Canada - let's see what their NORAD people think.
He'll have more flexibility after the next election.
Putin and his nationalist thug buddies are just reaching for another opportunity to turkey-slap the West in the wake of the West's embarrassment after Ed Snowden's Guardian bum-buddies' appalling act of political sabotage. Putin has been handed a massive propaganda coup and is milking it for all its worth.
It's a deliberate, calculated insult, given that the US has no GPS ground stations on Russian soil, and have no prospect of building any.
The Kremlin will be quietly TTFO and that'll be the end of it. Hopefully a non-story.
But only countries like Russia and China spy on people and hack. American agencies would never ever do that.
permitting Russia to build the stations would help mend the Obama administration's relationship with the government of President Vladimir V. Putin
Why is this necessary? I thought giving Russia a red plastic button who's meaning was lost in translation was all that was necessary. Hillary Clinton's skills at international relations were all that was necessary to improve relations. Right?
http://www.eurodialogue.org/osce/The-Reset-At-One-Year-The-View-From-Moscow
Sounds like the national "get off my lawn" anthem.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Sounds like the national "get off my lawn" anthem.
Both sides can sing the same tune any time they like. Seems fair to me.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Only difference is that we have no Retief...
Something new from cold fjord - a story/concern that most Slashdotters agree with. Cold (if I may presume to use your first name), I think this demonstrates that most Slashdotters are not naive fools who think we live in a completely friendly world. Rather, if I may speak for most others, we think many of the tactics used in fighting terrorism are overly intrusive (and sometimes downright un-Constitutional), dangerous to our freedom, and either marginally or completely ineffective. For example, 9/11 could have been prevented with old-fashioned police work. For example, FBI headquarters listening to a report from a field office, which in turn they were given by an astute flight instructor, of some gentlemen who wanted to learn to fly but didn't care about takeoffs and landings (at least not of the preferred variety).
Do we really need a Cuban Cartography Crisis?
Ezekiel 23:20
More relevantly - what legally prevents them from doing so, and why would the state department have any influence?
The state department cannot simply prohibit stuff that is legal, in general.
What prevents them from sticking 5 RF receivers in each of the russian consulates.
Or indeed, paying for a couple of dozen boxes on roofs in the USA hooked to an internet connection.
The equipment needed is approximately the size of a small suitcase, requiring only a few tens of watts of power.
That doesn't really answer my question. It's not as if the US actually worries about how much money it takes in and how much it spends.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Hahaha
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Nor would the Swedes and Finns ever do that.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Charge them a tidy sum for rent and require they contract physical security to the CIA/NSA/NRO. Why not in that case?
What prevents them from sticking 5 RF receivers in each of the russian consulates. Or indeed, paying for a couple of dozen boxes on roofs in the USA hooked to an internet connection.
Roofs (and even buildings, for that matter) are much too wobbly for reference-precision GPS
signal calibration. Stations like this are directly anchored to bedrock, preferably with minimal
seismic activity (that includes even not-so-nearby roads) and with a full-sky view.
I doubt that any of the official russian presences satisfies those constraints.
Note that I'm not saying clandestine (or rather "undeclared" - I don't see how anyone would need
permission to run a non-broadcasting monitoring station on private ground) are impossible or don't
exist, just that urban locations and building roofs wont work.
You know it increases my paranoia, like looking in the rearview mirror and seeing a police car.
(At my advanced age, not cutting my hair doesn't really achieve much).
Or, perhaps, "The paranoia is strong in this one."
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Why not just buy some land in rural areas, construct a barn looking thing as a decoy (out of a material that's transparent to the instruments within), ship redundant parts across several ports and assemble under the cover of darkness. Difficult and expensive to do without being detected? Maybe, but surely within the realm of possibility for the Russian government...
I always praised cooperation over competition. But hey, whatever rocks your boat, man.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Hah, that graphics and typography reminded me of my favourite Linux game. ;-)
Ezekiel 23:20
an AC **invents a statistic out of thin air** and it get's a +1 Informative
if Russia doesn't have these GPS substations for the US why the hell are we even considering it?
Russia isn't a 'communist' country threating us with their liberal communal ideas, atheism, and free love
Russia is a giant chunk of resources controlled by Oligarchs fighting like Dukes for control of a water source
Russian people are just like us
The concept that totalitarian regimes equate to 'communism' in the philosophical sense is one of the biggest lies of the 20th Century
Thank you Dave Raggett
It is cool that you can just lie about stuff if you include "iirc".
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
>> The C.I.A. and other American spy agencies, as well as the Pentagon, suspect that the monitor stations would give the Russians a foothold on American territory that would sharpen the accuracy of Moscow's satellite-steered weapons.
This just seems to emphasise how many old dudes still doing outdated cold-war era thinking there are in the US government/military. Call me strange but I think Russia is probably near the bottom of the threat list of organisations that would militarily attack the US homeland. That said I would be VERY surprised if the real purpose of those "GPS" stations weren't to provide cover for monitoring operations on US telecommunications. I guess nobody told the Russians that you can get Rush Limbaugh through the internet now.
I dont see what the US has to potentially gain from allowing this at all, so why they would even apparently be considering it?
I'm surprised the GLONASS people even need permission. A monitoring station is just a fixed GLONASS receiver with a data connection. It receives position information and transmits it back to HQ, where a map of corrections for atmospheric effects is constructed and corrections are sent out via the satellites. Since when do you need permission for a receiver?
The iPhone 4S and later models use GLONASS and GPS together to improve accuracy. So ad-targeting needs this correction system in place so Apple knows exactly what store you're in front of.
ICBM targeting doesn't use satellite signals. It's all inertial, so it can't be jammed. Accurate coordinates for any desired target are available from Google Maps. This has no military significance.
Oh please. The US puts whatever it wants wherever it wants with little consideration for dissent.
Besides, what does GPS need ground stations for?
You need ground stations for SBAS (WAAS is the GPS SBAS, not sure whether GLONASS currently has an equivalent and if so what it's called); there main function is to measure ionospheric delay characteristics, process the results, and upload it to the satellites so GPS/GLONASS devices with SBAS capability can receive it and use it to refine their position estimates.
They could but it would not be as accurate in the US. Yea I do not see any need for this. They could just send us the equipment and the US could send the corrections to them. I am sure Raytheon would be glad to do it for a fee.
Yea and as far as repairing relations with Putian? Ahhh no.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The U.S. is not stable enough to have Russia come and muck up our infrastructure with their comic antics.
Help the Russians set up a program that allows them to create a GPS system that will compete with the U.S.
or
Help the Russians set up a program that allows them to create a GPS system that will compete with the U.S........and which could be actively shut down / hacked/ sabatoged within U.S. borders if an "incident" ever arose. And which Russian "allies" are likely to sign on to use this alternative? Why China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria of course.
If all the revelations about the NSA show anything, it's that everyone is busy spying on everyone. Therefore the U.S. should presume that these stations will be used, at least tangentially, for that purpose. Note that that is not necessarily a reason to decline the request. If properly managed, it could be used by the U.S. security apparatus to better monitor and determine Russia's own capabilities. It could also be a useful way to "leak" sensitive sounding FUD back to the motherland.
our Trident subs lurking under the polar icecap
Our boomers usually operate in open water, where they have a greater range to move around in. The Russian boomers usually operate off their northern coast, and often under the arctic ice. The Sea of Okhotsk is a lousy place for subs - too shallow.
Check out the international GNSS service: http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/ This is a NASA-run program that simultaneously monitors GPS and GLONASS signals all over the world for scientific purposes. Not the same as an official ground control station, but it's not fair to say this would be breaking entirely new ground.
to whom is Obama trying to 'improve his standing'?
Russians?
WTF...like Russian citizens? the gangsters who pull Putin's strings?
Why would we care about our 'standing' with a criminal state like Russia?
The people pushing for these substations...they are not our friends...why the fuck would we want to make a 'concession' to them?
Thank you Dave Raggett
I doubt that any of the official russian presences satisfies those constraints.
Perhaps not. It would probably be a simple matter though, for the big ol' government of Russia to finance a private contracter, who would legally buy the property in the US and setup the facility; providing they adhere to regulations and permitting requirements.
I don't see how anyone would need permission to run a non-broadcasting monitoring station on private ground) are impossible or don't exist, just that urban locations and building roofs wont work.
Probably nothing prohibiting them from monitoring a frequency they hold a license to operate on.
There may be applicable FCC or government restrictions against operating receivers on restricted frequencies.
Sec. 705, 47 USC 605:
except through authorized channels of transmission or reception,....
(6) on demand of other lawful authority. No person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any radio communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person. No person not being entitled thereto shall receive or assist in receiving any interstate or foreign communication by radio and use such communication (or any information therein contained) for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto. No person having received any intercepted radio communication or having become acquainted with the contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such communication (or any part thereof) knowing that such communication was intercepted, shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such communication (or any part thereof) or use such communication (or any information therein contained) for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto. [....]
Report and order FCC 99-58
Given that Sweden is just a US puppet state and Finland is an extremely insular paranoid society then what are you expecting my reaction to be here? surprise? shock?
Or are you using the age old fallacy of "Others do it so it's okay"?
I reject the subject change. I didn't miss the attempt.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!