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Hacking a Satellite is Surprisingly Easy (theoutline.com)

Caroline Haskins, writing for The Outline: Hundreds of multi-ton liabilities -- soaring faster than the speed of sound, miles above the surface of the earth -- are operating on Windows-95. They're satellites, responsible for everything from GPS positioning, to taking weather measurements, to carrying cell signals, to providing television and internet. For the countries that own these satellites, they're invaluable resources. Even though they're old, it's more expensive to take satellites down than it is to just leave them up. So they stay up. Unfortunately, these outdated systems makes old satellites prime targets for cyber attacks. [...]

A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user's computer and its location. This person could then get access to the satellite's computer system, and manipulate where the satellite goes or what it does. Alternatively, an actor could jam the satellite's radio transmissions with earth, essentially disabling it. The cost of such an attack could be huge. If a satellite doesn't work, life-saving GPS or online information could be withheld to people on earth when they need it most. What's worse, if part of a satellite -- or an entire satellite -- is knocked out of its orbit from an attack, the debris could create a domino effect and cause extreme damage to other satellites.

199 comments

  1. Say what? by Snotnose · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd think a satellite would want some type of RTOS for it's main system. I used WinCE some 15-20 years ago and it sucked ass, but I'd rather use it to control a satellite than I would Win95 (or a modern Linux for that matter).

    1. Re:Say what? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 3

      Was thinking the same thing. I am sure there is no satellite (other than perhaps a modern amateur microsat) running anything bearing any resemblance to a desktop operating system. The control system may be running Windows 95, but that's a different problem.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    2. Re:Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suspect this article was somehow delayed from its intended date of April 1!

    3. Re: Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This whole article is complete bullshit. Of course satellites do not run Windows 95. GPS satellites alone have existed for longer than that.

      Wtf Slashdot?

    4. Re: Say what? by Monkey · · Score: 1

      Linked article doesn't even mention Windows 95 except in the title. Shit story.

    5. Re: Say what? by Spinlock_1977 · · Score: 2

      I agree - total BS. Come on Slashdot, your site advertising is becoming intrusive and flaky, and your article selection is getting lame. Failing to 'get' your audience will diminish your future, which I would mourn.

      --
      - The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
    6. Re: Say what? by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      RTFA:

      "Hundreds of multi-ton liabilities—soaring faster than the speed of sound, miles above the surface of the earth—are operating on Windows-95." https://theoutline.com/post/42...

    7. Re: Say what? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Everything else in that statement was bullshit clickbait fud as well.

      Who cares what the satellite's mass is? "faster than the speed of sound" no fucking kidding. "miles above the surface of the earth", just a bit of an understatement.

      Are they trying to suggest that someone hacking a satellite can cause it to crash into someone's house?

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    8. Re:Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really. It's msmash posing with his "HACKER!!!1!" stories again.

    9. Re:Say what? by forkfail · · Score: 1

      Hey, now, I hear he's pretty 1337. If anybody around here can sniff out some srs h@x0ring, it's msmash. You can't have the srs hax that he does without being able to recognize them when he seez them.

      I mean, I hear that he once used a bread clip for an iPhone charger holder!

      And when it comes to OS's, no one's better. One time, he managed to trick an old lady out of her place at the front of the line at the Genius Bar, and managed to get his password reset in under 10 minutes!

      He's a master at networking, too. He once talked to 7 actual real people in three hours at a cocktail mixer that he only had to pay $89 to attend!

      No, he's a guy who wears his flair with pride and who empathizes with people having a case of the Mondays.

      I will now go weep for the state of /.

      --
      Check your premises.
    10. Re: Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure smash is even aware of how to enter command and control channels of a satellite.

      The story almost reads like they have an ip on the internet.

      It's pretty garbage and I wouldn't drive viewers to that article. Wish slashbad had a redact option .

    11. Re: Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you, COMPLETE BS.
      A dude named Joshua Moses compromised a group of communication satellites some 5-10 years ago reporting that they ran on something relating to Solaris.. definitely a hardened Unix distro.

    12. Re: Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RTFA: "Hundreds of multi-ton liabilities—soaring faster than the speed of sound, miles above the surface of the earth—are operating on Windows-95." https://theoutline.com/post/42...

      That's the only mention of Windows 95 in the entire article.
      The article is also BS.
      It says : "A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user’s computer and its location. This person could then get access to the satellite’s computer system, " followed by "scientists also can’t access the computer systems of these satellites from earth".
      So, which is it, can or cannot be accessed from Earth?
      It also says "an actor could jam the satellite’s radio transmissions with earth". What, throw mudballs at it?
      Poorly written, unedited crap.

    13. Re:Say what? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Honestly, I question whether any significant numbers satellites are actually running Windows 95, despite the claim of "hundreds." That seems like a terrible choice for a satellite OS, and there are plenty of alternatives. Why in the world would developers skimp like that on projects that may cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars?

      I saw absolutely no sources or validation of this claim by the author, who, by the way, even got the OS name wrong, calling it Windows-95. So, forgive me, but I'll remain skeptical of this claim until I see a bit more evidence.

      Slashdot editors, didn't this claim look the tiniest bit suspicious to you either? Damn.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    14. Re: Say what? by Brockmire · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Jamming is as simple as aiming a high power, high duty transmitter using same frequency as the receiver. This is exactly the same whether the OS on board is 5, 20 or 50 years old, running linux, Windows or QNX. msmash, you are a piece of shit for posting intentionally shitty articles. I'm not sure if you're really, really dumb, or a really, really big asshole.

    15. Re: Say what? by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Who cares what the satellite's mass is?

      Well, that can help determine if, when it plunges to earth, if it will just burn up or if there will be anything left to cause a real impact.

    16. Re: Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how powerful a signal do you need to jam a signal coming from LEO? My bet is something powerful enough that would result in your arrest within hours.

    17. Re:Say what? by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

      Same here. In fact there's only one single comment on Windows 95 in the entire article, and that's the unfounded, unsupported, unreferenced claim that satellites are "operating on Windows-95". And it's followed by "A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a userâ(TM)s computer and its location. This person could then get access to the satelliteâ(TM)s computer system".

      What a pile of bollocks. It's just a bunch of satellite-related gibberish collated together into a clickbaiting article.

    18. Re: Say what? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      Shut up

      You make a compelling argument, there.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  2. Windows 95? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Windows 95 is a consumer desktop OS? Does the author means that the control software for the satellites runs on Win 95?

    I'd imagine that the satellites themselves would use a real-time or server OS i.e. QNX, NT, or a Unixoid OS. Running a desktop OS on hardware with no direct display would be stupid, and satellite engineers aren't likely to be stupid.

    1. Re:Windows 95? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... and satellite engineers aren't likely to be stupid.

      Yeah, but random bloggers? Not so much...

    2. Re:Windows 95? by Solandri · · Score: 1

      Agreed. But the key here is that once you put a satellite in orbit, you're stuck with that hardware for however many years or decades the satellite continues to operate. I can easily imagine some satellites are 1995-era. Their hardware may not be able to cope with modern encryption algorithms in a timely manner, resulting in it being easier to hack their streams and control channels using modern computers on the ground.

    3. Re:Windows 95? by postbigbang · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One might imagine that there are satellites looking down at the earth for sources of interesting, space-beamed transmissions, and their content. There are a lot of monitoring dishes up there these days, pointing directly at that person with a yagi antenna spewing iterations of hack attempts. Then there's a knock at your door.

      I'll imagine if you try and hack GPS and other high-value assets, you're not only being watched but by people that play for keeps.

      Go ahead. Make some analyst's day.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    4. Re:Windows 95? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd imagine that the satellites themselves would use a real-time or server OS i.e. QNX, NT, or a Unixoid OS. Running a desktop OS on hardware with no direct display would be stupid, and satellite engineers aren't likely to be stupid.

      So, here's the thing you have to remember ... given the time it takes to make as satellite, you can assume that the on-board technology is probably at least 10 years older than the launch date of it.

      The entire space program in the 60's was built using technology which would be dwarfed by a computer from the 90s.

      By the time you're talking about old satellites, they likely never had any of the things you describe, so they certainly wouldn't have had anything resembling a real-time OS like that. The lead time is just way too huge, and there's not a whole lot of room to just say "Oh, let's apply the latest OS Patch before we launch it".

      In all likelihood, they're running something most of us wouldn't recognise as an OS, which means things like network security weren't even on the horizon yet. Instead they'll have to have written pretty much everything from scratch for the specific purpose.

      These things are running obsolete technology before they even launch.

    5. Re:Windows 95? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      You'd be right, except the part that kind of assumes that it is the back yard Yagi pointing enthusiast and not the State sponsored bad actor in places hard to reach by normal "people that play for keeps".

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    6. Re:Windows 95? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Didn't you RTFA? They have IP addresses that can be spoofed. That means you don't need an antenna, you just need to connect to the space Internet with your space computer wearing your space pants.

    7. Re:Windows 95? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      satellite engineers aren't likely to be stupid.

      True, but their bosses or company owners might be to shave a buck. I've seen co's run public CMS's using Microsoft Access. I warned them, but they didn't want to pay for a real database and don't trust OSS.

    8. Re:Windows 95? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Imagine you use something like a mouse to remote control a satellite that you are interfacing with with something like RDP ... oh the jitter!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    9. Re:Windows 95? by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      One imagines discrete little drones..... isn't that how it's done these days?

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    10. Re:Windows 95? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      Ha!! Did Win 95 even support RDP?

    11. Re:Windows 95? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe a Hellfire missile "accidentally" locks on to the bootleg signal coming for little Johnny's house...

    12. Re:Windows 95? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      I worked with Access in the early 2000s and found it as rapid an application development tool as Visual Basic 6.0. The company database worked well until it hit a million records in the transaction log. Then we moved to SQL Server and everything turned over with just a minor change to the data source string.

      Today's SQL Server and Oracle are bloated with things you'll never use, but have taken the magic of sort routines and indexing far further than can easily be explained.

      Processor in space? There's the problem... satellite control software belongs on Earth!

    13. Re:Windows 95? by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      Hey mommy, what's that black Escalade doing parked in the driveway?

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    14. Re:Windows 95? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually from back in the day i was involved in aerospace rtos development the OSs of choice were VxWorks and GreenHills RTOS. No engineer in their right mind would use Linux because it is not a true RTOS. At least not without rebuilding and modifying the kernel heavily.

    15. Re:Windows 95? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      The RDP protocol probably not. But there were remote 'control' programs, I think even Timbuktu, the famous one for Macs had a Win95 version.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  3. Somebody has been watching too many movies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Life-saving GPS?
    Hacking it into debris? Like with an axe? Maybe if you tied it to a really good kite?

  4. Have real doubts about this. by forkfail · · Score: 4, Insightful

    NT I Could See

    Back in the day, NT was actually a pretty good OS, and used in a number of mission critical applications. (Including some I worked on.)

    But... 95? Really?

    That was certainly not MILSPEC approved for that sort of thing. And NASA had even tighter requirements and a higher specification bar.

    I really suspect that the author has their facts a bit scrambled.

    --
    Check your premises.
    1. Re:Have real doubts about this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably saw a screenshot that said Windows version 4.0 did the math and said OMG Windows 95!!@

      In reality it's running Windows NT. Which isn't much better, but a least realistic for the timeline

      captcha: country

    2. Re:Have real doubts about this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lockheed has said that they believe that aliens want to play Space Cadet pinball and watch Weezer's "Buddy Holly" video.

    3. Re: Have real doubts about this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One was heard screaming and scuttling off saying "you got your big cheeseee, I got my hash pipeeeeeee"

  5. Not all can be hijacked by aglider · · Score: 1

    As some are having their BSOD

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:Not all can be hijacked by glenebob · · Score: 1

      Windows 95 didn't really have a BSOD. That was (is) an NT thing.

    2. Re:Not all can be hijacked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not true, its just a different kind of BSOD... has the form of "A fatal exception 0E has occured in VxD.. blah blah"
      Also... Bill Gates very famously hit one on stage plugging in a USB device into Windows 98

    3. Re:Not all can be hijacked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 95 didn't really have a BSOD. That was (is) an NT thing.

      https://www.pcmag.com/feature/287831/windows-blue-screen-of-death-a-history

    4. Re:Not all can be hijacked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i don't think you have ever used windows 95. not only did it blue screened, it was famous for doing it a LOT!

    5. Re:Not all can be hijacked by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      I had to use Norton Crashguard to get my Prodigy shows out in 1999... too many people throwing blue screens around back then.

    6. Re:Not all can be hijacked by glenebob · · Score: 1

      Sadly, I have used Windows 95. I wrote software on Windows 95 :( It was kind of like developing on DOS, but the write/debug/crash/reboot cycle took a lot longer.

    7. Re: Not all can be hijacked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could also change the colors. I had red with black text screen of death. Much more ominous that way.

    8. Re:Not all can be hijacked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What??? It had and many

  6. Probably the terrestrial C&C servers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Although even there I would expect most of them to be running some sort of unix.

    As far as satellite OSes go, I would expect something better than linux or embedded OSes. It needs to be a nuclear/medical grade RTOS with failover capabilities on every codepath and piece of hardware. Otherwise what is the point when a stray bit of cosmic radiation flips or damages something important?

    1. Re:Probably the terrestrial C&C servers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is why we put such hardware inside Faraday cages.

    2. Re:Probably the terrestrial C&C servers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is why we put such hardware inside Faraday cages.

      Says the AC that doesn't know WTF he's talking about. (Faraday cages don't stop all particles, and must be grounded)

    3. Re:Probably the terrestrial C&C servers. by ToxynSummers · · Score: 1

      Although even there I would expect most of them to be running some sort of unix.

      As far as satellite OSes go, I would expect something better than linux or embedded OSes. It needs to be a nuclear/medical grade RTOS with failover capabilities on every codepath and piece of hardware. Otherwise what is the point when a stray bit of cosmic radiation flips or damages something important?

      And yet every CT/MRI/X-ray machine I've ever used was running Windows 2000, XP or 7 with the exception of a single GE portable x-ray machine that was unstable as hell...

  7. Security / Jamming by foxalopex · · Score: 1

    I'd be surprised if modern satellites don't have some sort of protection built into them after the legendary HBO Satellite hack that resulted in the words "HBO Sucks" displayed across North America. Jamming is always a possibility with a high powered transmitter although doing so would be the equivalent of putting a giant bulls-eye on your back since it's hard to hide a massive signal. There's also a huge question of why as well. Some of these hacks require some not so trivial equipment so it's sort of hard to see someone spending a small fortune just to bring down a service which many folks require just for laughs.

    1. Re:Security / Jamming by Strider- · · Score: 5, Informative

      Naw, the vast majority of commercial communications satellites are still dumb bent-pipe repeaters. There's no security on them, save for nulling antennas and similar techniques.

      I used to work for a company that built flyaway VSAT systems, so I know this stuff pretty intimately. A number of years ago, SES Americom (one of the big operators in North America) called me up for help in locating a wildcat transmitter that was causing interference with one of their birds. They called us because they knew we built stable, small aperture uplink terminals that could be a useful reference. Basically they had me transmit a known narrow-band signal at high power, then used that and my sidelobes as a reference to find the offender. After a weekend of doing doppler locating, they tracked it down to about a 1 x 2 mile ellipse, east of Detroit. Their suspicion was that it was a HughesNet terminal, probably on a gas station, that had gone bad.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    2. Re:Security / Jamming by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 1

      I'd love to be able to dig into this author's source material. There are some fairly strong (possibly FUD) claims in the article, but it's missing the useful details.

      E.g. It claims that end of life satellites out at GEO could be used for mayhem, but that doesn't seem right. EOL satellites at GEO are, by international convention, moved up to a graveyard orbit, the remaining propellant dumped, and the power subsystems turned off. This is done to reduce the amount of harm a software or hardware glitch (exploding batteries) can cause in the dying spacecraft

      That said, there is some precedent for concern. There were successful and partially successful (possibly state-sponsored) cyberattacks against Terra EO and Landsat-7 in the 2000s.

    3. Re:Security / Jamming by Strider- · · Score: 1

      and the power subsystems turned off.

      Not just turned off, but permanently disabled, typically by deliberately blowing fuses. There is no coming back from it.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    4. Re:Security / Jamming by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Depends what you mean with jamming.
      If you send a strong signal to the satellite, it might be disabled to pick up control commands.
      But to jam e.g. GPS, you need to jam the area where the victims are, sending a "flash of energy" to the satellite does not disable it from sending its GPS signals down to earth ... same for TV etc.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    5. Re:Security / Jamming by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      after the legendary HBO Satellite hack that resulted in the words "HBO Sucks" displayed across North America.

      Hacking uplink content on a video distribution satellite is NOT hacking the satellite control system. Not even close.

      There was a story a few years ago about people "hacking" a military satellite system because they found out that it was acting like an open repeater. That, too, is not hacking the satellite control system.

      This summary is crap, the claims are ridiculous, and /. should never have repeated this nonsense. News for nerds, indeed. Hysteria for morons, more like it. "Oh, those awful hackers could drop an HBO satellite weighing MANY TONS and going FASTER THAN SOUND onto my head! I better put a second layer of tinfoil on my hat..."

    6. Re:Security / Jamming by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      But to jam e.g. GPS, you need to jam the area where the victims are,

      To jam a GPS receiver, you need to provide a signal to the receiver.

      You CAN jam the uplink to the GPS satellite so it does not get the relevant ephemeris data (corrections to its and other SV's locations and timing), BUT ... the GPS satellites are LEO and will move out of range of your jammer very quickly, and there are other in the visible constellation that can provide the same data.

      Jamming the uplink just isn't a very productive thing to do. Jamming the downlink, however, can cause issues for regional users. The military was doing some testing on this not long ago, which was announced to the aviation community through a NOTAM.

    7. Re:Security / Jamming by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      Actually, I was told back then that the HBO Hacks was really an authorized publicity stunt... it was first aimed at censoring movies so kids could watch, then was misinterpreted by CBS News... too bad we don't have the CBS Latenight News to correct CBS Evening News anymore.

    8. Re:Security / Jamming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I personally integrated many birds for SES, Hispasat, Hughes, NBNco, Echostar, I even retrofitted Terrestar 2 into Echostar 21. Article is BS. Used mostly BAE rad750 processors. subsystems are controlled by MIL-STD-1553 just like your F14 tomcat was initially designed for developed in 1978. Mostly running scripts in either ADA or tcl from ground stations. All their communication is fully encrypted on launch. You could theoretically jam them by blasting the same frequencies, it wouldn't go long undetected.

    9. Re:Security / Jamming by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      . the GPS satellites are LEO

      Aren't they in MEO?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    10. Re:Security / Jamming by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      MEO, LEO, the point is that they aren't sitting still waiting for people to point an antenna at them to jam them.

    11. Re:Security / Jamming by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I'd think that measures to prevent that from happening would be reasonably easy to implement - using a strong transmitter on the "official" site for high S/N ratio, using pseudorandom frequency hopping to to increase it even further etc. At least in theory, they *can* be sitting still and yet be unaffected.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    12. Re:Security / Jamming by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The money was in sending data. Not in having complex systems to encrypt in space. That was power and complexity that can be done on earth. The sat just gets data and moves it. More data, more profit.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    13. Re:Security / Jamming by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The US and NATO love their space command spending. Advance nations have sent in their spies and now have an understanding of how the West mil systems work.
      The more the US and NATO become totally dependant on systems that need a "strong signal to the satellite" the more other advance nations will study that operational weakness.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    14. Re:Security / Jamming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I call BS you fucking liar.

      Ada is a programming language that was DEFINED the 1970's and was available to the public in the mid 80's. (I learned it in college in 1985-86).

      If you wrote "scripts" in Ada in 1978, then you also have a fucking time machine. What a dumb fuck. Does your mother know you are stupid?

    15. Re: Security / Jamming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He said MIL STD 1553 was from 1978, not the scripts he was writing.

    16. Re:Security / Jamming by ti1ion · · Score: 1

      AC, you have a reading comprehension problem. And you are awfully angry and impulsive for a guy who's got to be in his 50s by now.

      Read the post carefully. The original poster was referring to MIL-STD-1553B as being "designed and developed in 1978", which is pretty accurate. But, he NEVER stated when he wrote scripts. You just assumed he wrote them in 1978.

    17. Re:Security / Jamming by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      GPS has no uplink.
      It only has a downlink. Jamming the downlink basically means you point a strong enough noise signal on the users, not on the sattelite.

      How would a sattelite send up a decade ago track a billion devices via an uplink? The sattelite works like a light house, it simply blinks its position and time.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    18. Re: Security / Jamming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You fucking idiots - Ada is not a scripting language.

      The comments are pure BS.

  8. BULLSH@# by ghinckley68 · · Score: 2

    There has never been a microsoft flight certified any thing.
    And no intel stuff that i know of.

    those birds were designed in the 60s for GPS and more than likely use some version of the IBM AGC for the apollo missions.

    --
    Linux modi 2.6.26-2-parisc
    1. Re:BULLSH@# by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think so. The AGC was a wire-wrapped thing of beauty. Most of these satellites are running radiation hardened PowerPC monstrosities.

    2. Re:BULLSH@# by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, IBM had nothing to do with the AGC. The AGC was designed by MIT and built by Raytheon. The AP-101 guidance systems in the space shuttle, however, were based on the IBM S/360.

  9. Inevitable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Windows has encountered an error and must be restarted." Click OK. "Firing deorbiting thrusters. Target Manhattan."

  10. LAMENESS FILDER XDDDDD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What do you want to bet that "Caroline Haskins, writing for The Outline" has no idea what hacking is.

    What a terrible article, and by article, I mean Mail Chimp advertisement.

    1. Re:LAMENESS FILDER XDDDDD by forkfail · · Score: 2

      There was a time when the editors of this site would have augmented the submitted summary of the article to make it significantly more mocking than your comment.

      Today, though, it is hard to tell if our benighted editors could get a job at the Apple Genius Bar.

      But what does this insensitive old clod know?

      --
      Check your premises.
    2. Re:LAMENESS FILDER XDDDDD by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Funny

      We're just the old Greybeards we used to make fun of back in the day.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    3. Re:LAMENESS FILDER XDDDDD by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Funny

      What do you want to bet that "Caroline Haskins, writing for The Outline" has no idea what hacking is.

      She might know a little. She might have a cat. They hack up stiff all the time.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    4. Re:LAMENESS FILDER XDDDDD by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      You're assuming we actually have editors on Slashdot. I think there was a lazy editor that wrote a bunch of shell scripts to simpllify the job, that editor was later fired, and now those rogue scripts are now in charge.

    5. Re:LAMENESS FILDER XDDDDD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as evidenced here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-haskins-89436b13b/...she may not have been born in 1995.

    6. Re:LAMENESS FILDER XDDDDD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure that Caroline Haskins, intern at The Outline, learned a lot about hacking and satellites during study towards her individualized degree in Anthropocene Studies, whatever the hell that is.

  11. Emmbeded system from Hell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just remember that Satellites are embedded systems from Hell.

    Many moons ago, I had to work on a MSDOS system because we needed something with a very small foot print - and we rolled our own when it came to network connectivity (Ah yes, using a MAC address as the machine's address! Fun times!!) [Linux was shit back then, btw].

    And today's OSes are such bloatware. WTF?! I know they want to give the user an experience and they got to support a lot of hardware, but even then, really?! My Android phone ran out of space with 8 gigs - and that's was after removing ALL my apps. Yes, Android and the Google and facebook shit that I can't remove without cracking the phone (not gonna happen) requires 8 Gigs - and facebook's app has a sneaky way of coming back alive after I force quite the thing (explain THAT Fuckerberg!)

    My point (tl;dr) is that "old" tech is sometimes the best solution to one's problem.

    1. Re: Emmbeded system from Hell by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      You may have noticed, people are not very productive trying to do daily work on a 4MB router flash. They also like to put graphics cards to use. Not sure why progress and technology needs to be explained on a nerds website. You might be trespassing.

    2. Re:Emmbeded system from Hell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I loved those days of DOS programming. Borland C++ has a fully function compiler with STL, various memory models (tiny, medium, large, huge), assembler, disassembler, all running within a DOS windows. Then and now, the code compiles to roughly the same size on each platform (x86). But it's all that boilerplate CRT and C++ libraries that get bolted on as default that causes the bloat. There are actually competitions where programmers try and reduce an executable to the smallest size. Get rid of the debug libraries, links to unused DLL's, static libraries that aren't used, and the size is reduced by magnitudes. All those obscure C and C++ compiler flags.

  12. I could find no evidence for the claim about Win95 by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Informative

    I read the article and while it makes the claim about Win95, it doesn't go into detail about it or support it with facts. I find that claim somewhat incredulous as most satellites would never use a GUI based desktop OS. Maybe some control systems on the ground use Win95 and have ever been updated.

    I would agree with the basic premise that many satellites especially older ones are not hardened against cyber attacks.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  13. Someone will tell us how... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...no doubt for the "safety of us all" they will reveal the methods and provide tools to do so.

    After all, as most Slashotters think, if you leave your front door unlocked, that justifies their walking in and taking your shit.

    1. Re: Someone will tell us how... by saloomy · · Score: 2

      Security through obscurity is no security at all, and no amount of smugness in a retarded comment will fix that.

      Releasing the know how does multiple services. First, it lets independent operators or consumers of said tech determine if the attack vector works on their systems. Second, it encourages the producers / manufacturers to implement fixes. They will be less inclined to spend the resources correcting the issues if they feel the fact that the attack isn't in the wild. Third, it prevents bas actors from capitalizing on an attack since the issue would be resolved faster. Fourth, it allows consumers to implement mitigation strategies and test them, while a solution is being formulated.

    2. Re: Someone will tell us how... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Fourth, it allows consumers to implement mitigation strategies and test them, while a solution is being formulated.

      What is your proposed "mitigation strategy" to having a multi-ton, faster than sound communication satellite smashed onto the top of your head?

      Is it "security by obscurity" when someone creates hypothetical methods of hacking into a system that they have zero knowledge about, and then announces how insecure those systems are?

    3. Re: Someone will tell us how... by saloomy · · Score: 1

      The mitigation strategy is for the satellite operator, not the general public.

      If you want one.... go underground?

      Also, it's not security through obscurity when someone makes a hypothetical attack vector. I was referencing the argument that we should not share security vulnerabilities.... reread the thread, dumbass.

    4. Re: Someone will tell us how... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      The mitigation strategy is for the satellite operator, not the general public.

      So there is no mitigation strategy for the consumers of satellite TV to deal with this alleged horrific security vulnerability. That's kind of the point. Someone else already pointed out the questionable idea of upgrading the OS for a satellite in orbit, I was just pointing to a different absurdity.

      Also, it's not security through obscurity when someone makes a hypothetical attack vector.

      No, in this case it is called "science fiction". Suspend your disbelief when reading this fictional account of how satellites are built and run and see how horrible the results could be! Be afraid! Be very, very afraid!

      I was referencing the argument that we should not share security vulnerabilities....

      Yes, I know. One reason you gave is because the consumer could create a mitigation strategy if they know about vulnerabilities. In this case, "go underground" isn't a viable strategy, but then, it is a completely fictional vulnerability to start with.

      Hey, if satellites used consumer grade routers of a certain vintage and variety, they could be powned and told to crash into your house because you chased your next door neighbor's dog out of your backyard. He's a HAM! He's got ANTENNAS! He can point them at SATELLITES! He can TRANSMIT stuff you don' t understand! Are you worried? Will you stop chasing your neighbor's dog out of your backyard? Will you "go underground" to avoid the problem?

      reread the thread, dumbass.

      You needed to stoop to personal insult, it appears. Too bad.

    5. Re: Someone will tell us how... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is your proposed "mitigation strategy" to having a multi-ton, faster than sound communication satellite smashed onto the top of your head?

      A shield.
      At orbital velocities, one made of air should do nicely, say about as thick as Earth's atmosphere.

  14. The SKY IS FALLING.... by bobbied · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Literally... Chicken little has confirmed it!

    Um... Yea, a lot of stuff is POSSIBLE, but the question really is about how practical it is. What's the actual level of risk? Pretty low.

    These things are expensive. Older satellites might be vulnerable to exploits launched from the Web, but I've got to believe that such "over the web" control systems are quite well protected and monitored. Disrupting over the AIR (I.E. RF links) are going to require specialized equipment and some specialized knowledge about what you are doing (not all satellites use the same control uplink frequencies), and actually taking CONTROL is like to require insider knowledge of expected modulation techniques, telemetry formats, encryption keys and a lot of other things.

    There are a lot of places that have the uplink equipment, though it's not that long of a list and most of that equipment is already being used for commercial applications. An uplink setup is prohibitively expensive for an individual to build and commercial companies that own them like to keep track of when they are used. You could possibly arrange to use one by stealing a mobile unit or breaking into one and using it, but you will get discovered pretty quick.

    All this to say, Disruption is easy, so doing a denial of service attack is pretty high risk, you just need to access the right equipment. DOS attacks (and uplink mistakes) happen all the time now. Taking control? Not very likely, very low risk. State actors might have the resources, but apart from that, it's not going to be worth the effort and costs.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:The SKY IS FALLING.... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Um... Yea, a lot of stuff is POSSIBLE, but the question really is about how practical it is. What's the actual level of risk? Pretty low.

      I disagree because any nation-states would love to have some free satellites under their control, especially if they can spy on other people who do use it. Russia in particular has been known to use hacked sats to try and mask the origin of their hack attacks.

      An uplink setup is prohibitively expensive for an individual to build...

      but not a nation-state!

      State actors might have the resources, but apart from that, it's not going to be worth the effort and costs.

      Poppycock! A private sat would be awesome!

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:The SKY IS FALLING.... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Whoosh.. ... I'm sorry... I think I pretty much *said* that a country might have the resources to do this... But I'd like to point out one pretty important aspect of somebody trying something like this....

      Hijacking another nation state's space assets would be darn close to an act of war. At the very least this would be akin to a navy boarding a foreign flagged ship by force in the open ocean or running a blockade if you do an DOS attack. You might not start a war, but you are taking the risk and will surely get your knuckles wrapped by the international community.

      So *could* a foreign state do this? Yep. Is it a huge risk? Unless you are at war or somebody wants to start one, NO. IF you are at war, all bets are off anyway because satellites are easy prey regardless of what software they run.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    3. Re:The SKY IS FALLING.... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      LOL @ starting a war.

      They hack commercial satellites and there are lots of them, nimrod.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    4. Re:The SKY IS FALLING.... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      LOL @ starting a war.

      They hack commercial satellites and there are lots of them, nimrod.

      Nation states hijack commercial satellites? Citation please?

      Such activity by a foreign power would be generally the same as hijacking a commercial vessel on the open sea. You might get away with it, but do it enough and the originating country is going to get upset with you..

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    5. Re:The SKY IS FALLING.... by cdsparrow · · Score: 1

      Regardless of if they run win95 (they don't) and anything else said in this article, not like many of these things would be dangerous if deorbited anyway. What % of the sats up there could survive reentry and hit a target? Gonna bet it's near zero.

      Probably are gonna have to start worrying about such things now that launches are getting cheaper and faster cadence. Get some heavy tungsten rods into orbit and you would basically have a weapon in the nuclear class of power without any of the downsides of nuclear. Drop a ton of tungsten from orbit into the middle of a city and see what happens...

  15. Non-Issue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even though they're old, it's more expensive to take satellites down than it is to just leave them up. So they stay up.

    So we're talking about satellites that are no longer in service? That's the only way that sentence makes any sense, so we must be talking about satellites that are no longer in service. In which case, who cares if their non-service is interrupted?

  16. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by Strider- · · Score: 2

    The actual command/control of the spacecraft themselves is protected by reasonably heavy Cryptography. When a Long March rocket failed in China while launching Intelsat 708, Intelsat failed to recover the cryptographic equipment from the wreckage, despite significant risks taken by their crew.

    --
    ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
  17. Licensing issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are they properly licensed? If not, I would like to see Microsoft gather an investigation team and go to the satellite to analyse the software that it runs.

  18. Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by bigmacx · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's noo way some satellite up there is actually running Windows 95 for anything on the the satellite hardware itself. I'm not believing that.

    But I will believe there might be ground control workstations running Windows 95 for some function due to having custom software developed on it or a hardware device/card that cannot be moved to a newer version of Windows.

    I know of all kinds of customer sites with Win95 workstations still in use. These are for specialized applications like manufacturing machine control or scientific test tools. They either keep them completely off the network and block all USB ports, etc, OR they use a very discrete localized network.

    1. Re:Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by Thelasko · · Score: 1

      . They either keep them completely off the network and block all USB ports, etc, OR they use a very discrete localized network.

      That's overkill. Windows 95 doesn't support USB.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    2. Re:Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably someone is trying to create fake news, release something, have it go viral, and then point back to it and see how easy fake news is to spread. Slashdot was a contributing medium. Classic.

    3. Re:Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      . They either keep them completely off the network and block all USB ports, etc, OR they use a very discrete localized network.

      That's overkill. Windows 95 doesn't support USB.

      Well, it needs a driver, but it's possible to set it up if you really wanted... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TcBoGjJcq0

    4. Re:Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by labnet · · Score: 1

      Yup. We have SMD robots still running Windows NT and 95 and indeed they sit on their own subnet with only access one firewall route to a file share.

      --
      46137
    5. Re:Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by bigmacx · · Score: 1

      To prevent BIOS boot off USB or any number of firmware or otherwise issues. We tell them to basically epoxy any port not connected to something. These machines never, ever change and there's probably little risk of infection, but even so... When stumbled upon, we at least duplicate the HD. In most cases, there's some hardware card that is the real single-point-of-failure. A typical manufacturing customer will keep these ancient MMI systems because of HW irreplacable HW interfaces and the new version costing a lot. One place even has Win3.1/DOS6.22 running a 24/7 production line because the updated control station costs $40k. Forget that just to get fancy new graphs and statistics.

    6. Re:Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by bigmacx · · Score: 1

      It's almost as cowardly a thing to do as posting on /. as AC

    7. Re:Probably just ground control stations use Win95 by bigmacx · · Score: 1

      LOL, I know those kinds of places. A lot of times, the production engineering/maintenance peeps won't let IT anywhere near the "stuff."

  19. Wowza by courcoul · · Score: 1

    Sounds like an arsonist's wet dream.

    Sad consequence of the Get It Up / Get It Out / Get It Sold NOW mentality, with no foresight about security.

  20. Re: I could find no evidence for the claim about W by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Modern satellites may be hardened against modern cyber attacks but the ones in orbit for decades might not be.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  21. Creativity by deesine · · Score: 1

    And here I thought forks were just a wonderful modern invention.

    --
    damaged by dogma
  22. Jam the satellite with earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, I don't think that anyone will be jamming the satellite's radio transmissions with earth. A little editing goes a long way.... (Not saying this is /.'s fault.)

  23. Really? by FaxeTheCat · · Score: 2

    I browsed the article, and there are no actual facts to support the claim that hacking a satelite is surprisingly easy. None.

    The claim that they run Windows 95 is not supported at all. A quick google revealed that most of the older satelites did not have a traditional operating system at all.

    The whole article looks mostlly like clickbait, written by somebody with little knowledge of computers and even less about satelites.

    1. Re:Really? by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      If our GPS satellites are that easily hacked (to say nothing of them running on Win95 - seriously?) then we'd deserve that.

      If ours are that easily hacked, then you can bet that the Russian's GLONASS and China's BDS are not, nor will the EU Galileo (here) be so easy. Modern GPSs compare results and know when to throw out an SV when it gives stupid answers. If you have a GPS, then update to GNSS and be safe. It costs more than a tinfoil hat, but you can sleep peacefully knowing that your location will be well known.

      Breaking news: give hackers unlimited access to 25 voting machines and they will hack into all of them. Bruce Schenier's latest submission to Risks Digest warns of the impending disaster ... which could only be worse if Russia dropped a few HBO satellites on major US polling places during the next election!

    2. Re:Really? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      GPS already is known to have government confusers installed... it'll lie to you or give no answer when instructed to by the military. This was deployed in Massachusetts during the ABC News' Bob Woodruff bomb scares.

    3. Re:Really? by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      GPS already is known to have government confusers installed...

      Paranoia is strong in this one. Selective availability was turned off a very long time ago (May, 2000), because so many services had come to depend on GPS. It doesn't lie to you, it provides an answer with reduced accuracy.

      This was deployed in Massachusetts during the ABC News' Bob Woodruff bomb scares.

      Bob Woodruff was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006, not Massachusetts, which had nothing to do with GPS at all. SA is not applied to a state, it is a system-wide (global) effect of a small dithering of the data stream.

      The reason SA was turned off is because it is very easy to bypass the degradation, either via differential or real-time kinematic GPS systems. There are now national DGPS networks, and wide-area augmentation systems (WAAS) for high precision GPS output.

      Of course there are methods to jam GPS, and the military OF COURSE has access to systems to do that, but they can't "turn off" GPS for the "state of Massachusetts", and they certainly wouldn't do that to people in the state of Massachusetts to protect journalists from IEDs in Iraq.

    4. Re: Really? by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Haha. Until I read your reply, I thought he was making a joke, and government confusers were dumb and misinformed government employees dispersing highly dumb things verbally (like msmash). I didn't realize what was meant until your reply and was talking about precision.

    5. Re:Really? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      Woodruff was injured, not dead in the Iraq explosion. Check your favorite news archive for "World News Tonight with Elizabeth Vargus and Bob Woodruff"...

  24. Re: I could find no evidence for the claim about W by Strider- · · Score: 2

    The Intelsat 708 launch failure occurred in 1996. Typical lifespan for a geostationary satellite is approximately 15 years, before they're moved to a graveyard orbit and rendered inert.

    For the most part, the TT&C (Tracking Telemetry and Control) codes for managing the spacecraft themselves has always been a closely guarded secret, and one fo the things that is subject to ITAR controls, due to the cryptography involved.

    That said, there have been at least one incident where sabotage of the satellite was suspected, but this occurred during a rather bitter labour dispute between the satellite operator and their tracking and monitoring staff.

    --
    ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
  25. Anectdotal Evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm going to put down anecdotal evidence here:

    I worked in the data center at a very large manufacturing facility. The company paid "A LOT" of money for a software engineering firm to build a custom GUI software package to run everything in the factory "Back in the day". Well before my time. It was one of the best designed interfaces and intuitive designs i have ever used. But it was running on OS/2. In 2013. The company had no plans on replacing the system because it worked, and as long as things "worked" why spend money on it.

    I'm sure more than one person would look at OS/2 and wonder what operating system that was (possibly thinking it was Windows 3.0 or Win 95).

  26. Actors. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wtf? Actors barely know how to wipe their own ass. How the fuck they gonna hack a satellite?

  27. Satellite 95? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Correct. An OS isn't needed for everything. Especially a device as tightly controlled as a satellite.

  28. Starring Sandra Bullocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article is nothing more than a haphazard list of obvious what ifs dreamed up by the author containing zero specific information about any actual known issues and no objective contextual information.

    The outline is a known purveyor of ridiculous trash for shock value. Here is an exert from another article on their site:

    "I ghosted a girl I met on Tinder and now I feel very bad, but honestly I think Iâ(TM)m just too messed up for anything serious.

    Dear Fuck-Up: I got too drunk and cheated on my boyfriend, and now I feel bad. How do I forgive myself and move on?

    Dear Fuck-Up: I have a friend whose problems are honestly very boring to me, but she keeps wanting to talk about them so I just ignore her. I feel bad about it, but really shouldnâ(TM)t she just accept that I canâ(TM)t always be there for her?

    Dear Fuck-Up: Iâ(TM)m a fuck-up and I fucked up so Iâ(TM)m hoping that you, a fellow fuck-up, can tell me how to accept fucking up all the time and learn to love myself."

    Nonsense from the outline is not worthy of Slashdot.

  29. Re:APK hosts file engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    APK has stated that it stops incoming connections and also acts like a firewall so it should easily protect all these satellites. For full disclosure I am a paid Soros and dailyKos shill who is pushing a a super super secrete liberal and Jewish agenda.

  30. Faster than the speed of sound, in space! by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    I noticed that too but my own favourite was "soaring faster than the speed of sound" which for these satellites, is zero because they are in space. If there was enough atmosphere to transmit sound there would be a huge atmospheric drag.

  31. Is it still April 1? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Come one, seriously: what idiot would install Windows 95 on a satellite? It was barely suitable for desktop computers.

  32. Really? by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    "If a satellite doesn't work, life-saving GPS or online information could be withheld to people on earth when they need it most."

    If our GPS satellites are that easily hacked (to say nothing of them running on Win95 - seriously?) then we'd deserve that.

    To say which: no, I think a big chunk of the OP is a) wrong, b) getting into histrionics over what they IMAGINE might happen in their wildest dreams.

    --
    -Styopa
  33. Re: Probably just ground control stations use Win9 by Cochonou · · Score: 1

    Of course, youâ(TM)re right. The satellites we are talking of are not running on x86, and are certainly not using Windows 95. In fact, on a lot of them, there isnâ(TM)t any ÂÂoperating systemÂÂ layer. And on the others, youâ(TM)re more likely to find an RTOS running on PPC or SPARC. As you said, the article writer probably mistook the operating systems running on the ground support equipement and command/control stations rather than the satellite itself. Nevertheless, if the command/control station can be hacked, it still raises security related questions...

  34. Clippy: by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    "It looks like you are trying to orbit a planet; would you like some help?"

  35. Re: APK hosts file engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Spam. Yawnwwwwwwn

  36. Maybe Wind River Systems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Usually these space systems will use one of the better-known RTOS. So maybe VxWorks, Neutrino, QNX, something like that.

    An RTOS is a better choice for a satellite. It's a giant pain in the a** getting tech support up there, and operations needs to hit certain performance marks, no excuses. This is practically a textbook justification for an RTOS.

  37. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by clovis · · Score: 2

    Maybe someone googled for "what operating system runs on old satellites" and didn't realize that the Satellite made by Toshiba is a laptop, not an actual Earth orbiting device.

    I, too, do not believe that any satellite is running Windows 95. To say the least, Win95 has not been optimized for power efficiency or running on resource-poor radiation hardened microprocessors, memory and support chips. Considering the Win95 is just a gui on top of MSDOS, running just MSDOS would make far more sense than Win95. Who would be using a mouse and looking at the screen on a satellite? Would they be using PCAnywhere on a space dial-up modem link?

    Furthermore, Windows 95 has a timer wraparound bug that causes a crash every 49.7 days, and that bug wasn't found until the early 2000's, so anyone that used Win95 as a space OS has a dead satellite.

    Win95 was used on the ground. Here's some info from people who were involved in all that back then.
    https://www.quora.com/Why-do-t...

    Also, I'm not seeing any evidence in the article that "hacking a satellite is surprisingly easy".

  38. Re: I could find no evidence for the claim about W by Nethead · · Score: 1

    Also TT&C of spacecraft is the only time you can use encryption on amateur radio.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf...

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  39. LOL! by sycodon · · Score: 1

    So they are going to do a Windows Update in Orbit??

    You just made the AC's point.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:LOL! by zlives · · Score: 1

      didn't Nasa just launch a WSUS server up there
      https://www.nasa.gov/directora...

    2. Re:LOL! by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First off, the article is pure bullshit. There may be some Windows 95 components, but the satellites don't run off of Windows 95. These are embedded systems running small and tiny operating systems. They need to be light and with low power usage.

      If you look at the article, there is one and only one place that says "Windows" or "Windows 95", and that's the intro paragraph. There are not references or annotations supporting this assertion. It's click-bait, and that makes Slashdot a click-bait enabler.

    3. Re:LOL! by Finallyjoined!!! · · Score: 1

      It's probably Windows CE, which is even worse. Good luck with that one......

      --
      If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
    4. Re:LOL! by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      Click-bait enabler? Are you new here?

    5. Re:LOL! by scdeimos · · Score: 2

      The only satellite I ever saw running Windows 95 was a Toshiba Satellite. I think TFA's author is confused.

    6. Re: LOL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly what I was coming to say.

    7. Re:LOL! by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Or maybe windows 95 means windows 2095?

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  40. Tiangong-1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Contact was not lost it was hacked. If a satellite is old and decommissioned it is out of fuel to do anything even a controlled crash it to the ocean. If it has fuel for major changes it is likely lost contact with those that own it. You would be hacking a toaster that does not even make toast any more.

  41. How fast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sound is not a thing that travels through space, it is a series of tubes, er, I mean waves, that propagate within a substance.

  42. Dont tell me hollywood got it right! by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    So the idea of uploading a virus to the satellite as the climax of a movie came from a real life satellite operator! Is that true?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  43. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by sofla · · Score: 1

    Seconded. Other than a mention Windows 95 in the opening paragraph (dare I say, it's click bait?), the story has nothing to do with Windows at all. It is primarily about the possibility and consequences of cyber attacks against satellites.

  44. HBO! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    GOODEVENING HBO
    FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
    $12.95/MONTH ?
    NO WAY !
      [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]

  45. Oh come on by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

    Satellite control systems are meant to be able to reload the entire program memory of the satellite, bypassing any ROM that might be in the satellite if necessary, because things tend to fail under radiation. This means relatively small-scale logic to load ROM from an all-hardware modem and reset the CPU. This is done using a radio command with relatively simple encryption - cubesats often use EOR with a constant. The processors are silicon-on-insulator (because it is resistant to radiation-induced latch-up) and are not the modern ones you're used to. They don't run IP at this level.

  46. BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah no way. Spacecraft are going to run VXWorks or a competitor high grade RTOS.

  47. Ridiculous. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There is no fucking way that a satellite is running win95. None. Didn't happen. Either the writer is an idiot, got trolled, or both. Nobody, and I repeat NOBODY is going to run a power hungry desktop OS on a power starved sat. Period.

    And yes, we do know what to do if one gets hacked. We find the source of the transmission, and drop a JDAM on it. Problem solved, problem staying solved. These things aren't connected to the internet in some way where you just plug in an IP and hack the thing.

    Trash headline, and someone should be ashamed and never post again.

  48. "A malicious actor could fake their IP address.." by acoustix · · Score: 2

    "A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user's computer and its location."

    Nope. Not even remotely accurate.

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
  49. Why are they so insecure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Damn right hackers could knock up something in Visual Basic to fake their IP and hack the control system computers JUST LIKE THAT

  50. I call bullshit. by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 1

    I can't imagine in my wildest shitty dreams that any satellite is running Windows 95.
    One could argue that satellite are running operating systems that were developed in the same era as W95.
    So exactly what radiation hardened CPU would be running W95?

    Satellites are running realtime hardened operating systems (such as vxworks or rodos) that have very well defined modes of operation. Literally nothing I said in that last sentence would apply to windows 95.

    Now granted, could some of these operating systems harbor vulnerabilities? Sure. Could these vulnerabilities be exploited to cause mayhem? Sure.

    --
    Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
    1. Re:I call bullshit. by kenh · · Score: 1

      Why can't satellites be running Windows? Wall-E the robot ran Mac OS? /LOL

      --
      Ken
  51. You've seen too many hollywood movies by kenh · · Score: 1

    A malicious actor could fake their IP address, which gives information about a user's computer and its location.

    What? IP Spoofing is something new to be afraid of, and somehow opens mystical doors into satellite control systems? No. I can set my computer's IP address to the same IP address as the workstation controlling a satellite, but that doesn't in any way afford me the ability to tap into the control stream for sattelites.

    This person could then get access to the satellite's computer system, and manipulate where the satellite goes or what it does.

    How? It doesn't just "happen", it's not like when the robbers go into a bathroom with a palmtop computer and a cord with two alligator clips and by carefully peel back the outer cover on CCTV cameras and can "take over" the CCTV surveillance system.

    Alternatively, an actor could jam the satellite's radio transmissions with earth, essentially disabling it. The cost of such an attack could be huge.

    Again, HOW? The ground control station is a non-trivial facility, you can't just hack one together with an SDR dongle and a raspberry pi.

    This is a staggeringly simplistic view of satellite control systems - just slightly more sophisticated than the business plan of The Underpants Gnomes from Southpark:

    1. Get lots of underpants
    2. ...
    3. Big Profits
    --
    Ken
    1. Re:You've seen too many hollywood movies by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

      IP spoofing will get you exactly fucking nowhere, because the command/TLM link doesn't use IP protocols, or anything like them, even for commercial satellites.

            TFS is the biggest pile of bullshit I have seen in a very long time, and the TFA is even worse. It is far beyond merely ridiculous.

                Brett

  52. "Hacking a Satellite is Surprisingly Easy"? by kenh · · Score: 1

    No, no it isn't, any you have proven you have No Earthly Idea what you are talking about, put your pencil down and go home.

    --
    Ken
  53. Re: I could find no evidence for the claim about W by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Re "but the ones in orbit for decades might not be."
    Its the way the NSA thought.
    It was better to collect data in space for the NSA and have the speed of cheaper communications for the USA.
    Why risk communications in space getting crypto that could fail or not work over many years stuck in every sat?
    Thats a lot of extra work for the communications network in space. Encrypt end to end and pass the secure data from via a low cost communications sat network.
    That allowed the US a place many new advanced sats that did not need secure and complex crypto tested in each sat. A saving in extra complexity and support at the time. The US could put that savings to other systems in the sat design and trust in crypto over the total network not just per sat.

    The US also feared staff would sell, walk out with a set crypto design per sat and that would make all crypto in that sat network space junk.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  54. Someone ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... hacked into the Slashdot uplink and injected a stream of bullshit.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  55. Summary written for a newspaper or clickbait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't the sort of thing that belongs on Slashdot - it was written for a low-end newspaper.

    "Miles above the earth", "faster than the speed of sound" - that's definitely catering for the masses. Try hundreds or thousands of miles above the earth, and tens or hundreds of times the speed of sound. The author is ignorant, or thinks we are.

    Who let this rubbish through?

  56. Meh by Greyfox · · Score: 1

    All the ones I looked at used some form of encryption (I saw a lot of One Time Pad ones) for their control channels. I don't think someone's going to drop $100M on getting a satellite to orbit without putting decent security on it.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  57. Fooling msmash is suprisingly easy! by ThePhish · · Score: 0

    Another shit story from a clickbaiting editor...who needs mdsolar with his anti-nuke agenda when you have msmash and his ZOMG Hackerz!!1!!!fear mongering because win 95!

    Lose this guy, please.

  58. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I read the article and while it makes the claim about Win95, it doesn't go into detail about it or support it with facts. I find that claim somewhat incredulous as most satellites would never use a GUI based desktop OS. Maybe some control systems on the ground use Win95 and have ever been updated.

    I would agree with the basic premise that many satellites especially older ones are not hardened against cyber attacks.

    You might be incredulous, but the claim can't be - it might be incredible (although that word has almost lost its original meaning; I'd suggest implausible). If you want to use a word, try hard to use it correctly.

  59. Clippy Says "Do you need help, HAL?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Total BS. We *ALL* know they're running Windows ME with Clippy to stay in orbit!

  60. Re:"A malicious actor could fake their IP address. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reminds me of a time when a fellow student bragged that he was able to “grep to saturn” (Saturn was the name of one of our x-windows servers) and take it over. Someone forgot to tell him that grep doesn’t make network connections.

    Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

  61. PC Anywhere and an Unprotected Uplink Controller by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This doesn't really surprise me. Two decades ago a friend and I were looking at open ports on networks when we found an installation of PC Anywhere on a workstation. When we connected we were dismayed to discover the installation was unprotected and the workstation was wide open to the Internet.

    A quick look through the computer system determined it was sitting in a large satellite television provider's corporate offices, and it was controlling their primary uplink. This couldn't have been used to change the programming, but it *could* have been used to redirect the uplink and point it at another satellite. The wattage of the uplink would have easily disrupted the targeted satellite and any communications directed through it. I am not certain if it could have caused permanent damage.

    We created a one-use email account and notified this television provider of their error.

  62. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    And you might want to read a dictionary before you feel that you should correct someone on their use of a word.
    Definition of incredulous
    1 : unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true : not credulous : skeptical
    2 : incredible
    3 : expressing incredulity an incredulous stare

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  63. Obvious FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they were running Windows 95 they would have already crashed long ago. The only thing left would be a blue screen and a memory address pointing to a long forgotten memory location in the distant universe..

  64. Get educated about embedded systems please! by MichaelFlinn · · Score: 1

    These have embedded systems in them, not a general-purpose operating system such as Windows 95 or any other OTS OS. Each satellite has a custom built and configured embedded system. While it may have a foundation of an older system, it is unique. This is why individuals need to educate themselves by supplementing their reading with a few books from experts in their field. People that built these things! As one individual pointed out, Win9x came out well after many of the GPS satellites were launched. Scarry enough as this may be - ATMs used to run OTS Windows 9x. They have since all wised up.... and again, use a customized system.

  65. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    Furthermore, Windows 95 has a timer wraparound bug that causes a crash every 49.7 days, and that bug wasn't found until the early 2000's

    Bullshit. This bug was known in the 1990's.

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!
  66. Ground segment, Linux by stooo · · Score: 1

    I think they talk of ground segment systems.
    Btw. the biggest actual man-made satellite runs on Linux :
    https://training.linuxfoundati...

    --
    aaaaaaa
  67. what a load of shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if it was "EASY", it would have been done already.

  68. Satellite Hacking Attemps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2 US satellites were alleged to be hacked

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/21/us_sat_hack_mystery/

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-satellite/china-key-suspect-in-u-s-satellite-hacks-commission-idUSTRE79R4O320111028

    Before that, 3 Chinese satellites were hacked to play beam down Taiwanese TV programs on China

  69. Why is this garbage any where near Slashdot? by Xargle · · Score: 1

    IP address spoofing to take over satellites! It's easy! Windows 95! *facepalm*

  70. Those satellites all crashed after 49.7 days by tommeke100 · · Score: 1

    Windows 95, suuuuuuure .....

  71. Re:Trying to put words in my mouth? apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only thing APK puts into his mouth is moose cock and he is butthurt from the reaming he got from that moose.

  72. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by clovis · · Score: 1

    That's interesting. I would like to see some evidence.

  73. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    How would you expect to see evidence? Unfortunately, things from the 90's are primarily aged off the internet. I mean, I doubt a major paper (the only things I can think of still stretching back that far) covered it.

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!
  74. Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you want REAL cipher security, you can implement that on a Z80. You don't use the SSL/TLS crap anyway.

  75. Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every computer scientist worth their salt can code a small library which will be

    A) actually secure, unlike SSL/TLS
    B) deliver all the assurances of SSL/TLS (defence against replay, confidentiality, masking of identical messages/commands)

    I did it in a few days in less than 2k code. Of course I used AES as the base cipher, but could have used any other block cipher for this purpose.

    I really cannot see why this would be an "ITAR secret". Maybe it was in the 1960s, but surely not in 2018.

  76. News For NERDS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The quality of SD nerds has badly dropped.

    I thought you could imagine that all the sat commands are encrypted and crypto-authenticated.

    Ham radio guys could surely build a rig strong enough to send a strong signal to a sat. They know of all the modulation methods and even the message formats.

    But they do not know the crypto keys of the sat and the worst they could do would be to jam the command link for a few days until the federalez swoop in with an ELINT aircraft and locate the emitter and have the perps thrown into jail. Look up GUARDRAIL ELINT and RIVET JOINT.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_RC-135

    Same is for hostile intelligence. All they can do is some kind of jamming until they are found out and heavily leaned on (freezing swiss bank accounts of the local tyrant works like a charm).

    Actually Iran has done some jamming of sat TV which transmitted Persian language propaganda they did not like.

    Wartime jamming and hacking attacks of satellites are also to be expected. Hasn't happened until now, though.

  77. can the editors please do their jobs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    like doing a bit of minor research on the writers/outlets these stories are coming from?

    Just because she was an intern at motherboard does not give her the background knowledge to accurately write about her subject matter. just take a look at the articles that she actually wrote for motherboard and explain to us how she is any authority on security.

    The outlet she writes for is fraught with opinion pieces with little to no facts and what little facts there are are over blown and twisted to suit a narrative.

    This not news, not for nerds, not for anyone.

  78. LOL! You "downmod hid" this truth... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & trying to put words in my mouth I've proven you do THIS WEEK here https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... & showed another weirdo freak tried it YEARS ago (same bs you are, twice now) & BURNED "it's" self... badly (kept up the trolling on me too w/ a pack of morons who are now, like "it" is, gone largely).

    * No 1 thing "cures all" but hosts do more for less vs. any other 'solution' & are native to your system typically.

    APK

    P.S.=> Zontar the Mindless I KNOW it's you - let's show everyone WHY you do it (you're butthurt I've CRUSHED YOU so many times via facts (many YOU supply & due to your tech fuckups vs. me)) -> https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... ... apk

  79. LOL! You "downmod hid" this truth too... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & you try twist what I say: Hosts block sites that distribute malware (the main threat to stop incoming) & block in/out talk between botnets + C&C they use.

    MOST (like 99%) threats out there use host-domain names - that IS what hosts blockout (the most prevalent source of threats IF known bad).

    * All else hosts do is on its download page in decent detail/specifics (tons MORE for LESS by far vs. other methods, natively (longer than firewalls have been on Windows for sure)).

    APK

    P.S.=> As to the REST of your statement? I would not doubt it - I also STRONGLY wager your are the "KING OF BEING 'BUTTHURT'" Zontar The Mindless per https://it.slashdot.org/commen... ... apk

  80. Don't project your own issues onto me... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & the only one that got 'reamed' here is you twice Zontar The Mindless https://it.slashdot.org/commen... & https://it.slashdot.org/commen... which you tried downmod hiding (I just reposted them to blow you away now that you exhausted your 4 modpoints a day default, WHICH NULLIFIES YOUR ONLY "WEAPON" the abused downmod (effete & weak like you mentalboy) lol).

    * Grow up LOON!

    APK

    P.S.=> ... & you ARE a loon from your OWN MOUTH admitting it https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12013759&cid=56483579// ... apk

  81. I had sex with cdreimer... APK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With my recent coming to terms that being a homosexual is ok I hooked up with cdreimer last night. We hit it off right away and before I knew it we were back at my place. That pudgy bastard is a demon in the sack and I don't believe I will be able to walk much today. He came pretty fast the first time but the dude just kept on going strong. It was like he was churning butter in my rectum. By the time he was done he had shot 4 loads in my ass and I was in heaven. It was so good I finally got an erection for the first time in 20 years and cdreimer was kind enough to suck me off.

    APK

    P.S. - I love the musty smell of that man and hope he never changes... apk

  82. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by clovis · · Score: 1

    Found it! Q216641
    On the wayback machine:
    http://support.microsoft.com/s...

    It's from May 1999, but I think the bug was found in February.
    That does indeed count as being in the 1990's. I suppose it didn't get into popular press until after y2k because, well y2k.
    I used to do back-end Win95 support for Microsoft (among other things), but had quit before 1999, so that's my excuse for thinking it came out after y2k.

  83. You're impersonating me & projecting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're impersonating me & projecting your own issues w/ homosexuality acting like the arrested development case you are.

    * Grow up!

    APK

    P.S.=> However, 1 nice thing results from your blatant idiocy: You demonstrate that my points cannot be validly defeated in ANYTHING I put out - thanks! apk

  84. Fake news. Move along citizens. by fygment · · Score: 1

    Article makes no sense. Satellite resources are too constrained to be using something as bloated as Win95 OS. Possibly some ground stations are using win95 but certainly not for anything mission critical. And anything that involves jamming up or moving a incredibly expensive item like a satellite is mission critical. So, fake news, uneducated reporter, whatever; this is not a real thing.

    --
    "Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
  85. Re:I could find no evidence for the claim about Wi by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    Ah! Thanks for seeking it out. And no worries- ,y timelines from ~20 years ago are also fuzzy.

    I wanted build off what you said and try to explain why I was so sure it was in the '90's, but I cannot even recall that!

    --
    Your ad here. Ask me how!