--- From: "Erich M" <meat_private> To: berniesat_private Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 22:05:20 +0100 Subject: Re: FC: More on bin Laden's radio communications system, clarifications CC: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dear Bernie, Declan, What I sent to you was a pretty quickly done summary of the contents of my 7000 characters German language article. I tried to "translate" it in into foreign language named English in a way that people not at all HF-experienced would understand the point: not crypto was used but simple masquerading. If Taleban/Al Quaeda had used crypto in their data broadcasts they would have been identified immediately as a target. Relief orgs hardly use crypto as you can see in those screenshots below. The source of this is Joerg Klingenfuss, 25 years in radio monitoring. You can see pretty new screenshots from data transmissions coming from Afghanistan based relief orgs there http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/klingenfuss/hotfrequ.htm Concerning the rest of the critique: > there is no such thing as a "high power HF SSB handset." What I meant: a low power handset communicating with the "high power HF SSB" Station. That is the Codan standard product connecting the handsets as you would have known rechecking the Codan website, Bernie > > CODAN HF radios are not addressable, although they can be optionally > equipped to be and used in that manner a user-selectable basis. Well, yes, I know that. And if they were made adressable? That is their number one feature! And the necessary radio modems, using ARQ Protocols? No addressing, when they exchange data? Come on... > > it is laughable to assume that afghans, taleban, or others using radios > stolen from UN personnel would use UN callsigns, or bother with using > callsigns at all. they might use some code names to differentiate > themselves, but certainly not UN callsigns. if they wanted to try to > confuse listeners, they could use any two-way radios and callsigns they > wanted to. That is what I wrote. Most of the [very much different] ham radio and professional transceivers I saw had their callsigns glued to the equipment. Steal a transceiver [as they undoubtedly did] , use the callsign *written* on it as ID in voice calls, speak Pashtu like most of the relief workers - identification is not that easy, then. > HF radios with voice encryption are readily available on the commercial > market from two-way companies like motorola, racal, etc. it's a question > of bandwidth: if you're only using a 5khz voice channel it's not possible, > but if you're using wider bandwidth spread-spectrum HF, then it is possible > and often used by US military. it's not likely the taleban uses these, but > it's a certainty the u.s. military there is. > 5-bit "Baudot" code (more properly called Moore coding) was once popular > for low data rate radioteletype (RTTY) data over HF channels, but it's > rarely used anymore. Have you ever seen encrypted shortwave data transmissions from embassies around the [third] world? They all use some kind of 5 digit number encryption code that *resembles* Baudot, that is what I wrote > the two-way radio held by usama bin laden (seen in that frequently > rebroadcast archive video) is a VHF transceiver that operates somewhere in > the 30-300mhz range. Archive, yes. What do you think the US destroyed first? Right: any VHF and UHF base stations, easy to target, if they could find many. I doubt that. Codan, more or less the market leader, has been shipping only HF-Stations to Afghanistan, as they wrote in an e-mail. UHF and VHF military communications do not make any sense in Afghanistan if you can't use satellite uplinks or have a working net of *many* VHF/UHF radio towers. You need to turn to good ol' dirty shortwave > > it's certainty that u.s. forces have sophisticated radio direction-finding > equipment in several locations in afghanistan that scan and record all > radio activity in the region, including bearing (direction) data. Right. But they had difficulties *identifying* the radio activities as possible Taleban fighters and that is why so many UN and NGO offices were hit by "friendly fire" cu Erich -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.8 -- QDPGP 2.61c Comment: http://community.wow.net/grt/qdpgp.html iQA/AwUBPB5QASfG0CJMDx3nEQIHdgCeK2NAKNA4hR5YKCOeBJDVNliMfD0AoLae +X3mSimqoXsrQq73Q57V7ZnL =7pYA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------------- Taeglich frische IT-Nachrichten http://futurezone.orf.at ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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