Russia 'intercepts Europe's key satellites'

grantwest 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The real headline here is “Anyone can control Europe’s key satellites because they didn’t bother to put encryption on billions of dollars worth of critical infrastructure”

	▲	direwolf20 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		US satellites are the same

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Havoc 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

“Sensitive” satellites have unencrypted command channels?!?!

Even with narrow transmission angle that seems like a bold strategy

Encoding sensitive message is a thing since dark ages

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lxgr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, this is pretty standard, even in military contexts.

For example, military aircraft ACARS communications are often entirely in plaintext, and don't forget the famous "Predator drone video feed intercepted via $26 software" incident: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB126102247889095011

However, that's only the data they forward, and this can be more or less trivially fixed at several layers, since many of these communication satellites are just "bent pipes" that often don't even digitally demodulate what they receive before frequency-shifting and rebroadcasting it.

Authentication is a bit more challenging; interesting things can happen even when traffic itself is encrypted, such as Brazilean truckers using your expensive military communications satellite as a football chat room: https://www.wired.com/2009/04/fleetcom/

Beyond payload encryption/authentication, satellite operational commands (e.g. engine and inertia wheel control, power management etc.) should have been encrypted for decades, though (and are one of the few explicitly carved out exemptions to otherwise strict "no encryption on amateur radio bands" regulations), so these claims about "software kill commands" seems very worrying.

	▲	arethuza an hour ago \| parent [-]
		During the Falklands War some of the UK's European allies intercepted transmissions from Soviet spy satellites that allowed the location of the Argentinian fleet to be identified - this information was passed to the UK.

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direwolf20 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's clever. Normally you can't intercept satellite uplinks because they're pointed at the satellite. But if you have your own, highly manoeuvrable satellite...

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phplovesong 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Russia is a terrorist state. Nothing more, nothing less.

	▲	goodmythical 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		So is [insert list of commonly recognized nations]. What's your point?