Dave wrote:
Tim, you have a great thing going with the BB. I am former Army CI, currently private and in the process of constructing a corporate CI team. Your contributors bring vast experience and knowledge to the table, and I find it's always worth my time to stop by. Curious why the BB hasn't been up lately. Lack of input? Also interested in your observations of 2.4 gig and above threat trends. Will we continue to see an up-tick in these high frequency threats, or is this more of a novelty due to wide availability? Are the Avcom SR's with 3 gig extender sufficient for this type threat or slightly higher freq.'s?
Dave,
I've had a couple of others ask the same thing and I'll post the answer to everyone.
It has been mainly because of lack of time; I've been running in smaller and smaller circles, trying to keep up with requests. Now, I just have to figure out how to price the service. :<)
I'll try to get something else posted later this weekend, but if you aren't on the e-mail list, you may be missing some good stuff there. Some of it, I just post as an e-mail to the members and don't followup and place it on the BB.
I, personaly haven't seen any activity above about 950 to 1 GHz, but understand it is out there. I'd definately plan on finding more in those ranges in the future as it has suddenly become easy to build transmitters and receivers which operate in the upper frequencies.
As for Avcom, the equipment is only as good as the operator. It would take longer to do the search, but I feel that there a few out there (who know who they are) who could use something as basic as an ICOM R-10 and do as good an RF search as most who have the latest in whizbangs. Tuning and gawking doesn't accomplish much. As the man in the song says, "You got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em". I hit it lucky just yesterday (showoff that I am) when I tuned to a signal and was explaining how to analyze a signal using the OSCOR. Would you believe, I picked up a signal riding under the main frequency (it was another commercial station), but it proved my point.
I'm using the OSCOR 5000 for the main sweep, but also have a Scout which I married to an ICOM R-10. It was being zinged like crazy during a sweep I was doing for a client's meeting earlier this week in which they were using 20 mw transmitters operating in the 780 MHz range. The scout sensed from about 20 feet away and I was able to listen to the meeting from a point about 200 yards away on the R-10. I couldn't go any further because of the fence (and I still had full scale bargraph on the R-10).
Something else I've noticed (for you OSCOR owners), you may find that youi are intercepting audio in the 16 to 18 MHz range depending on the freq of the wireless Microphone. I got it on the OSCOR, tuned it on the R-10 and received it and walked across the same parking lot. Still didn't loose it.
Thanks to Kevin, again, for the next two.
E-PRIVACY bill introduced
"It's the most crypto-friendly bill yet filed. Why does it raise the little hairs on the back of my neck?" (Dawson)Senators John Ashcroft and Patrick Leahy have introduced the E- PRIVACY Act (and have back-formed a plausible expansion of the acronym, with which I won't bore you). Here is the text of the bill [16] and here is an analysis of its plusses and drawbacks from the point of view of privacy and civil liberties [17]. It was largely drafted by the industry group Americans for Computer Privacy, whose purpose is to get encryption export controls lifted for the benefit of US commerce and trade. Despite their name, privacy for citizens is not ACP's main concern. The E-PRIVACY bill contains a provision criminalizing any use of crypto in the commission of a crime, and it subjects products for export to heightened, if expedited, scru- tiny. Finally the bill would establish a federal resource center to train local law enforcement officers in code-breaking and other technology useful for wiretapping or eavesdropping. The bill is given little chance of passing in this session of Congress.
[16] http://www.epic.org/crypto/legislation/eprivacy.html
[17] http://www.epic.org/crypto/legislation/epriv_analysis.html
Subject: Missing encryption & Oval Office surveillance tapes...
Reprinted for your amusement and edification...
DRUDGE REPORT
By Matt Drudge
WED MAY 20 1998 12:32:55 EDT
REPORT: ENCRYPTION MISSING AFTER US/CHINA ACCIDENT
**Exclusive**
One major issue that made Defense and State Department types nervous about the launching of U.S satellites from Chinese rockets was how to protect encryption equipment that is built into a satellite and electronically interprets commands from ground controllers who manipulate the bird once it is in orbit.
"Similar devices are used to communicate with American spy satellites, and the Pentagon and intelligence agencies worried that anyone who could crack the code could take control of the satellites themselves," NEW YORK TIMES hotshot Jeff Gerth reported last week.
Commerce and Clinton types argued that encryption equipment would be embedded into the satellite and the device would not present a military risk -- the Chinese would be unable to get their hands on the encryption because American military officials "watch the satellites with care when they are in Chinese hands."
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, live from Botswana, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer last weekend: When U.S. satellites are launched from Chinese rockets "they are put in a black box under DOD [Department of Defense] supervision. They're taken to China. They're put on top of the missile, and they're blown up to the sky. So there is no technology transfer."
Blitzer, who most always comes to the table with nothing more than press clippings and an attitude to conform, failed to raise a nightmare scenario with Berger: What if a Chinese booster failed to blow a satellite up to the sky and encryption somehow became exposed?
Events surrounding the Feb. 15, 1996 explosion of a Chinese rocket
carrying a $200 million U.S.A. LORAL
satellite seconds after liftoff at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center
in Sichuan Province in southern China --
events that are now at the center of a secret federal grand jury probe
-- may be such a nightmare, the DRUDGE
REPORT has learned.
A veteran employee of LORAL SPACE AND COMMUNICATIONS has described to the DRUDGE REPORT just what went down during a LORAL review of the 1996 failure.
"The most interesting aspect of the accident was this: engineers who reviewed the recovered payload debris noticed something special that was missing: encryption hardware."
The LORAL source, who worked at LORAL's satellite manufacturing facility when the Chinese launches began, continues: "I spoke to one of our engineers about a year after the explosion, he is like many at LORAL, retired military officers from the black programs of our military. His assumption was that the Chinese kept the encryption IC board with the intent of reverse engineering its function and that espionage was China's intent."
Another theory has the encryption IC board simply burning up during the rocket blast.
The Pentagon press office refused comment on this report.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
WED MAY 13 1998 21:26:04 EDT
STARR ZEROING IN ON OVAL OFFICE VIDEO SURVEILLANCE
**Exclusive**
For security reasons the Secret Service monitors, via closed circuit television, most areas of the White House, including the Oval Office.
President Clinton was somewhat reminded of this... recently.
According to case intelligence in the ongoing Lewinsky matter,
prosecutor Kenneth Starr has subpoenaed all
video recordings of the security closed circuit monitoring of the Oval
Office from 11/13/95 through
1/16/98...
X X X X X --
Kevin D. Murray CPP, CFE, CCO, BCFE
Murray Associates
Counterespionage Consultants to Business & Government
Specialists in Electronic Eavesdropping Detection
908-832-7900 / www.spybusters.com