"The GPS navigation is the weakest point,"
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: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of Jim Palfreyman
Sent: 15 December 2011 22:07
To: jfor@quikus.com; 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 jfor@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 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
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If it jams your GPS - quite a lot!!
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of J. Forster
Sent: 16 December 2011 06:24
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] "The GPS navigation is the weakest point,"
And what does LightSquared have to do with time-nuttery?
-John
============
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-RADAR@yahoogroups.com
Cc: armyradios@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.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to
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and follow the instructions there.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to
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and follow the instructions there.
I suspect it crashed and got mamgled badly, and they took 3 days to make the best model they could out of balsa wood. The bottom was so mangled that they could not replicate it well enough for the picture, so they did not do that.
Didier KO4BB
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Albertson albertson.chris@gmail.com
Sender: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:34:35
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 6:31 PM, Michael Costolo
michael.costolo@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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Alpha Jet Tiger? Looks more like a 'Cheetah'. Fast but no stamina.
Joe
-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of gary
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2011 10:41 PM
To: shalimr9@gmail.com; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] "The GPS navigation is the weakest point,"
Oh I don't know. How about an Alpha Jet.
The Google boys own one of these too!
On 12/15/2011 6:58 PM, shalimr9@gmail.com wrote:
Few aircrafts can fly as high as this plane, not sure the Iranians
have one.
Didier KO4BB
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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and follow the instructions there.
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-RADAR@yahoogroups.com
Cc: armyradios@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
[snip]
How soon we forget:
"--------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [time-nuts] Using Thyme for Stuffed Mushrooms
From: "Bill Hawkins" bill@iaxs.net
Date: Thu, November 24, 2011 8:55 pm
To: "'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'"
time-nuts@febo.com
Stuffed mushrooms are a fine holiday treat. Begin with a box of baby
Portabella (Crimini) mushrooms. You know, the ones that start out as
spores in a soil of horse manure and hay in a dark, moist limestone
cave.
The young mushrooms dream of becoming large, but one day the cave is
filled with light and men with sharp knives cut them off at the knees.
That's what you buy at the store. Clean out the stems and the gills to
make room for the stuffing. For ten 5 cm mushrooms, you need 15 to 20
cm of a medium carrot and a stalk of celery, finely chopped. Include
some onion if you like; the mushrooms are beyond caring.
Sautee them with a clove of finely chopped garlic and add a pinch or
two of dried thyme. Cool, then blend with Panko bread crumbs and
shredded Parmesan to taste. Stuff the mushrooms and bake at 165 C
for 10 minutes, then 3 minutes under the broiler.
Make time to enjoy the product with a suitable wine. This is really a
great use of your thyme.
Oh, wait - this isn't the thyme-nuts list.
Never mind.
Bill Hawkins
The above was intended to entertain. Please don't be offended."
I agree. Bravo Bravo
Don Lewis
Austin, TX
-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of J. Forster
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 4:02 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: [time-nuts] Double Standard ??
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-RADAR@yahoogroups.com
Cc: armyradios@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
[snip]
How soon we forget:
"--------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [time-nuts] Using Thyme for Stuffed Mushrooms
From: "Bill Hawkins" bill@iaxs.net
Date: Thu, November 24, 2011 8:55 pm
To: "'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'"
time-nuts@febo.com
Stuffed mushrooms are a fine holiday treat. Begin with a box of baby
Portabella (Crimini) mushrooms. You know, the ones that start out as
spores in a soil of horse manure and hay in a dark, moist limestone
cave.
The young mushrooms dream of becoming large, but one day the cave is
filled with light and men with sharp knives cut them off at the knees.
That's what you buy at the store. Clean out the stems and the gills to
make room for the stuffing. For ten 5 cm mushrooms, you need 15 to 20
cm of a medium carrot and a stalk of celery, finely chopped. Include
some onion if you like; the mushrooms are beyond caring.
Sautee them with a clove of finely chopped garlic and add a pinch or
two of dried thyme. Cool, then blend with Panko bread crumbs and
shredded Parmesan to taste. Stuff the mushrooms and bake at 165 C
for 10 minutes, then 3 minutes under the broiler.
Make time to enjoy the product with a suitable wine. This is really a
great use of your thyme.
Oh, wait - this isn't the thyme-nuts list.
Never mind.
Bill Hawkins
The above was intended to entertain. Please don't be offended."
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.