SIGINT planes vs. radioisotope mapping

[Randy]

I recall a few years back, a single satellite lost stability, and it pretty 
much wiped out everyone's pagers, for
a few days. Just my way of saying that I don't have any clue as to how much 
point-to-point traffic may get
relayed by a bird at some point. I seem to recall that, years ago, the 
Transatlantic copper traffic entering and
leaving the US was shot via microwave link to/from the US terminus, over a 
bay, and allegedly there was a NSA
farmhouse on the line-of-site path of the link. The implication being that, 
yes, they "could" have just wired
around the bay, but instead there was an intentional opportunity for 
interception.

And I'll point out that long-haul comms to submarines are done with RF 
basically at audio frequencies, via
buried antennas....yeah, they DO use very high power, but aircraft are 
close and don't have salt-water and
thick earth to penetrate.

And if any of the copper is carrying digital data, square waves are hugely 
rich in harmonics well up into the
MHz bands, and would therefore tend to radiate better from any above-ground 
wires between poles, possibly
even roadside pedestals.

And I've seen alot of RF off of traditional CATV coax; don't know if 
fiber-optic cable systems might ultimately
have any tie-in to the coaxial feed to/from the headend.

Randy

At 09:13 PM 6/3/03 -0400, you wrote:
>Tim May wrote...
>
>"Landline signals are vastly harder to pick up, and I doubt strongly that 
>every minorly-radiating landline signal is being picked up."
>
>Of course, optical signals could never be remotely detected by air or even 
>without an optical tap. I doubt even aerial optical cable readiates enough 
>or in such a way as to be remotely detectable.
>
>However, the vast majority of "last mile" installations are still copper, 
>and copper does radiate. But I can't see how that could be detected by air 
>either. Even if there's enough radiation, it's going to get scattered and 
>diffracted to hell and gone as it passes through the sheath, concrete, and 
>then air.
>
>ANd of course, there's the bandwidth issue. In even a medium sized metro 
>area the sheer number of landlines will be huge, and any businesses will 
>be shipping out their traffic via T1 or fractional T1. Hence, one of those 
>airplanes would practically need a small CO to demultiplex all that 
>traffic (although even off-the-shelf silicon has come a LONG way from the 
>5ESS days, so the size factor will not be something to sneeze at).
>
>Nah. Any such AWAC-type recon 'surveys' must be seeking out targeted 
>information somehow. Perhaps there's some kind of electronic 'red dye' 
>that allow a specific set of users' calls to stand out? Is it possible 
>that 'interesting' landlines are dropped-and-continued on to some 
>narrowcasting point for air? This might be their way of getting around the 
>TIRKS and provisioning issues related to moving those lines a long 
>distance, and possibly through multiple carriers (but then again, that 
>just might be what DISAs' recently announced GIG-BE network is supposed to 
>solve!)
>
>-TD
>
>
>
>
>>From: Tim May <timcmay at got.net>
>>To: daw at mozart.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner)
>>CC: cypherpunks at lne.com
>>Subject: SIGINT planes vs. radioisotope mapping
>>Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 17:28:09 -0700
>>
>>On Tuesday, June 3, 2003, at 09:10  PM, David Wagner wrote:
>>
>>>Sampo Syreeni  wrote:
>>>>Rather it's the fact that the Big
>>>>Brother doesn't have the necessary total funds, and so doesn't listen into
>>>>a considerable proportion of calls as a whole.
>>>
>>>Yet.
>>>
>>>As far as we know.
>>>
>>>:-)
>>>
>>>I agree it's an economic issue, and law enforcement doesn't seem to
>>>listen in on a considerable proportion of calls as a whole at the moment.
>>>But what happens to costs in the future?  Remember, it takes 10 years
>>>to get any change to the cellphone/telecommunications infrastructure
>>>deployed, so it pays to think ahead.
>>>
>>>By the way, what's the story with those SIGINT planes supposedly
>>>advertised as being able to fly over a city and capture communications
>>>from the whole metropolitan area?  John Young had a pointer on his web
>>>site at one point.  Do you suppose they might snarf up all the cellphone
>>>traffic they can find, en masse?  What proportion of calls would that be,
>>>as a fraction of the whole?  One wonders whether your confidence in the
>>>security of cellphone traffic is well-founded.
>>
>>AWACS-type planes have long had the ability to act as "cell towers," so 
>>cell traffic is easily picked-up, if in fact they are doing this. 
>>Landline signals are vastly harder to pick up, and I doubt strongly that 
>>every minorly-radiating landline signal is being picked up.
>>
>>Perhaps for very, very targetted signals, but not cruising over general 
>>cities, it seems likely to me.
>>
>>I'm not sure of the context here, but in the past year there were some 
>>reports of planes circling over university campuses, and many were 
>>hypothesizing that SIGINT was being done on telephone and computer 
>>messages. This seemed unlikely to me.
>>
>>I concluded--and posted on Usenet about my thinking--that some campuses 
>>may have been targeted for low-level gamma ray surveys. Kind of a gamma 
>>ray version of Shipley's "war driving" maps. Possibly for construction of 
>>baseline maps of existing radioisotopes in university labs, hospitals, 
>>and private facilities. Then deviations from baseline maps could be 
>>identified and inspected in more detail with ground-based vans and black 
>>bag ops.
>>
>>--Tim May
>>"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize 
>>Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of 
>>conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are 
>>peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." --Samuel Adams
>
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