I'm sure they have access to whatever they need. Set up a bunch of pseudolites, and of you go....
Rob Kimberley -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Palfreyman Sent: 15 December 2011 22:07 To: [email protected]; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] "The GPS navigation is the weakest point," 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 <[email protected]> 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 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 Iran's nuclear program. > > 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-ira > nian-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-H > ow-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, now that Iran can apparently disrupt the work of US drones. > > 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." > > A former senior Iranian official who asked not to be named said: > "There are a lot of human resources in Iran.... Iran is not like Pakistan." > > "Technologically, our distance from the Americans, the Zionists, and > other advanced countries is not so far to make the downing of this > plane seem like a dream for us . but it could be amazing for others," > deputy IRGC commander Gen. Hossein Salami said this week. > Iran: Obama should apologize for drone 'spying'< > http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9417003-iran-obama-sho > uld-apologize-for-drone-spying-operation > > > > According to a European intelligence source, Iran shocked Western > intelligence agencies in a previously unreported incident that took > place sometime in the past two years, when it managed to "blind" a CIA > spy satellite by "aiming a laser burst quite accurately." > > More recently, Iran was able to hack Google security certificates, > says the engineer. In September, the Google accounts of 300,000 > Iranians were made accessible by hackers. The targeted company said "circumstantial evidence" > pointed to a "state-driven attack" coming from Iran, meant to snoop on > users. > > Cracking the protected GPS coordinates on the Sentinel drone was no > more difficult, asserts the engineer. > > *US knew of GPS systems' vulnerability *Use of drones has become more > risky as adversaries like Iran hone countermeasures. The US military > has reportedly been aware of vulnerabilities with pirating unencrypted > drone data streams since the Bosnia campaign in the mid-1990s. > Top US officials said in 2009 that they were working to encrypt all > drone data streams in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan - after finding > militant laptops loaded with days' worth of data in Iraq - and > acknowledged that they were "subject to listening and > exploitation."Perhaps as easily exploited are the GPS navigational > systems upon which so much of the modern military depends. > "GPS signals are weak and can be easily outpunched [overridden] by > poorly controlled signals from television towers, devices such as > laptops and MP3 players, or even mobile satellite services," Andrew > Dempster, a professor from the University of New South Wales School of > Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, told a March conference on > GPS vulnerability in Australia. > > "This is not only a significant hazard for military, industrial, and > civilian transport and communication systems, but criminals have > worked out how they can jam GPS," he says. > > *Unmanned drone attacks and shape-shifting robots: War's > remote-control future*< > http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/1022/Unmanned-drone-attacks > -and-shape-shifting-robots-War-s-remote-control-future > > > > The US military has sought for years to fortify or find alternatives > to the GPS system of satellites, which are used for both military and > civilian purposes. In 2003, a "Vulnerability Assessment Team" at Los > Alamos National Laboratory published research explaining how weak GPS > signals were easily overwhelmed with a stronger local signal. > > "A more pernicious attack involves feeding the GPS receiver fake GPS > signals so that it believes it is located somewhere in space and time > that it is not," reads the Los Alamos report. "In a sophisticated > spoofing attack, the adversary would send a false signal reporting the > moving target's true position and then gradually walk the target to a > false position." > > The vulnerability remains unresolved, and a paper presented at a > Chicago communications security conference in October laid out > parameters for successful spoofing of both civilian and military GPS > units to allow a "seamless takeover" of drones or other targets. > > To "better cope with hostile electronic attacks," the US Air Force in > late September awarded two $47 million contracts to develop a > "navigation warfare" system to replace GPS on aircraft and missiles, > according to the Defense Update website. > > Official US data on GPS describes "the ongoing GPS modernization program" > for the Air Force, which "will enhance the jam resistance of the > military GPS service, making it more robust." > > *Why the drone's underbelly was damaged *Iran's drone-watching project > began in 2007, says the Iranian engineer, and then was stepped up and > became public in 2009 - the same year that the > RQ-170 was first deployed in Afghanistan with what were then > state-of-the-art surveillance systems. > In January, Iran said it had shot down two conventional (nonstealth) > drones, and in July, Iran showed Russian experts several US drones - > including one that had been watching over the underground uranium > enrichment facility at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom. > > In capturing the stealth drone this month at Kashmar, 140 miles inside > northeast Iran, the Islamic Republic appears to have learned from two > years of close observation. > > Iran displayed the drone on state-run TV last week, with a dent in the > left wing and the undercarriage and landing gear hidden by > anti-American banners. > > The Iranian engineer explains why: "If you look at the location where > we made it land and the bird's home base, they both have [almost] the > same altitude," says the Iranian engineer. "There was a problem [of a > few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird's underbelly was > damaged in landing; that's why it was covered in the broadcast footage." > > Prior to the disappearance of the stealth drone earlier this month, > Iran's electronic warfare capabilities were largely unknown - and often dismissed. > > "We all feel drunk [with happiness] now," says the Iranian engineer. > "Have you ever had a new laptop? Imagine that excitement multiplied many-fold." > When the Revolutionary Guard first recovered the drone, they were > aware it might be rigged to self-destruct, but they "were so excited > they could not stay away." > > ** **Scott Peterson* > <http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Scott+Peterson > >*, > the Monitor's Middle East correspondent, wrote this story with an > Iranian journalist who publishes under the pen name Payam Faramarzi > and cannot be further identified for security reasons. > * > > *C 2011 The Christian Science Monitor* > > < > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45685870/ns/world_news-christian_science_m > onitor/# > > > > > Best, > > -John > =============== > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
