subject:"\[time\-nuts\] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,"

Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer Tells Christian Science
Monitor that CIA's spy aircraft was 'spoofed' into landing in enemy
territory instead of its home base in Afghanistan
Iran guided the CIA's lost stealth drone to an intact landing inside
hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the
US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured
drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications
links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who
works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying
to unravel the drones stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not
be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a
technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian
specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land
in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

The GPS navigation is the weakest point, the Iranian engineer told the
Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran's
electronic ambush of the highly classified US drone. By putting noise
[jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is
where the bird loses its brain.

The spoofing technique that the Iranians used which took into account
precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data
made the drone land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to
crack the remote-control signals and communications from the US control
center, says the engineer.

The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US,
Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an ever-widening
covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear
scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and the
Stuxnet computer virus that set back Irans nuclear program.

Now this engineers account of how Iran took over one of Americas most
sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The
techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less
sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the
engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS
signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.
Rock Center: Iran's growing influence in
Iraqhttp://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9398341-a-growing-iranian-threat-in-wake-of-us-military-withdrawal-from-iraq-this-month

Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing
indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.

Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible to manipulation, says
former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that
it is certainly possible to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it
flies on a different course. I wouldn't say it's easy, but the technology
is there.

In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have downloaded
live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with
inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Irans apparent ability now to
actually take control of a drone is far more significant.

Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted over
its nuclear program.

Gen. Moharam Gholizadeh, the deputy for electronic warfare at the air
defense headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),
described to Fars News how Iran could alter the path of a GPS-guided
missile a tactic more easily applied to a slower-moving drone.

*Downed US drone: How Iran caught the
'beast'*http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1209/Downed-US-drone-How-Iran-caught-the-beast

We have a project on hand that is one step ahead of jamming, meaning
deception of the aggressive systems, said Gholizadeh, such that we can
define our own desired information for it so the path of the missile would
change to our desired destination.

Gholizadeh said that all the movements of these [enemy drones] were being
watched, and obstructing their work was always on our agenda.

That interview has since been pulled from Fars Persian-language website.
And last month, the relatively young Gholizadeh died of a heart attack,
which some Iranian news sites called suspicious suggesting the electronic
warfare expert may have been a casualty in the covert war against Iran.

*Iran's growing electronic capabilities
*Iranian lawmakers say the drone capture is a great epic and claim to be
in the final steps of breaking into the aircraft's secret code.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Fox News on Dec. 13 that the US will
absolutely continue the drone campaign over Iran, looking for evidence of
any nuclear weapons work. But the stakes are higher for such surveillance,

Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Jim Palfreyman

Fascinating.

I can picture setting up a bunch of transmitters in the hills to send out
strong GPS-like signals to mimic the real thing. I suppose you could
control those signals to fool the device it is somewhere else. That bit is
very clever - you'd have to adjust the signals taking into account current
positions of all current satellites. Smart bit of work there.

But it would also need incredible timing. Even a few ns out and it wouldn't
work. So how do you set up fantastic timing at different locations of
transmitters throughout a country. Well you've blocked the GPS - so that's
no good.

It would require local atomic clocks (good ones) at each location.

Do they have access to such things? Maybe I'm being naive.

Jim

On 16 December 2011 08:10, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications
links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who
works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying
to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not
be named for his safety.

The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account
precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data –
made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to
crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control
center, says the engineer.

Now this engineer’s account of how Iran took over one of America’s most
sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The
techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less
sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the
engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS
signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.
Rock Center: Iran's growing influence in
Iraq
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9398341-a-growing-iranian-threat-in-wake-of-us-military-withdrawal-from-iraq-this-month

Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing
indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.

Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation, says
former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that
it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it
flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the technology
is there.”

In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have downloaded
live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with
inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to
actually take control of a drone is far more significant.

Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted over
its nuclear program.

Gen. Moharam Gholizadeh, the deputy for electronic warfare at the air
defense headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),
described to Fars News how Iran could alter the path of a GPS-guided
missile – a tactic more easily applied to a slower-moving drone.

*Downed US drone: How Iran caught the
'beast'*
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1209/Downed-US-drone-How-Iran-caught-the-beast

“We have a project on hand that is one step ahead of jamming, meaning
‘deception’ of the aggressive systems,” said Gholizadeh, such that “we can
define our own desired information for it so the path of the missile would
change to

Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Charles P. Steinmetz


John wrote:


Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer  Tells Christian Science
Monitor that CIA's spy aircraft was 'spoofed' into landing in enemy
territory instead of its home base in Afghanistan
Iran guided the CIA's lost stealth drone to an intact landing inside
hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the
US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured
drone's systems inside Iran.


-- snip --

If the report in the article is true, we deserve to lose drones to 
countries like Iran for not having the sense to install an inertial 
guidance system to back up and reality check the GPS.  (Omitting 
IGS would be such a major gaffe that it calls into question the 
veracity of the Iranian claims.  Were we really that stupid, or that cheap?)


Best regards,

Charles






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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Chuck Harris


In the 1970's, and 80's, US universities educated great quantities of
Iranian students.  Although there were some duds, most were very smart.
I've worked with several that could easily hack such a drone.  Hell,
there were Iranian engineers that helped design the GPS satellites and
receivers.

Should it be any surprise that they know how to do such things?

The only savings grace is so many of the US educated Iranian engineers
stayed in the US to live... but certainly not all.  How many have drifted
back home after the wave of anti-muslim/anti-arab-looking-people craze that
hit the US post 9/11 is anybody's guess.

-Chuck Harris

J. Forster wrote:

Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer  Tells Christian Science
Monitor that CIA's spy aircraft was 'spoofed' into landing in enemy
territory instead of its home base in Afghanistan
Iran guided the CIA's lost stealth drone to an intact landing inside
hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the
US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured
drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications
links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who
works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying
to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not
be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a
technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian
specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land
in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Chuck Harris


I would say without question the answer is YES!

When the US DOD switched its backing to COTS electronics in all
of its defense hardware, it also went looking for the cheapest
way to get the most bang for the buck with defense hardware.

They certainly would be willing to save 100 lbs of inertial
guidance hardware if 8 ounces of GPS hardware could get the
plane on target.

-Chuck Harris

Charles P. Steinmetz wrote:


If the report in the article is true, we deserve to lose drones to countries 
like
Iran for not having the sense to install an inertial guidance system to back up 
and
reality check the GPS. (Omitting IGS would be such a major gaffe that it 
calls into
question the veracity of the Iranian claims. Were we really that stupid, or 
that cheap?)

Best regards,

Charles


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread lists

It depends on if they use the civilian or military GPS signal. Spoofing the 
military signal should be tough. 

Inertial guidances isn't all that heavy these days. Laser ring gyros for 
instance or perhaps MEMs could be used. 
 

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread mike cook


Le 15 déc. 2011 à 23:24, Azelio Boriani a écrit :

 There are GPS simulators for lab use (never seen live or in a picture), I
 suppose they have one connector to feed the GPS receiver antenna.
 Generating in one equipment all the signals you don't need many but only
 one precise timing source.
 
 On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Jim Palfreyman jim77...@gmail.com wrote:
 

Yup, this looks like the way to go about it. One box can simulate the 
whole GNSS constellation. Just need to modify the ephemeris and pump the 
simulation to a transmitter. 

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Yes, now wondering if there are L1/L2 simulators out there... better
googling around.

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:35 PM, li...@lazygranch.com wrote:

 It depends on if they use the civilian or military GPS signal. Spoofing
 the military signal should be tough.

 Inertial guidances isn't all that heavy these days. Laser ring gyros for
 instance or perhaps MEMs could be used.


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Magnus Danielson


On 12/15/2011 11:06 PM, Jim Palfreyman wrote:

Fascinating.

I can picture setting up a bunch of transmitters in the hills to send out
strong GPS-like signals to mimic the real thing. I suppose you could
control those signals to fool the device it is somewhere else. That bit is
very clever - you'd have to adjust the signals taking into account current
positions of all current satellites. Smart bit of work there.

But it would also need incredible timing. Even a few ns out and it wouldn't
work. So how do you set up fantastic timing at different locations of
transmitters throughout a country. Well you've blocked the GPS - so that's
no good.

It would require local atomic clocks (good ones) at each location.

Do they have access to such things? Maybe I'm being naive.


To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate 
the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative 
timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what the 
receiver sees.


When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough in 
timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.


If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work. I 
would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian 
background.


Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread David VanHorn


Note that the undercarriage is always hidden when it's shown.
I suspect they simply jammed the GPS and command links, and it defaulted to an 
automatic soft landing on not so soft terrain.
Rather less impressive, but still annoying.

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Peter Gottlieb


Just watch how GPS stuff will get all restricted now.


On 12/15/2011 5:40 PM, mike cook wrote:

Le 15 déc. 2011 à 23:24, Azelio Boriani a écrit :


There are GPS simulators for lab use (never seen live or in a picture), I
suppose they have one connector to feed the GPS receiver antenna.
Generating in one equipment all the signals you don't need many but only
one precise timing source.

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Jim Palfreymanjim77...@gmail.com  wrote:


Yup, this looks like the way to go about it. One box can simulate the
whole GNSS constellation. Just need to modify the ephemeris and pump the 
simulation to a transmitter.

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-
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1415 / Virus Database: 2108/4082 - Release Date: 12/15/11






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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

I agree. This is my opinion too.

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:50 PM, David VanHorn 
d.vanh...@elec-solutions.com wrote:


 Note that the undercarriage is always hidden when it's shown.
 I suspect they simply jammed the GPS and command links, and it defaulted
 to an automatic soft landing on not so soft terrain.
 Rather less impressive, but still annoying.

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Jean-Louis Noel


Hi,

From: Azelio Boriani azelio.bori...@screen.it


Yes, now wondering if there are L1/L2 simulators out there... better
googling around.


http://wireless.vt.edu/symposium/2011/posters/GPS%20Signal%20Simulation_Brown.pdf

Bye,
Jean-Louis

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread mike cook

Le 15 déc. 2011 à 23:57, Peter Gottlieb a écrit :

 Just watch how GPS stuff will get all restricted now.
 

Too late, Simulators are on paybay now.  Just need deep pockets. 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Thank you for the link.

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:58 PM, Jean-Louis Noel j...@stben.net wrote:

 Hi,

 From: Azelio Boriani azelio.bori...@screen.it

  Yes, now wondering if there are L1/L2 simulators out there... better
 googling around.



 http://wireless.vt.edu/symposium/2011/posters/GPS%20Signal%20Simulation_Brown.pdf

 Bye,
 Jean-Louis


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

The Spirent STR4500 seems very up-to-date, very expensive, L1 C/A only.

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:02 AM, Azelio Boriani
azelio.bori...@screen.itwrote:

 Thank you for the link.


 On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:58 PM, Jean-Louis Noel j...@stben.net wrote:

 Hi,

 From: Azelio Boriani azelio.bori...@screen.it

  Yes, now wondering if there are L1/L2 simulators out there... better
 googling around.



 http://wireless.vt.edu/symposium/2011/posters/GPS%20Signal%20Simulation_Brown.pdf

 Bye,
 Jean-Louis


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

I'm not so sure. What if you has one site, antenna, and transmitter and a
dozen signal sources with programmable synthesizers and coders.

The drone antenna is likely omni. The Russians or Chinese could easily
supply that.

-John

Fascinating.

But it would also need incredible timing. Even a few ns out and it
wouldn't
work. So how do you set up fantastic timing at different locations of
transmitters throughout a country. Well you've blocked the GPS - so that's
no good.

It would require local atomic clocks (good ones) at each location.

Do they have access to such things? Maybe I'm being naive.

Jim

On 16 December 2011 08:10, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:

Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer Tells Christian Science
Monitor that CIA's spy aircraft was 'spoofed' into landing in enemy
territory instead of its home base in Afghanistan
Iran guided the CIA's lost stealth drone to an intact landing inside
hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to
the
US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the
captured
drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off
communications
links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who
works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently
trying
to unravel the drones stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could
not
be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a
technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the
Iranian
specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it
land
in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in
Afghanistan.

The spoofing technique that the Iranians used which took into
account
precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data

made the drone land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to
crack the remote-control signals and communications from the US control
center, says the engineer.

The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US,
Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an
ever-widening
covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear
scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and
the
Stuxnet computer virus that set back Irans nuclear program.

Now this engineers account of how Iran took over one of Americas most
sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The
techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less
sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the
engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS
signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.
Rock Center: Iran's growing influence in
Iraq
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9398341-a-growing-iranian-threat-in-wake-of-us-military-withdrawal-from-iraq-this-month

Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS
spoofing
indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is
plausible.

Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible to manipulation,
says
former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding
that
it is certainly possible to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it
flies on a different course. I wouldn't say it's easy, but the
technology
is there.

In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have
downloaded
live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with
inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Irans apparent ability now to
actually take control of a drone is far more significant.

Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted
over
its nuclear program.

*Downed US drone: How Iran caught the
'beast'*

Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

I bet this drone contains no technology that is not exportable.  Of
course they had to think about a crash.

I also bet it had an inertial nav system as backup to the GPS.   But
and this is the key to all backups.  You have to know the primary is
failed.   When you jam GPS the smart way is not to over power it with
white noise but to first transmit an IDENTICAL signal.  Then very
slowly move your stronger signal away from truth until it is sending
a false signal.   This way the receiver does not know it is being
jammed.  No I did not just think of this, it's what everyone does.
 But why then if the INS and GPS disagree was there not an alarm?   It
was likely a low-cost INS that needed periodic updates from a GPS

I would not rule out that they simply made the drone fly into a big
fishing net and dropped it with a parachute in a kind of controlled
mid air collision.   Heck the US used to capture film cam falling from
space with big nets

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

OK, now I know what a GPS simulator is like. BTW the Spirent is cheaper at
used-line.com than on paybay. Anyway my opinion doesn't change: as pointed
out by David VanHorn they have jammed the GPS and the data link. I think
the data link must be a sophisticated frequency hopping type radio link so,
at most, their skill was to jam that.

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:04 AM, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:

I'm not so sure. What if you has one site, antenna, and transmitter and a
dozen signal sources with programmable synthesizers and coders.

The drone antenna is likely omni. The Russians or Chinese could easily
supply that.

-John

Fascinating.

I can picture setting up a bunch of transmitters in the hills to send out
strong GPS-like signals to mimic the real thing. I suppose you could
control those signals to fool the device it is somewhere else. That bit
is
very clever - you'd have to adjust the signals taking into account
current
positions of all current satellites. Smart bit of work there.

But it would also need incredible timing. Even a few ns out and it
wouldn't
work. So how do you set up fantastic timing at different locations of
transmitters throughout a country. Well you've blocked the GPS - so
that's
no good.

It would require local atomic clocks (good ones) at each location.

Do they have access to such things? Maybe I'm being naive.

Jim

On 16 December 2011 08:10, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:

Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer Tells Christian Science
Monitor that CIA's spy aircraft was 'spoofed' into landing in enemy
territory instead of its home base in Afghanistan
Iran guided the CIA's lost stealth drone to an intact landing inside
hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to
the
US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the
captured
drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off
communications
links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who
works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently
trying
to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could
not
be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a
technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the
Iranian
specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it
land
in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in
Afghanistan.

The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into
account
precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data
–
made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to
crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control
center, says the engineer.

The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US,
Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an
ever-widening
covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear
scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and
the
Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program.

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9398341-a-growing-iranian-threat-in-wake-of-us-military-withdrawal-from-iraq-this-month

Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS
spoofing
indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is
plausible.

Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation,
says
former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding
that
it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it
flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the
technology
is there.”

In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have
downloaded
live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with
inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to
actually take

Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread mike cook

I wonder how long it will be before we see Brinks vans, Ferrari's and other 
more mundane GPS dependent things being hijacked. Possibilities seem limitless.
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,



You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the jammer.

-John

==



 To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate
 the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
 timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what the
 receiver sees.

 When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough in
 timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.

 If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work. I
 would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
 background.

 Cheers,
 Magnus

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on your
own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great coverage,
so much RF power out.

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:



 You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the jammer.

 -John

 ==


 
  To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate
  the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
  timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what the
  receiver sees.
 
  When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough in
  timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.
 
  If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work. I
  would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
  background.
 
  Cheers,
  Magnus
 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Rich and Marcia Putz

Now I've heard Lightsquared was installing a network in Iran! Just kidding, but 
what would happen?  
I would think that just jamming the L1-L2 frequencies would be enough to cause 
the drone to fly in circles or a straight line until it ran out of fuel and 
flopped to the ground, perhaps explaining the hidden undercarriage as mentioned 
earlier. Do you think they might turn Loran-C back on so no one here can spoof 
the police drones flying around!!??!!
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Joe Leikhim

Arriving this week, IEEE Magazine this months issue has an article about 
pilot-less commercial airliners, comparing the UAV drone technology as 
being readily available to fly paying passengers from here to there. 
Coincidentally the table of contents page depicts a drone which appears 
to be this very same Beast of Kandahar taking off! I look forward to 
the future letters column. I for one would not trust a pilot-less plane 
to transport me knowing that a terrorist need only to jam or spoof the 
GPS constellation, and bring down hundreds of planes. Heck, the proposed 
LightSquared system could bring the planes down.


--
Joe Leikhim

Leikhim and Associates
Communications Consultants
Oviedo, Florida

www.Leikhim.com

jleik...@leikhim.com

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

I've talked to the GPS jammers at Nellis and have seen their gear. They 
don't spoof but just jam. The gear is totally COTS. Some Marconi signal 
generator that can generate white noise at the two GPS frequencies. They 
have omni or directional antennas. They have an old Russian jammer on 
hand, but the Marconi works a lot better.


I've been jammed by them. It is interesting in that the GPS just 
suddenly dies. That is, it seems to track given some noise, but you hit 
a point where it suddenly gives up. It is the only time I've seen no 
satellites shown on the display.


It wouldn't surprise me if a Growler could spoof a GPS, but I have no 
hard evidence that it can.


I'm in agreement with they just jammed everything and the thing ran out 
of fuel. I have a FOIA somewhere on a Predator crash. With LOS, it just 
orbits. In the case of this Predator, it orbited into a mountain near 
Creech AFB.



On 12/15/2011 3:18 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

I bet this drone contains no technology that is not exportable.  Of
course they had to think about a crash.

I also bet it had an inertial nav system as backup to the GPS.   But
and this is the key to all backups.  You have to know the primary is
failed.   When you jam GPS the smart way is not to over power it with
white noise but to first transmit an IDENTICAL signal.  Then very
slowly move your stronger signal away from truth until it is sending
a false signal.   This way the receiver does not know it is being
jammed.  No I did not just think of this, it's what everyone does.
  But why then if the INS and GPS disagree was there not an alarm?   It
was likely a low-cost INS that needed periodic updates from a GPS

I would not rule out that they simply made the drone fly into a big
fishing net and dropped it with a parachute in a kind of controlled
mid air collision.   Heck the US used to capture film cam falling from
space with big nets

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Azelio Boriani
azelio.bori...@screen.it wrote:
  Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great coverage,
 so much RF power out.

No.  The transmitter could be in an aircraft that follows the drone,
maybe only 100 feet away.



Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Joe Leikhim


This mindset is an example why the US is falling so far behind the rest of the 
world, not only in technology but in the diplomacy game. In 1980 I worked for a 
very smart engineering manager who told me he studied electrical engineering by 
the light of a gasoline lantern in a tent in Turkey.

US officials skeptical of Iran's capabilities blame a malfunction, but so far can't 
explain how Iran acquired the drone intact. One American analyst ridiculed Iran's 
capability, telling Defense News that the loss was like dropping a Ferrari into an 
ox-cart technology culture.

--
Joe Leikhim

Leikhim and Associates
Communications Consultants
Oviedo, Florida

www.Leikhim.com

jleik...@leikhim.com

407-982-0446

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread gsteinba52

You guys are just over-thinking this issue. Iran was merely testing out a new 
Lightsquared base station.

Jerry
 

 

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Pieter ten Pierick

Hi,

 Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on your
 own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great
 coverage, so much RF power out.

Easy: Use a dish antenna on the transmitter.
Very directional with large ampification.
If using a 'moderate' opening angle, just pointing the dish at the drone
by hand will work.
After starting the system locked to the gps time, once the signal is on
the drone,
I don't think it matters anymore. (It might not even matter at the start?)
The drone will follow the timing of the jammer.
As the drone will receive all signals from the single transmitter, the
relative timing will be fixed.
Just using a OCXO will have a good enough short time stability to allow
the system to work, I would think.
As the plan is to land or jam the drone within say 10 minutes, long term
stability is not that important...

Greetings,
Pieter.

 On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:



 You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the jammer.

 -John

 ==


 
  To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate
  the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
  timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what the
  receiver sees.
 
  When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough in
  timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.
 
  If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work. I
  would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
  background.
 
  Cheers,
  Magnus
 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Yes, agree. An OCXO is enough (but my opinion is the same: only jammed not
steered).

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:52 AM, Pieter ten Pierick 
time-nuts-m...@tenpierick.com wrote:

 Hi,

  Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on your
  own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great
  coverage, so much RF power out.

 Easy: Use a dish antenna on the transmitter.
 Very directional with large ampification.
 If using a 'moderate' opening angle, just pointing the dish at the drone
 by hand will work.
 After starting the system locked to the gps time, once the signal is on
 the drone,
 I don't think it matters anymore. (It might not even matter at the start?)
 The drone will follow the timing of the jammer.
 As the drone will receive all signals from the single transmitter, the
 relative timing will be fixed.
 Just using a OCXO will have a good enough short time stability to allow
 the system to work, I would think.
 As the plan is to land or jam the drone within say 10 minutes, long term
 stability is not that important...

 Greetings,
 Pieter.
 
  On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:
 
 
 
  You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the jammer.
 
  -John
 
  ==
 
 
  
   To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate
   the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
   timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what the
   receiver sees.
  
   When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough in
   timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.
  
   If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work. I
   would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
   background.
  
   Cheers,
   Magnus
  
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

KISS guys.

Suppose the Iranians had one of their buddies watching the drone base.
When they saw a drone take off, the guy just called a contact by cell and
the Iranians turned on a wide coverage jammer somewhere along the flight
path.

From previous incidents and observations, if the drone came into the
jammed area, it'd lose GPS lock, orbit, and run out of gas and crash. They
could easily select a jammer site that was good for recovery.

FWIW,

-John





 Hi,

 Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on your
 own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great
 coverage, so much RF power out.

 Easy: Use a dish antenna on the transmitter.
 Very directional with large ampification.
 If using a 'moderate' opening angle, just pointing the dish at the drone
 by hand will work.
 After starting the system locked to the gps time, once the signal is on
 the drone,
 I don't think it matters anymore. (It might not even matter at the start?)
 The drone will follow the timing of the jammer.
 As the drone will receive all signals from the single transmitter, the
 relative timing will be fixed.
 Just using a OCXO will have a good enough short time stability to allow
 the system to work, I would think.
 As the plan is to land or jam the drone within say 10 minutes, long term
 stability is not that important...

 Greetings,
 Pieter.

 On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:



 You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the jammer.

 -John

 ==


 
  To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate
  the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
  timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what
 the
  receiver sees.
 
  When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough
 in
  timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.
 
  If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work.
 I
  would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
  background.
 
  Cheers,
  Magnus
 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Chris Stake

I agree entirely.
Chris Stake

 -Original Message-
 From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On
 Behalf Of David VanHorn
 Sent: 15 December 2011 22:50
 To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement;
 li...@lazygranch.com
 Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

 Note that the undercarriage is always hidden when it's shown.
 I suspect they simply jammed the GPS and command links, and it defaulted
 to an automatic soft landing on not so soft terrain.
 Rather less impressive, but still annoying.

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Kandahar has proven poor opsec since the thing was photographed! I don't 
know about the base in Baluchistan.


But even knowing the launch doesn't mean they know when it is on target. 
Supposedly the UAS is stealthy, so it would be hard to detect.



On 12/15/2011 4:00 PM, J. Forster wrote:

KISS guys.

Suppose the Iranians had one of their buddies watching the drone base.
When they saw a drone take off, the guy just called a contact by cell and
the Iranians turned on a wide coverage jammer somewhere along the flight
path.


From previous incidents and observations, if the drone came into the

jammed area, it'd lose GPS lock, orbit, and run out of gas and crash. They
could easily select a jammer site that was good for recovery.

FWIW,

-John






Hi,


Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on your
own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great
coverage, so much RF power out.


Easy: Use a dish antenna on the transmitter.
Very directional with large ampification.
If using a 'moderate' opening angle, just pointing the dish at the drone
by hand will work.
After starting the system locked to the gps time, once the signal is on
the drone,
I don't think it matters anymore. (It might not even matter at the start?)
The drone will follow the timing of the jammer.
As the drone will receive all signals from the single transmitter, the
relative timing will be fixed.
Just using a OCXO will have a good enough short time stability to allow
the system to work, I would think.
As the plan is to land or jam the drone within say 10 minutes, long term
stability is not that important...

Greetings,
Pieter.


On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forsterj...@quikus.com  wrote:




You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the jammer.

-John

==




To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate
the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what

the

receiver sees.

When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough

in

timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.

If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work.

I

would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
background.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

All I can say is that the sheet metal on that drone looks really good.
 I doubt it ran out of fuel.

They either landed it which would require very high level spoofing
ability or like I said use something like a butterfly net on it.   The
metal is just to straight for a crash.


On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, gary li...@lazygranch.com wrote:
 I've talked to the GPS jammers at Nellis and have seen their gear. They
 don't spoof but just jam. The gear is totally COTS. Some Marconi signal
 generator that can generate white noise at the two GPS frequencies. They
 have omni or directional antennas. They have an old Russian jammer on hand,
 but the Marconi works a lot better.

 I've been jammed by them. It is interesting in that the GPS just suddenly
 dies. That is, it seems to track given some noise, but you hit a point where
 it suddenly gives up. It is the only time I've seen no satellites shown on
 the display.

 It wouldn't surprise me if a Growler could spoof a GPS, but I have no hard
 evidence that it can.

 I'm in agreement with they just jammed everything and the thing ran out of
 fuel. I have a FOIA somewhere on a Predator crash. With LOS, it just orbits.
 In the case of this Predator, it orbited into a mountain near Creech AFB.


 On 12/15/2011 3:18 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

 I bet this drone contains no technology that is not exportable.  Of
 course they had to think about a crash.

 I also bet it had an inertial nav system as backup to the GPS.   But
 and this is the key to all backups.  You have to know the primary is
 failed.   When you jam GPS the smart way is not to over power it with
 white noise but to first transmit an IDENTICAL signal.  Then very
 slowly move your stronger signal away from truth until it is sending
 a false signal.   This way the receiver does not know it is being
 jammed.  No I did not just think of this, it's what everyone does.
  But why then if the INS and GPS disagree was there not an alarm?   It
 was likely a low-cost INS that needed periodic updates from a GPS

 I would not rule out that they simply made the drone fly into a big
 fishing net and dropped it with a parachute in a kind of controlled
 mid air collision.   Heck the US used to capture film cam falling from
 space with big nets

 Chris Albertson
 Redondo Beach, California

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-- 

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


It is composite, not metal.

If you know what you are doing, composites are extremely tough. I don't 
know if graphite is kosher on a stealth plane. I have to assume it is 
S-2 glass or similar nonconductive composites. But if graphite were 
allowed, you would be amazed at how much abuse it could take.



On 12/15/2011 4:15 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

All I can say is that the sheet metal on that drone looks really good.
  I doubt it ran out of fuel.

They either landed it which would require very high level spoofing
ability or like I said use something like a butterfly net on it.   The
metal is just to straight for a crash.


On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, garyli...@lazygranch.com  wrote:

I've talked to the GPS jammers at Nellis and have seen their gear. They
don't spoof but just jam. The gear is totally COTS. Some Marconi signal
generator that can generate white noise at the two GPS frequencies. They
have omni or directional antennas. They have an old Russian jammer on hand,
but the Marconi works a lot better.

I've been jammed by them. It is interesting in that the GPS just suddenly
dies. That is, it seems to track given some noise, but you hit a point where
it suddenly gives up. It is the only time I've seen no satellites shown on
the display.

It wouldn't surprise me if a Growler could spoof a GPS, but I have no hard
evidence that it can.

I'm in agreement with they just jammed everything and the thing ran out of
fuel. I have a FOIA somewhere on a Predator crash. With LOS, it just orbits.
In the case of this Predator, it orbited into a mountain near Creech AFB.


On 12/15/2011 3:18 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:


I bet this drone contains no technology that is not exportable.  Of
course they had to think about a crash.

I also bet it had an inertial nav system as backup to the GPS.   But
and this is the key to all backups.  You have to know the primary is
failed.   When you jam GPS the smart way is not to over power it with
white noise but to first transmit an IDENTICAL signal.  Then very
slowly move your stronger signal away from truth until it is sending
a false signal.   This way the receiver does not know it is being
jammed.  No I did not just think of this, it's what everyone does.
  But why then if the INS and GPS disagree was there not an alarm?   It
was likely a low-cost INS that needed periodic updates from a GPS

I would not rule out that they simply made the drone fly into a big
fishing net and dropped it with a parachute in a kind of controlled
mid air collision.   Heck the US used to capture film cam falling from
space with big nets

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Hi

Hard to detect looking horizontally, pretty easy looking straight up (or 
straight down from above it).

Bob


On Dec 15, 2011, at 7:14 PM, gary wrote:

 Kandahar has proven poor opsec since the thing was photographed! I don't know 
 about the base in Baluchistan.
 
 But even knowing the launch doesn't mean they know when it is on target. 
 Supposedly the UAS is stealthy, so it would be hard to detect.
 
 
 On 12/15/2011 4:00 PM, J. Forster wrote:
 KISS guys.
 
 Suppose the Iranians had one of their buddies watching the drone base.
 When they saw a drone take off, the guy just called a contact by cell and
 the Iranians turned on a wide coverage jammer somewhere along the flight
 path.
 
 From previous incidents and observations, if the drone came into the
 jammed area, it'd lose GPS lock, orbit, and run out of gas and crash. They
 could easily select a jammer site that was good for recovery.
 
 FWIW,
 
 -John
 
 
 
 
 
 Hi,
 
 Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on your
 own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great
 coverage, so much RF power out.
 
 Easy: Use a dish antenna on the transmitter.
 Very directional with large ampification.
 If using a 'moderate' opening angle, just pointing the dish at the drone
 by hand will work.
 After starting the system locked to the gps time, once the signal is on
 the drone,
 I don't think it matters anymore. (It might not even matter at the start?)
 The drone will follow the timing of the jammer.
 As the drone will receive all signals from the single transmitter, the
 relative timing will be fixed.
 Just using a OCXO will have a good enough short time stability to allow
 the system to work, I would think.
 As the plan is to land or jam the drone within say 10 minutes, long term
 stability is not that important...
 
 Greetings,
 Pieter.
 
 On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forsterj...@quikus.com  wrote:
 
 
 
 You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the jammer.
 
 -John
 
 ==
 
 
 
 To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to generate
 the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
 timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what
 the
 receiver sees.
 
 When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough
 in
 timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.
 
 If this scenario is true... then they have not done their home-work.
 I
 would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
 background.
 
 Cheers,
 Magnus
 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Has anybody seen the underside? It could have pancaked or crashed on sand
or something. I've no idea of the terrain at the crash site.

-John

===

 All I can say is that the sheet metal on that drone looks really good.
  I doubt it ran out of fuel.

 They either landed it which would require very high level spoofing
 ability or like I said use something like a butterfly net on it.   The
 metal is just to straight for a crash.


 On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, gary li...@lazygranch.com wrote:
 I've talked to the GPS jammers at Nellis and have seen their gear. They
 don't spoof but just jam. The gear is totally COTS. Some Marconi signal
 generator that can generate white noise at the two GPS frequencies. They
 have omni or directional antennas. They have an old Russian jammer on
 hand,
 but the Marconi works a lot better.

 I've been jammed by them. It is interesting in that the GPS just
 suddenly
 dies. That is, it seems to track given some noise, but you hit a point
 where
 it suddenly gives up. It is the only time I've seen no satellites shown
 on
 the display.

 It wouldn't surprise me if a Growler could spoof a GPS, but I have no
 hard
 evidence that it can.

 I'm in agreement with they just jammed everything and the thing ran out
 of
 fuel. I have a FOIA somewhere on a Predator crash. With LOS, it just
 orbits.
 In the case of this Predator, it orbited into a mountain near Creech
 AFB.


 On 12/15/2011 3:18 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

 I bet this drone contains no technology that is not exportable.  Of
 course they had to think about a crash.

 I also bet it had an inertial nav system as backup to the GPS.   But
 and this is the key to all backups.  You have to know the primary is
 failed.   When you jam GPS the smart way is not to over power it with
 white noise but to first transmit an IDENTICAL signal.  Then very
 slowly move your stronger signal away from truth until it is sending
 a false signal.   This way the receiver does not know it is being
 jammed.  No I did not just think of this, it's what everyone does.
  But why then if the INS and GPS disagree was there not an alarm?   It
 was likely a low-cost INS that needed periodic updates from a GPS

 I would not rule out that they simply made the drone fly into a big
 fishing net and dropped it with a parachute in a kind of controlled
 mid air collision.   Heck the US used to capture film cam falling from
 space with big nets

 Chris Albertson
 Redondo Beach, California

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 --

 Chris Albertson
 Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Maybe you can hear them taking off?

-John

=


 Hi

 Hard to detect looking horizontally, pretty easy looking straight up (or
 straight down from above it).

 Bob


 On Dec 15, 2011, at 7:14 PM, gary wrote:

 Kandahar has proven poor opsec since the thing was photographed! I don't
 know about the base in Baluchistan.

 But even knowing the launch doesn't mean they know when it is on target.
 Supposedly the UAS is stealthy, so it would be hard to detect.


 On 12/15/2011 4:00 PM, J. Forster wrote:
 KISS guys.

 Suppose the Iranians had one of their buddies watching the drone base.
 When they saw a drone take off, the guy just called a contact by cell
 and
 the Iranians turned on a wide coverage jammer somewhere along the
 flight
 path.

 From previous incidents and observations, if the drone came into the
 jammed area, it'd lose GPS lock, orbit, and run out of gas and crash.
 They
 could easily select a jammer site that was good for recovery.

 FWIW,

 -John

 



 Hi,

 Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on
 your
 own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great
 coverage, so much RF power out.

 Easy: Use a dish antenna on the transmitter.
 Very directional with large ampification.
 If using a 'moderate' opening angle, just pointing the dish at the
 drone
 by hand will work.
 After starting the system locked to the gps time, once the signal is
 on
 the drone,
 I don't think it matters anymore. (It might not even matter at the
 start?)
 The drone will follow the timing of the jammer.
 As the drone will receive all signals from the single transmitter, the
 relative timing will be fixed.
 Just using a OCXO will have a good enough short time stability to
 allow
 the system to work, I would think.
 As the plan is to land or jam the drone within say 10 minutes, long
 term
 stability is not that important...

 Greetings,
 Pieter.

 On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forsterj...@quikus.com  wrote:



 You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the
 jammer.

 -John

 ==



 To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to
 generate
 the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
 timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what
 the
 receiver sees.

 When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough
 in
 timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.

 If this scenario is true... then they have not done their
 home-work.
 I
 would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
 background.

 Cheers,
 Magnus

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Hi

Radar bounces off the flat sides very nicely ….

Bob


On Dec 15, 2011, at 7:41 PM, J. Forster wrote:

 Maybe you can hear them taking off?
 
 -John
 
 =
 
 
 Hi
 
 Hard to detect looking horizontally, pretty easy looking straight up (or
 straight down from above it).
 
 Bob
 
 
 On Dec 15, 2011, at 7:14 PM, gary wrote:
 
 Kandahar has proven poor opsec since the thing was photographed! I don't
 know about the base in Baluchistan.
 
 But even knowing the launch doesn't mean they know when it is on target.
 Supposedly the UAS is stealthy, so it would be hard to detect.
 
 
 On 12/15/2011 4:00 PM, J. Forster wrote:
 KISS guys.
 
 Suppose the Iranians had one of their buddies watching the drone base.
 When they saw a drone take off, the guy just called a contact by cell
 and
 the Iranians turned on a wide coverage jammer somewhere along the
 flight
 path.
 
 From previous incidents and observations, if the drone came into the
 jammed area, it'd lose GPS lock, orbit, and run out of gas and crash.
 They
 could easily select a jammer site that was good for recovery.
 
 FWIW,
 
 -John
 
 
 
 
 
 Hi,
 
 Of course, but then when you switch on your transmitter you are on
 your
 own. Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great
 coverage, so much RF power out.
 
 Easy: Use a dish antenna on the transmitter.
 Very directional with large ampification.
 If using a 'moderate' opening angle, just pointing the dish at the
 drone
 by hand will work.
 After starting the system locked to the gps time, once the signal is
 on
 the drone,
 I don't think it matters anymore. (It might not even matter at the
 start?)
 The drone will follow the timing of the jammer.
 As the drone will receive all signals from the single transmitter, the
 relative timing will be fixed.
 Just using a OCXO will have a good enough short time stability to
 allow
 the system to work, I would think.
 As the plan is to land or jam the drone within say 10 minutes, long
 term
 stability is not that important...
 
 Greetings,
 Pieter.
 
 On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, J. Forsterj...@quikus.com  wrote:
 
 
 
 You could just have a GPS receiver and use that to sync up the
 jammer.
 
 -John
 
 ==
 
 
 
 To transmit a GPS cluster signal you need a GPS simulator to
 generate
 the cluster so even a single transmitter can do this, the relative
 timing and not the different positions of the transmitters is what
 the
 receiver sees.
 
 When over-powering the real birds you just needs to be close enough
 in
 timing, and it is the location of the target which is of interest.
 
 If this scenario is true... then they have not done their
 home-work.
 I
 would ask a number of critical questions already from my civilian
 background.
 
 Cheers,
 Magnus
 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Chuck Harris


The problem I have seen with the light weight electronic inertial
guidance sensors is they drift off course very quickly.  You would need
to be able to correct them several times per minute...  Good enough to
keep a plane flying straight and level, and in the general direction of
target, but not good enough to hit the target...

-Chuck Harris

li...@lazygranch.com wrote:

It depends on if they use the civilian or military GPS signal. Spoofing the
military signal should be tough.

Inertial guidances isn't all that heavy these days. Laser ring gyros for 
instance
or perhaps MEMs could be used.


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 3:41 PM, Joe Leikhim wrote:

Arriving this week, IEEE Magazine this months issue has an article about
pilot-less commercial airliners, comparing the UAV drone technology as
being readily available to fly paying passengers from here to there.
Coincidentally the table of contents page depicts a drone which appears
to be this very same Beast of Kandahar taking off! I look forward to
the future letters column. I for one would not trust a pilot-less plane
to transport me knowing that a terrorist need only to jam or spoof the
GPS constellation, and bring down hundreds of planes.



Oddly enough, most airplanes do NOT use GPS as their primary navigation 
system.  VOR/DME (or TACAN) is one.  Inertial Nav is another.  One of 
the big deals about the 747, in fact, was that it carried a high 
performance Inertial Nav unit allowing it to do long distance overwater 
flights and wind up close enough to not miss the destination airport. 
(Look up North Atlantic Minimum Navigational Performance Standards in 
the FARs).  This was also one of the uses of the late lamented OMEGA system.


In fact one of the reasons for WAAS is that it provides signals to warn 
aircraft that the GPS signals are invalid.



Sure, GPS makes it easy to do things like JDAM strapons for bombs, but 
folks have been flying cruise missiles (which are basically UAVs with a 
warhead) with IMU and terrain comparison for decades.


Which isn't a whole lot different than a human flying a small plane by 
dead reckoning and pilotage.



For what it's worth, the real issue with UAVs is that they aren't very 
mechanically reliable.  The crash rate is on the order of 1 per 500 
flight hours. (compare to a F16 at around 1 per 50,000 hrs, commercial 
airliners are hugely more reliable.. 1 flight with at least one fatality 
per 5 million flights ) Fine in a battle zone or out over deserted 
areas, not so practical carrying passengers or doing surveillance over a 
city.  If you flew a single UAV 24/7 you'd have a crash about once every 
3 weeks.



The hard part is NOT the navigation or communication or flight controls. 
It's keeping the engine running.


Heck, the proposed

LightSquared system could bring the planes down.




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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 2:06 PM, Jim Palfreyman wrote:

Fascinating.

I can picture setting up a bunch of transmitters in the hills to send out
strong GPS-like signals to mimic the real thing. I suppose you could
control those signals to fool the device it is somewhere else. That bit is
very clever - you'd have to adjust the signals taking into account current
positions of all current satellites. Smart bit of work there.

But it would also need incredible timing. Even a few ns out and it wouldn't
work. So how do you set up fantastic timing at different locations of
transmitters throughout a country. Well you've blocked the GPS - so that's
no good.

It would require local atomic clocks (good ones) at each location.

Do they have access to such things? Maybe I'm being naive.

Jim





This would be insanely difficult to do. and hmm.. do you think that the 
antenna on the drone is pointing UP (towards the GPS constellation) or 
down (towards jammers?).  The only people pointing antennas down are 
ones experimenting with precision landing systems and pseudolites or 
people doing bistatic radar using GPS as illuminators.


As Jim points out you have to time the signals very carefully, and think 
about what the jamming signals needs to look like... you have to (very 
accurately) know where the victim is (so that you can broadcast your 
spoofing signals with the correct timing so that they arrive at the 
victim within a fraction of chip.. Let's see now, that UAV is covered 
with radar absorbing material, and the shape is such that it probably 
has a radar cross section of a few square centimeters.  How will you 
know where it is accurately enough to generate that spoofing signal 
(say, within a meter).



And, of course and it has to start synced with the real GPS signal so it 
can pull it off gradually)


Oh, and you need to be able to encrypt the fake GPS signal (assuming 
that the UAV is using a P/Y capable receiver).


AND, your spoof trajectory has to be carefully designed so that it's 
not too different from what the UAVs internal IMU is telling it.  After 
all, a failure of GPS or IMU is something they design for, so they're 
always cross checking  (just like human pilots do..   Hey, GPS is 
reading 500kts and I'm in a Piper Cherokee... I think the GPS on the blink)




Nope.. UAV engine quits, it goes into glide to the ground doing the 
least damage mode... UAV ditches in a gravel and sand covered field 
(with which much of eastern Iran is covered).



Even LightSquared, idiotic and pernicious as it may be, would have a 
hard time bringing down a UAV.



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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 2:17 PM, Charles P. Steinmetz wrote:

John wrote:


Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer Tells Christian Science
Monitor that CIA's spy aircraft was 'spoofed' into landing in enemy
territory instead of its home base in Afghanistan
Iran guided the CIA's lost stealth drone to an intact landing inside
hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the
US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured
drone's systems inside Iran.


-- snip --

If the report in the article is true, we deserve to lose drones to
countries like Iran for not having the sense to install an inertial
guidance system to back up and reality check the GPS. (Omitting IGS
would be such a major gaffe that it calls into question the veracity of
the Iranian claims. Were we really that stupid, or that cheap?)



Especially since you need the IMU to run the flight controls to keep the 
darn thing upright and flying straight.


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Steve .

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Peter Gottlieb n...@verizon.net wrote:

 Just watch how GPS stuff will get all restricted now.

 I'm curious if the lightsquared folks will try to use this as leverage to
debunk the importance of GPS.
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread bg

Having a +20m wingspan, getting very decent inertial sensors is no
problem. ca 6kg on a 5000kg(?) vehicle is no problem.


http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/ln251-digital-ins-gps/assets/ln251.pdf

--

Björn




 The problem I have seen with the light weight electronic inertial
 guidance sensors is they drift off course very quickly.  You would need
 to be able to correct them several times per minute...  Good enough to
 keep a plane flying straight and level, and in the general direction of
 target, but not good enough to hit the target...

 -Chuck Harris

 li...@lazygranch.com wrote:
 It depends on if they use the civilian or military GPS signal. Spoofing
 the
 military signal should be tough.

 Inertial guidances isn't all that heavy these days. Laser ring gyros for
 instance
 or perhaps MEMs could be used.


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 2:24 PM, Azelio Boriani wrote:

There are GPS simulators for lab use (never seen live or in a picture), I
suppose they have one connector to feed the GPS receiver antenna.
Generating in one equipment all the signals you don't need many but only
one precise timing source.




Not quite (there's a discussion of this on the list about a year or so 
ago)...


It's harder than you think to generate realistic fake signals for a 
moving target.


At work (JPL) we have a fancy Spirent GPS simulator.  And sure enough, 
it can generate all the signals your receiver would see given a 
particular path you expect your receiver to follow.


But, in order to use that to provide a spoofing signal, you'd need to 
know (fairly precisely)


a) the position and velocity of the victim
b) the position and velocity(zero) of the jamming station

You calculate what the expected time,code phase, and doppler of the GPS 
signals would be at the victim.  Then, you subtract out the time from 
jammer to victim and the doppler from jammer to victim, and use that 
generate your spoofing signal.


Then, the trajectory of the spoofed position has to be something that is 
internally consistent (i.e. the acceleration, velocity, and position all 
have to agree in the Kalman filter), and you have to continously update 
your jamming signal with continuously updated position and velocity of 
the victim.



Spoofing GPS is very hard.It was designed to be so, both for its 
original military purposes and because you want internal consistency 
checks to make sure you aren't displaying false information to a user.


Jamming GPS to deny it is relatively easy. A high power swept tone does 
it very nicely on inexpensive receivers. There are more sophisticated 
approaches.  You can buy them for $20 on the internet that plug into a 
car cigarette lighter.  You get one of these jammers, put it on an 
airplane with a big power amplifier and fly above your sovereign 
territory and you can deny GPS to pretty much everyone underneath you. 
There are receiver designs that can tolerate tone or swept or barrage 
jammers, but they are more expensive, heavier, etc, and I suspect they 
wouldn't bother on a UAV.


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 2:26 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:

I would say without question the answer is YES!

When the US DOD switched its backing to COTS electronics in all
of its defense hardware, it also went looking for the cheapest
way to get the most bang for the buck with defense hardware.

They certainly would be willing to save 100 lbs of inertial
guidance hardware if 8 ounces of GPS hardware could get the
plane on target.


except that off the shelf military IMUs are more like half a kilo.

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 4:30 PM, Bob Camp wrote:

Hi

Hard to detect looking horizontally, pretty easy looking straight up (or 
straight down from above it).




Hard to detect against ground clutter looking down (assuming the Iranis 
have suitable radars that can do this).  Maybe thermal signature from 
exhaust might help.



Stealthy doesn't mean invisible. Think low tech.. a bunch of guys out in 
the desert with cellphones .. I just heard it come over


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 4:53 PM, Bob Camp wrote:

Hi

Radar bounces off the flat sides very nicely ….



You are right, it does, but it doesn't bounce BACK towards the observer, 
which is what you care about.  Consider a flat plate at a 45 degree 
angle from you.  All the radar energy bounces to the side.  Turns out 
that it's diffraction from the edges of those sides that's the limiting 
aspect.



The first stealth planes (e.g. F-117) were all flat surfaces because you 
could actually calculate the reflections and make sure you didn't 
inadvertently create a corner reflector.


This is one reason that bistatic radar (transmitter and receiver in 
different places) is interesting.  You can detect things that have very 
low monostatic radar cross section (RCS).  (also, radar transmitters are 
easy to shoot at, because they're like a big beacon saying here I 
am... so put out a bunch of transmitters and one receiver and have the 
expensive signal processing and operators at the receiver, which is 
entirely passive).


Even better, you can use something benign as an illuminator... Many of 
us have used a TV station as a passive illuminator for a bistatic radar, 
using your analog TV set as the detector.



Later, as computational horsepower increased, they could make nice 
swoopy surfaces with low RCS, and what's more to the point, low bistatic 
RCS.



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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 4:23 PM, gary li...@lazygranch.com wrote:
 It is composite, not metal.

 If you know what you are doing, composites are extremely tough. I don't know
 if graphite is kosher on a stealth plane. I have to assume it is S-2 glass
 or similar nonconductive composites. But if graphite were allowed, you would
 be amazed at how much abuse it could take.

I used to build white water kayaks.   We used some plain old e-glass
and some kevlar, carbon and s-glass.   Yes it can be tough.  Once we
rolled a Ford Bronco with boats tied to the roof rack.   Did OK but we
where lucky to not have any of the lighter racing boats.

But still, running out of fuel?  There would have been little bits of
airplane all over a hundred feet or more.I can't see how it could
survive an impact with the ground so well.

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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[time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread ed breya

My guess is that the drone was on one mission out of many over Iran, 
and one of these scenarios occurred:


1. It had a major internal failure and auto-landed or crashed, and 
was then spotted and grabbed.


2. There was operator error or guidance failure, causing same result.

3. The Iranians finally spotted one and managed to shoot it down - or 
do enough damage to force a landing.


4. It was an inside job - a mole or a hacker taking over from the 
control end, or maybe messing with it enough to crash it.


5. The Iranians did as claimed - managed to interfere with it or 
spoof it to land. If so, I think the know-how and equipment would 
likely have come from Russia or China, who would have likely been 
working on this type of thing since the advent of GPS.


Scenarios 4 and 5 are the scariest. What about cruise missiles? This 
is all sounding like a movie plot.


I wonder the following questions:

Shouldn't these and other possibilities have been considered all 
along, and various countermeasures worked out?


Do these drones have self-destruct capability?

Don't they also have plenty of video and sensing and other real-time 
data linked back to base that would confirm proper guidance and 
operation? At some point there must have been some indication that 
all was not well.


Ed



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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Hi

Looking at the gizmo they have on display, I'd bet you get a pretty good return 
off the bottom of the beast. Not quite as good a return off of the top. Indeed 
the issue does date to F-117 days, they had to calculate mission parameters to 
keep the sides from facing the wrong way...

Bob


On Dec 15, 2011, at 8:29 PM, Jim Lux wrote:

 On 12/15/11 4:53 PM, Bob Camp wrote:
 Hi
 
 Radar bounces off the flat sides very nicely ….
 
 
 You are right, it does, but it doesn't bounce BACK towards the observer, 
 which is what you care about.  Consider a flat plate at a 45 degree angle 
 from you.  All the radar energy bounces to the side.  Turns out that it's 
 diffraction from the edges of those sides that's the limiting aspect.
 
 
 The first stealth planes (e.g. F-117) were all flat surfaces because you 
 could actually calculate the reflections and make sure you didn't 
 inadvertently create a corner reflector.
 
 This is one reason that bistatic radar (transmitter and receiver in different 
 places) is interesting.  You can detect things that have very low monostatic 
 radar cross section (RCS).  (also, radar transmitters are easy to shoot at, 
 because they're like a big beacon saying here I am... so put out a bunch of 
 transmitters and one receiver and have the expensive signal processing and 
 operators at the receiver, which is entirely passive).
 
 Even better, you can use something benign as an illuminator... Many of us 
 have used a TV station as a passive illuminator for a bistatic radar, using 
 your analog TV set as the detector.
 
 
 Later, as computational horsepower increased, they could make nice swoopy 
 surfaces with low RCS, and what's more to the point, low bistatic RCS.
 
 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Wait a second. Rolling a Bronco on your composite is not a tough enough
test? You should get an award.

If the UAS is designed to maintain controlled flights while out of fuel,
it could be in much better shape than if it was a lawn dart.

Hard to believe, but the chances of surviving a plane crash are about
50%. Again, this is with a pilot attempting to maintain controlled flight.

There are mandrel schemes to make composites, much better than the foam
core schemes we backyard types makes. Those relatively cheap COTS
composite tubes are done with the mandrel technique, but apparently it
can be used for shapes that are more complex.

I've got an older copy of Prof. Strong's book. Good reading if you are
into this stuff.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Fundamentals_of_composites_manufacturing.html?id=aCm9yvodiJcC

To keep this remotely on topic, S-2 glass is usually what they use in
radomes. The dielectric constant is close to free air. C-glass is good
also, but not as strong as S-2. They use S-2 in the AWACS dome.

http://www.agy.com/markets/PDFs/NEW_AGY205AWACS.pdf

On 12/15/2011 5:32 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 4:23 PM, garyli...@lazygranch.com wrote:

It is composite, not metal.

If you know what you are doing, composites are extremely tough. I don't know
if graphite is kosher on a stealth plane. I have to assume it is S-2 glass
or similar nonconductive composites. But if graphite were allowed, you would
be amazed at how much abuse it could take.

I used to build white water kayaks. We used some plain old e-glass
and some kevlar, carbon and s-glass. Yes it can be tough. Once we
rolled a Ford Bronco with boats tied to the roof rack. Did OK but we
where lucky to not have any of the lighter racing boats.

But still, running out of fuel? There would have been little bits of
airplane all over a hundred feet or more.I can't see how it could
survive an impact with the ground so well.

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Hi

Put a $35 eBay rubidium on board and you would have to be sure the time 
solution stayed correct as the take over was implemented. 

I know strange to tie timing into a discussion like this :)….

Bob


On Dec 15, 2011, at 8:20 PM, Jim Lux wrote:

 On 12/15/11 2:24 PM, Azelio Boriani wrote:
 There are GPS simulators for lab use (never seen live or in a picture), I
 suppose they have one connector to feed the GPS receiver antenna.
 Generating in one equipment all the signals you don't need many but only
 one precise timing source.
 
 
 
 Not quite (there's a discussion of this on the list about a year or so ago)...
 
 It's harder than you think to generate realistic fake signals for a moving 
 target.
 
 At work (JPL) we have a fancy Spirent GPS simulator.  And sure enough, it can 
 generate all the signals your receiver would see given a particular path you 
 expect your receiver to follow.
 
 But, in order to use that to provide a spoofing signal, you'd need to know 
 (fairly precisely)
 
 a) the position and velocity of the victim
 b) the position and velocity(zero) of the jamming station
 
 You calculate what the expected time,code phase, and doppler of the GPS 
 signals would be at the victim.  Then, you subtract out the time from jammer 
 to victim and the doppler from jammer to victim, and use that generate your 
 spoofing signal.
 
 Then, the trajectory of the spoofed position has to be something that is 
 internally consistent (i.e. the acceleration, velocity, and position all have 
 to agree in the Kalman filter), and you have to continously update your 
 jamming signal with continuously updated position and velocity of the victim.
 
 
 Spoofing GPS is very hard.It was designed to be so, both for its original 
 military purposes and because you want internal consistency checks to make 
 sure you aren't displaying false information to a user.
 
 Jamming GPS to deny it is relatively easy. A high power swept tone does it 
 very nicely on inexpensive receivers. There are more sophisticated 
 approaches.  You can buy them for $20 on the internet that plug into a car 
 cigarette lighter.  You get one of these jammers, put it on an airplane with 
 a big power amplifier and fly above your sovereign territory and you can deny 
 GPS to pretty much everyone underneath you. There are receiver designs that 
 can tolerate tone or swept or barrage jammers, but they are more expensive, 
 heavier, etc, and I suspect they wouldn't bother on a UAV.
 
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Michael Costolo

This is all very interesting. I may have missed it if it was posted previously,
but here they claim what they did to dupe and land the bird. Now how much of
this is true remains to be seen. I'm curious how plausible the story is.

Is there no way to have some validation of the integrity of a GPS signal?

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1215/Exclusive-Iran-hijacked-US-drone-says-Iranian-engineer

-Mike-

On Dec 15, 2011, at 8:56 PM, Bob Camp li...@rtty.us wrote:

Put a $35 eBay rubidium on board and you would have to be sure the time
solution stayed correct as the take over was implemented.

I know strange to tie timing into a discussion like this :)….

Bob

On Dec 15, 2011, at 8:20 PM, Jim Lux wrote:

On 12/15/11 2:24 PM, Azelio Boriani wrote:
There are GPS simulators for lab use (never seen live or in a picture), I
suppose they have one connector to feed the GPS receiver antenna.
Generating in one equipment all the signals you don't need many but only
one precise timing source.

Not quite (there's a discussion of this on the list about a year or so
ago)...

It's harder than you think to generate realistic fake signals for a moving
target.

At work (JPL) we have a fancy Spirent GPS simulator. And sure enough, it
can generate all the signals your receiver would see given a particular path
you expect your receiver to follow.

But, in order to use that to provide a spoofing signal, you'd need to know
(fairly precisely)

a) the position and velocity of the victim
b) the position and velocity(zero) of the jamming station

You calculate what the expected time,code phase, and doppler of the GPS
signals would be at the victim. Then, you subtract out the time from jammer
to victim and the doppler from jammer to victim, and use that generate your
spoofing signal.

Then, the trajectory of the spoofed position has to be something that is
internally consistent (i.e. the acceleration, velocity, and position all
have to agree in the Kalman filter), and you have to continously update your
jamming signal with continuously updated position and velocity of the victim.

Spoofing GPS is very hard.It was designed to be so, both for its original
military purposes and because you want internal consistency checks to make
sure you aren't displaying false information to a user.

Jamming GPS to deny it is relatively easy. A high power swept tone does it
very nicely on inexpensive receivers. There are more sophisticated
approaches. You can buy them for $20 on the internet that plug into a car
cigarette lighter. You get one of these jammers, put it on an airplane with
a big power amplifier and fly above your sovereign territory and you can
deny GPS to pretty much everyone underneath you. There are receiver designs
that can tolerate tone or swept or barrage jammers, but they are more
expensive, heavier, etc, and I suspect they wouldn't bother on a UAV.

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread shalimr9

Few aircrafts can fly as high as this plane, not sure the Iranians have one.

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...

-Original Message-
From: Chris Albertson albertson.ch...@gmail.com
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:45:30 
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurementtime-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Azelio Boriani
azelio.bori...@screen.it wrote:
  Considering the speed of a drone (700Km/h?) you need a great coverage,
 so much RF power out.

No.  The transmitter could be in an aircraft that follows the drone,
maybe only 100 feet away.

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread shalimr9

The CIA probably has a good idea of what happened. You are unlikely to hear 
their version of the events on national television.

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...

-Original Message-
From: Joe Leikhim jleik...@leikhim.com
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:48:28 
To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'time-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: jleik...@leikhim.com,
Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

This mindset is an example why the US is falling so far behind the rest of the 
world, not only in technology but in the diplomacy game. In 1980 I worked for a 
very smart engineering manager who told me he studied electrical engineering by 
the light of a gasoline lantern in a tent in Turkey.

US officials skeptical of Iran's capabilities blame a malfunction, but so far 
can't explain how Iran acquired the drone intact. One American analyst 
ridiculed Iran's capability, telling Defense News that the loss was like 
dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.

-- 
Joe Leikhim

Leikhim and Associates
Communications Consultants
Oviedo, Florida

www.Leikhim.com

jleik...@leikhim.com

407-982-0446

Note to GMail Account users. Due to an abnormally high volume of spam 
originating from bogus GMail accounts, I have found it necessary to block 
certain GMail traffic. Please phone me if you believe your message was not 
received.


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Brooke Clarke

Hi Azelio:

Yes, see:

a first generation single signal GPS generator
http://www.prc68.com/I/5001A.html

and a newer GPS sig gen that can simulate 5 L1 and 5 L2 signals:
http://www.prc68.com/I/NTgpsSTR2760.shtml

Not only is precise timing not required, there's no provision for it on the NT
SRT2760 simulator.

The method of capturing the drone I think I've figured out.

Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
http://www.PRC68.com
http://www.end2partygovernment.com/Brooke4Congress.html

Azelio Boriani wrote:

There are GPS simulators for lab use (never seen live or in a picture), I
suppose they have one connector to feed the GPS receiver antenna.
Generating in one equipment all the signals you don't need many but only
one precise timing source.

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Jim Palfreymanjim77...@gmail.com wrote:

Fascinating.

It would require local atomic clocks (good ones) at each location.

Do they have access to such things? Maybe I'm being naive.

Jim

On 16 December 2011 08:10, J. Forsterj...@quikus.com wrote:

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off

communications

links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who
works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently

trying

to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could

not

be named for his safety.

Afghanistan.

where the bird loses its brain.

The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US,
Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an

ever-widening

covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear
scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and

the

Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program.

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9398341-a-growing-iranian-threat-in-wake-of-us-military-withdrawal-from-iraq-this-month

Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing
indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is

plausible.

Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation,

says

former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that
it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it
flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the

technology

is there.”

In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have

downloaded

live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with
inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to
actually take control of a

Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Brooke Clarke


Hi:

Most modern cars use the CAN bus and those with built-in cell phones have a connection between the two.  For example the 
GM Omni Star system that detects air bag deployment and calls 911, or that can unlock you can when you have locked the 
keys inside.  See the opening scenes of the movie After the Sunset http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367479/


Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
http://www.PRC68.com
http://www.end2partygovernment.com/Brooke4Congress.html


mike cook wrote:

I wonder how long it will be before we see Brinks vans, Ferrari's and other 
more mundane GPS dependent things being hijacked. Possibilities seem limitless.
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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Michael Costolo
michael.cost...@gmail.com wrote:

 Is there no way to have some validation of the integrity of a GPS signal?

Yes there is.  One way is to cary an inertial navigation system and
compare you position using INS and GPS and if they differ try and
guess which is correct.   You can also have the third nab system that
uses radar to match the topography.   Cruise missile cary all three
but then those were designed to cary atomic warheads.  My bet is this
drone was considered expendable and build as cheaply as something like
this can be built

I doubt one could spoof GPS to the degree required to land an
airplane.  But looks at how straight the skin is, I doubt it crashed
into the ground either.

I suspect this drone did not use any truly sensitive technology as
they had to figure a few would crash or get shot down.

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Bill Hawkins

MIC CHECK!

It is time to occupy this thread with something that is time-nutty.

The previous thread on gravity control of a pendulum clock was hijacked
by Jim Palfreyman to a conflict on the metric system, that led to
something completely off topic continuing under the SAME SUBJECT.

Now John Forster seeks to introduce military conflict into this list
with the false drone that the US deliberately let the Iranians have.
Of course we came up with a story to make them believe they did it.

Does that have anything to do with leap seconds? Determining the
speed of neutrinos? Pushing back the limits of accuracy of atomic
time? Using an ancient GPSB program to activate a board found on
eBay? Searching for the perfect divider?

John Ackerman, this list is too large. It needs pruning.

We need more people to occupy this list with stuff that is on topic,
rather than be driven away by people who crave conflict.

Best wishes to all as the solemnity of the solstice approaches.
The solstice, at least, is about real planetary time.

Have at it, while you can.

Bill Hawkins


-Original Message-
From: J. Forster
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 3:10 PM
To: time-nuts@febo.com; vintage-military-ra...@yahoogroups.com
Cc: armyrad...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

Iran hijacked US drone, claims Iranian engineer  Tells Christian Science
Monitor that CIA's spy aircraft was 'spoofed' into landing in enemy
territory instead of its home base in Afghanistan
Iran guided the CIA's lost stealth drone to an intact landing inside
hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the
US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured
drone's systems inside Iran.



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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,

2011-12-15 Thread Brooke Clarke


Hi Joe:

The new L5 GPS frequency is to prevent that.  But it's not yet operational.

Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
http://www.PRC68.com
http://www.end2partygovernment.com/Brooke4Congress.html


Joe Leikhim wrote:
Arriving this week, IEEE Magazine this months issue has an article about pilot-less commercial airliners, comparing 
the UAV drone technology as being readily available to fly paying passengers from here to there. Coincidentally the 
table of contents page depicts a drone which appears to be this very same Beast of Kandahar taking off! I look 
forward to the future letters column. I for one would not trust a pilot-less plane to transport me knowing that a 
terrorist need only to jam or spoof the GPS constellation, and bring down hundreds of planes. Heck, the proposed 
LightSquared system could bring the planes down.




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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


Oh I don't know. How about an Alpha Jet.

http://www.irandefence.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=44ppuser=9968


The Google boys own one of these too!

On 12/15/2011 6:58 PM, shali...@gmail.com wrote:

Few aircrafts can fly as high as this plane, not sure the Iranians have one.

Didier KO4BB


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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,


On 12/15/11 5:51 PM, ed breya wrote:

My guess is that the drone was on one mission out of many over Iran, and
one of these scenarios occurred:

1. It had a major internal failure and auto-landed or crashed, and was
then spotted and grabbed.

2. There was operator error or guidance failure, causing same result.

3. The Iranians finally spotted one and managed to shoot it down - or do
enough damage to force a landing.

4. It was an inside job - a mole or a hacker taking over from the
control end, or maybe messing with it enough to crash it.

5. The Iranians did as claimed - managed to interfere with it or spoof
it to land. If so, I think the know-how and equipment would likely have
come from Russia or China, who would have likely been working on this
type of thing since the advent of GPS.

Scenarios 4 and 5 are the scariest. What about cruise missiles? This is
all sounding like a movie plot.

I wonder the following questions:

Shouldn't these and other possibilities have been considered all along,
and various countermeasures worked out?


Yep. and I'm sure they have.



Do these drones have self-destruct capability?



Of course they do, for things that matter.. software loaded into the 
processors is stored in a battery backed up ram with breakwires or other 
tamper detectors, or equivalent approaches.


Stealth low radar observable technology (at the level evident in these 
things) is widely published. The materials are well known, the design 
principles have been in the open literature for quite a while.


Any sort of fancy engine technology is more in the metallurgy and 
manufacturing of the hot-section parts.  Having an engine in front of 
you doesn't tell you much about how to cast and machine turbine blades.


autopilot algorithms are widely published as open source

The list goes on.



Don't they also have plenty of video and sensing and other real-time
data linked back to base that would confirm proper guidance and
operation? At some point there must have been some indication that all
was not well.



Right.. and say you had an engine failure.  So you get to watch the 
engine RPM go to zero, as it nicely glides back to earth.  You might 
even be able to send a command to try and turn it towards home.  Maybe 
you issue the forget all you know command.






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Re: [time-nuts] The GPS navigation is the weakest point,