[Ground-station] Brazilian RF pirates on old Military GEO comms sats.

[KC9SGV]

Agreed.
QO-100 runs without a required sub audible PL tone.
Maybe a random, alternating PL tone is all we need.
Change it every month or so.
Advise the users via a mail list like this.

KC9SGV


Sent from my iPad

> On Aug 19, 2019, at 10:29 AM, Michelle Thompson <mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Authentication is part of the air interface, and not just in the hardware, so any home brew would have to comply. Otherwise, you just don’t get through. 
> 
> We assume auth/auth management is part of operations and is the operator’s responsibility. It’s up to the operator to decide to use all the functions. They’d have to make sure they had enough people on the job to not slow down new users. You addressed exactly this potential bottleneck. 
> 
> It can be run wide open, with no checks, and then be changed depending on status (e.g. emergency traffic only may mean only credentialed people can use it).
> 
> Spoofing is hard. It is not impossible, but in general, for security to work, you just have to make it hard enough for attempts to drop to zero. It doesn’t have to be mathematically perfect, or eliminate every way to break in. 
> 
> If all any malcontent can do is raise the noise floor, then we have been extremely successful. That seems achievable with what we’ve assumed as the baseline security design. Needs testing! 
> 
> -mdt
> 
>> On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 08:15 KC9SGV <kc9sgv at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Well trod ground, certainly.
>> Recent ham radio systems like Echolink, Winlink, IRLP, etc. come to mind.
>> To access these systems, the individual ham is authenticated and authorized.
>> If this is done by hand, individually....good luck with that.
>> A full time job for somebody with the resultant delays in authorization.
>> 
>> Authentication is not to stop the enterprising, criminal element to usurp an old "CW only" operator's call sign and operate digitally through the satellite, even with an on-board data base.
>> Such old "CW only" operator will never have the reason to suspect his callsign is being used nefariously....
>> 
>> Most of the client ground station hardware will be home brewed anyway, with no authentication chips in place.
>> 
>> Maybe, authentication via cell phone before each QSO, is what is needed.
>> The way on-line banks now authenticate customers for on-line banking transactions.
>> 
>> Bernard,
>> KC9SGV
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On Aug 19, 2019, at 9:36 AM, Michelle Thompson <mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> This is one of the biggest reasons our designs are regenerative repeaters with authentication and (optional) authorization. 
>>> 
>>> Background info is in the repo, but the essential mechanism is what LotW uses combined with white and black lists. Requires a database in the payload and enough horsepower to afford the overhead.
>>> 
>>> Fortunately, it’s well trod ground. It would be even better with a working authentication/authorization demo, but we just got a good channelizer working. We are much closer to a working end to end demo than we were just a few weeks ago. 
>>> 
>>> *Enabling legacy traffic through the aggregator is a special case. The aggregated traffic is tagged, but the individual traffic channels (FM hts, p25, d-star) would not necessarily be individually authenticated. 
>>> 
>>> -mdt
>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 07:02 John Klingelhoeffer via Ground-Station <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>> Unless we configure an appropriate authentication system, I am afraid we will suffer a similar fate.  So much for open transponders.   
>>>> 
>>>>> On Sun, Aug 18, 2019 at 1:07 PM KC9SGV via Ground-Station <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>>> I agree and understand that.
>>>>> So let us concentrate on getting our very own, very legal ham GEO sat up for Region 2 ASAP.
>>>>> Hopefully these old 1970's technology military comms sats are not completely abandoned by the various Western militaries.
>>>>> For fun, revisit the movie "Space Cowboys" with Clint Eastwood now on Netflix.
>>>>> Somewhat related.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Bernard,
>>>>> KC9SGV
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Aug 18, 2019, at 12:16 PM, Timestep <help at time-step.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> It's easy world wide communication.  However the USA Government will track you down...........
>>>>>>  
>>>>>> Regards
>>>>>>  
>>>>>> Dave  G 4IUG
>>> -- 
>>> -Michelle W5NYV
>>> 
>>> "Potestatem obscuri lateris nescis."
>>> 
> -- 
> -Michelle W5NYV
> 
> "Potestatem obscuri lateris nescis."
> 
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