[Milsurplus] [armyradios] FW: [UHF-Satcom] More on Satcom piracy
J. Forster
jfor at quik.com
Tue Apr 21 18:59:01 EDT 2009
>
>
> These guys are quite a bit smarter than I am when it comes to
> satcom. I wish I knew how to do this (even though I wouldn't do
> so)!
>
>
> Apr 21, 2009 09:46:35 PM, armyradios at yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
>
>
> FYI Regards, Glen Closson
> From: UHF-Satcom at yahoogroups.com [mailto:UHF-Satcom at yahoogroups.com]
> On Behalf Of allanstern at aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 2:35 PM
> To: RadioMonitors at yahoogroups.com; MilRadioComms at yahoogroups.com;
> FloridaMilcom at yahoogroups.com; FloridaComms at yahoogroups.com;
> SpaceCoastComms at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [UHF-Satcom] More on Satcom piracy
>
> http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2009/04/fleetcom
>
> CAMPINAS, Brazil — On the night of March 8, cruising 22,000 miles above
> the
> Earth, USN comms satellite FLTSAT-8 suddenly erupted with illicit
> activity. Jubilant voices and anthems crowded the channel on a junkyard's
> worth of homemade gear from across vast and silent stretches of the
> Amazon: Ronaldo, a Brazilian soccer idol, had just scored his first goal
> with the Corinthians.
>
> It was a party that won't soon be forgotten. Ten days later, Brazilian
> Federal Police swooped in on 39 suspects in six states in the largest
> crackdown to date on a growing problem here: illegal hijacking of US
> military satellite transponders.
>
> "This had been happening for more than five years," says Celso Campos, of
> the Brazilian Federal Police. "Since the communication channel was open,
> not
> encrypted, lots of people used it to talk to each other."
>
> The practice is so entrenched, and the knowledge and tools so widely
> available, few believe the campaign to stamp it out will be quick or
> easy.
>
> Much of this country's geography is remote, and beyond the reach of
> cellphone coverage, making American satellites an ideal, if illegal,
> communications option. The problem goes back more than a decade, to the
> mid-1990s, when Brazilian radio technicians discovered they could jump on
> the UHF freqs dedicated to satellites in the Navy's Fleet Satellite Comm
> system, or FLTSATCOM. They've been at it ever since.
> Truck drivers love the birds because they provide better range and sound
> than ham radios. Rogue loggers in the Amazon use the satellites to
> transmit
> coded warnings when authorities threaten to close in. Drug dealers and
> organized criminal factions use them to coordinate operations.
>
> Today, the satellites, which pirates called "Bolinha" or "little ball,"
> are
> a national phenomenon.
>
> "It's impossible not to find equipment like this when we catch an
> organized
> crime gang," says a police officer involved in last month's action.
>
> The crackdown, called "Operation Satellite," was Brazil's first
> large-scale
> enforcement against the problem. Police followed coordinates provided by
> the
> US Dept of Defense and confirmed by Anatel, Brazil's FCC. Among those
> charged were university professors, electricians, truckers and farmers,
> the police say. The suspects face up to four years and jail, but are more
> likely to be fined if convicted.
>
> First lofted into orbit in the 1970s, the FLTSATCOM bird was at the time
> a
> major advance in military communications. Their 23 channels were used by
> every branch of the US armed forces and the White House for encrypted
> data
> and voice, typically from portable ground units that could be quickly
> unpacked and put to use on the battlefield.
>
> As the original FLTSAT constellation of four satellites fell out of
> service,
> the Navy launched a more advanced UFO satellite (for Ultra High Frequency
> Follow-On) to replace them. Today, there are two FLTSAT and eight UFO
> birds
> in geosynchronous orbit. Navy contractors are working on a
> next-generation
> system called Mobile User Objective System beginning in September 2009.
>
> Until then, the military is still using aging FLTSAT and UFO satellites
> —
> and so are a lot of Brazilians. While the technology on the transponders
> still dates from the 1970s, radio sets back on Earth have only improved
> and
> plummeted in cost — opening a cheap, efficient and illegal backdoor.
>
> To use the satellite, pirates typically take an ordinary ham radio
> transmitter, which operates in the 144- to 148-MHZ range, and add a
> frequency doubler cobbled from coils and a varactor diode. That lets the
> radio stretch into the lower end of FLTSATCOM's 292- to 317-MHz uplink
> range. All the gear can be bought near any truck stop for less than $500.
> Ads on specialized websites offer to perform the conversion for less than
> $100. Taught the ropes, even rough electricians can make Bolinha-ware.
>
> "I saw it more than once in truck repair shops," says amateur radio
> operator
> Adinei Brochi (PY2ADN) "Nearly illiterate men rigged a radio in less than
> one minute, rolling wire on a coil."
>
> Brochi, who assembled his first radio set from spare parts at 12, has
> been
> tracking the Brazilian
> satellite hacking problem (.pdf) for years.
>
> Brochi says the Pentagon's concerns are obvious.
>
> "If a soldier is shot in an ambush, the first thing he will think of
> doing
> will be to send a help request over the radio," observes Brochi. "What if
> he's trying to call for help and two truckers are discussing soccer? In
> an
> emergency, that soldier won't be able to remember quickly how to change
> the
> radio programming to look for a frequency that's not saturated."
>
> When real criminals use these frequencies, it's easy to tell they're
> hiding
> something, but it's nearly impossible to know what it is. In one
> intercepted
> conversation posted to
> YouTube, a man alerts a friend that he should watch out, because things
> are
> getting "crispy" and "strong winds" are on their way.
>
> Sometimes loggers refer to the approach of authorities by saying, "Santa
> Claus is coming," says Brochi.
>
> When the user's location is stable, the signal can be triangulated.
> That's
> how the DoD got the coordinates to feed Brazilian authorities in March's
> raids.
>
> While Brazil may be the world capital of FLTSATCOM hijacking, there have
> been cases in other countries — even in the United States. In February
> of
> last year, FCC investigators used a mobile direction-finding vehicle to
> trace rogue transmissions to a Brazilian immigrant in New Jersey. When
> the
> investigators inspected his radio gear, they found a transceiver
> programmed
> to a FLTSAT frequency, connected to an antenna in the back of his house.
> Joaquim Barbosa was hit with a $20,000 fine.
>
> A technician with Anatel, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the
> chief
> problem with ending the satellite abuse in this country is that U.S. and
> Brazilian authorities simply waited too long to start. Thousands of users
> are believed to have the know-how to use the system. After a bust, the
> airwaves always go quiet for a while, but the hijackers always return.
>
> One week after the "Operation Satellite," Brochi met with Wired.com at a
> gathering of amateur radio enthusiasts in a bucolic square in Campinas,
> about 60 miles north of Sao Paulo. Brochi switches on his UHF receiver
> and
> scans through the satellite frequencies.
>
> It's relatively quiet now on the satellite underground, except for the
> static-like sound of encrypted military traffic. But eventually, a lone
> creaky voice cuts through. It's a man in Porto Velho, the capital of
> Rondônia, a day's drive north into the upper Amazon basin. He's making
> small talk with a friend in Portuguese. The satellite pirates are
> creeping back on the air.
>
> AL STERN Satellite Beach FL
> AllanStern at aol.com
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MilRadioComms
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CivilAirComms
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HFmonitors
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FloridaMilcom
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FloridaComms
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpaceCoastComms
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