Dutch Radio Geek Tracking Libyan Airstrikes 187
jfruhlinger writes "The days when citizens could only learn about a distant war from the government or the institutional press are long over. A Dutch ex-military geek exemplifies the new way information comes out, tracking attack flights on Libya, and even tweeting messages to the US command responsible for the strikes."
Pertinent part of the article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:1, Informative)
http://begthequestion.info/ [begthequestion.info]
Gatta love this one... (Score:5, Informative)
@USAfricaCommand be advised, one of your WEASEL's F-16CJ from 23th FS Spangdahlem Germany has his transponder Mode-S on! NOT secure!
That means the F-16 in question was transmitting both its altitude and GPS position for all to see. Then again, if its truly a wild weasel platform [wikipedia.org], that may be entirely its intent.
Re:Hope he doesn't get into trouble (Score:5, Informative)
Some bastard could come along and accuse him of unauthorized "retransmission" of "illegally" intercepted signals
Extremely doubtful since the ATC frequencies he's listening to are specifically intended to be heard by public facilities. Anything heard on these frequencies are transmitted with the full intent and knowledge anyone and everyone can hear. Anything which is not intended for public consumption is transmitted over military frequencies and encrypted. The former is what he's listening to. The later would be completely unintelligible for anyone whos receivers have not been pre-programmed with the decryption keys. Programming with the proper keys is part of pre-flight procedures and handed out during the pre-mission briefing.
Absolutely nothing he's doing is secret or hard and is extremely unlikely to be illegal in any free country.
Re:Hope he doesn't get into trouble (Score:5, Informative)
Hope that was a joke, because the US gov't doesn't get to copyright anything -- it's all public domain.
Works by the US government are only non-copyrightable domestically. They can certainly hold foreign copyright on them, which would apply to a Dutch radio geek.
That would be self-defeating (Score:4, Informative)
why ALL aircraft transmissions (civilian or otherwise) aren't encrypted. ... we're only talking about a few hundred tons of metal flying through the air with thousands of gallons of jet fuel. What could possibly go wrong?
WHAT could go wrong? Let me tell you what could go wrong. There's a hundred tons of metal flying around. Its position is *secret* because some dumbfuck thought it would be better to encrypt all its transmissions.
Then comes uncle Bill in his Cessna. He doesn't know where the big passenger aircraft is, because its position is *secret*, since some dumbfuck though it necessary to encrypt all transmissions from the aircraft.
Do you begin to see now why aircraft transmissions *cannot* be encrypted?!!!
OK, I know your next argument; Imagine all aircraft transmissions are encrypted and all aircraft must have a receiver able to decode those transmissions. Only registered aircraft owners have access to the receivers, so what could possibly go wrong?
Think of the thousands of small airfields all over the world. Climb a fence, cut a padlock at night, pick a receiver. Or buy it from a salvage firm, grease some hands, whatever. It wouldn't stay secret very long (ask Sony about that).
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:5, Informative)
Current US law allows people to receive and listen to un-encrypted radio transmissions, except for cellular telephone channels, as long as the reception is for personal use only and not to be used in the commission of a crime.
That means you can sit around listening to the cops all day long, as long as you don't say "Hey, I heard all the cops are at the donut shop on the north side, so I can go rob the southside bank". It also means you can't legally sit around at your taxi company office and listen to the competition's radio system and jump their calls.
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:5, Informative)
Which ultimately begs the question as to why ALL aircraft transmissions (civilian or otherwise) aren't encrypted.
Legacy.
The cost of avionics is extremely high when those avionics go into a commercially-built aircraft; every piece of avionics must be certified for use in a specific aircraft model and revision. A VHF radio transceiver going into a home-built "experimental" aircraft can be less than half the price as that going into a Cessna 172, even though it is identical, new production. That approval-sticker is one expensive bit of paper and adhesive.
It gets far worse for passenger-carrying commercial aircraft. Not only does the equipment have to be certified for use in-type; when you change out the equipment, you have to update the aircraft's MEL (minimum equipment list) you also have to refresh your training regimen, and conduct that retraining and certification for any flight deck crew that might end up flying that plane, The expense would be very high, some carriers and private owners couldn't afford it, and it would involve downtime. It would certainly be a windfall for the likes of Bendix-King, but for commercial and private aircraft operators, a new avionics mandate that doesn't grandfather existing equipment is ruinous.
General aviation is already expensive enough and pilot shortages are happening. With the military turning out fewer and fewer pilots (they're paid well and with military air fleets becoming smaller and more expensive, there are fewer of them), with four-year aviation programs costing as much as Ivy League schools but with starting pay less than 40,000 a year, general aviation is critical for producing charter and airline pilots. General aviation is already in trouble, with new aircraft costing as much as a house, the existing fleet aging, and fuel and maintenance costs pushing operation of even a little 172 to near a hundred dollars per engine-hour. Adding a new five-figure-per-aircraft mandate is simply not possible.
As for open transmissions... that's a hard requirement, by treaty. Everyone has to be able to listen in on everyone else and be able to talk to everyone on a moment's notice. The aforementioned 172 is on the same frequencies as the 747s when they're in the same airspace. There's even a rule about language. Air traffic control is ALWAYS in English. Yeah yeah yeah cultural imperialism cry me a river. Everyone must understand everyone, or planes slam into each other.
I'm a private pilot; every time I fly I'm reminded that I could be digested by a Boeing Buzzard. Whenever I go near Class B or Class C airspace, ATC is constantly in communication with everyone asking "Do you see that 737? Good. Do you have visual on that Beechcraft? No? Descend 1000 feet." And in minor airports without an air traffic controller, the pilots perform their own control, by speaking to each other on a common frequency and following established procedures and calls at checkpoints. Set 122.7 Unicom. "Cessna 53614 inbound South County runway 31, on the 45 at the golf course. Cessna 53614 downwind, South County runway 31. Cessna 53614 on base, South County runway 31. Cessna 53614 on final, South County runway 31. Cessna 53614, clear of active runway." The guys I'm talking to, like me, are flying 40-year-old (or older!) aircraft with analog gauges, no on-aircraft radar, and a few don't even have transponders.
An example of why this is critical from my own experience. I was a student pilot at the aforementioned South County, practicing takeoffs and landings. Round and round touch-and-go, solo flights. There were four others doing the same. Everything was going like clockwork (well, counterclockwork, the pattern was counterclockwise), until... I had just taken off, climbing out on the "upwind" leg of the pattern. 65 knots, best climb rate, about 500 feet above ground level, when I saw an inbound aircraft aimed straight at me. The bastard was going the wrong way, and apparently on the wrong frequency. Slam the yoke forward, turn to the right.
Google Earth is amazing (Score:5, Informative)
The news media wasn't particularly helpful with geographic details either before the airstrikes or after. Their maps are very generalized and sometimes erroneous or omit important sites. The media would say "battles in Ras Lanuf in eastern Libya", and there was a poor sense of where exactly that was or how far it was from Benghazi (how long would it take Ghaddafi's forces to drive from there to Benghazi, for example?). And where exactly are the airfields and military bases that were either the source of Ghaddafi's attacks or the places being attacked by the local people?
So, in frustration, I spent a weekend finding all the visible airfields, military bases, surface-to-air missile, oil pipeline/storage tank/refinery/oil port infrastructure, etc. that I could spot in the Google Earth imagery. The Google Earth program is best for hunting, but Google Maps can show some of the results. For example, here's a SAM site to the south of Tripoli airport [google.com], here's a SAM site in Tripoli itself [google.com]. These seem to be two different types of missile setups, with missiles visible on the second one, but hidden in sheds in the first picture. Here's Mitiga air base [google.com] in Tripoli. If you look in the SE corner you can see MIGs parked on the ground. There are also some helicopters, including some big, twin-blade Chinooks. Here's a big ammo/weapons dump in the SE of the city [google.com]. Here's the ammo/weapons dump south of Adjdabiya [google.com] that the Ghaddafi forces bombed a few times to try to prevent the rebels from getting the stores there. Notice the difference in color of the ground -- the security fences keep the grazing wildlife out, so there are more plants inside the fence == darker. An easy way to spot the secure fenced-in areas even if you can't see the fence itself. Practically every major city has military bases of some size (usually high security fences with guard towers) where you can see APCs parked, or occasionally tanks and tank transporters and other heavy weapons. Even if you can't see them out in the open air you can often recognize the warehouses that have this sort of equipment because of the security fences and the very WIDE turns in the roads around the buildings. The various military airbases around the country (at least 8 or 10 of them) often have the planes hidden in earth-covered bunkers, but this centrally-located base near Hun [google.com] has plenty of visible aircraft, including ones recognizable as Tu-22 bombers [google.com] and MiG-25 fighters [google.com]. This large airbase south of Sirte [google.com] has quite a few small fighters visible in addition to transport aircraft on the big tarmacs.
Besides military assets, there are other types of infrastructure that are important, such as this large storage tank area to the SW of the Ras Lanuf oil port/refinery [google.com], where several pipelines converge. There are several storage/port areas like this at coastal points along the southern end of the Bay of Sirte. The oil fields them
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:4, Informative)
Traffic handling at private airports rely upon a common shared radio band. If you're in a Cessna 150 doing touch and goes at your local uncontrolled airport, and someone in a King Air announces on direct approach and a 3 mile final, this is useful information that keeps you both safe. Technically the lower of the two planes on approach gets the right of way, but if someone's flying a plane that stalls near what's considered a moderate speed for your plane, you get the hell out of the way.
With the King Air's announcement you know which direction he's landing (assuming you don't already know from normal operations or cross-winds), roughly when he's going to get there, and that you need to either park yourself in the pattern* or land and get the hell out of his way.
Most people think there's air traffic control everywhere. There is not, so traffic follows a predefined pattern with customary entrance and exit protocols. If you need to stay out of the final approach for someone, you have control to do that without asking anyone else, assuming you follow the predefined rules.
Re:Count down till.... (Score:5, Informative)
He did the same thing on forums during the '98 raids on Iraq, '99 in Serbia/Kosovo, some of 2001 in Afghanistan, IOF in '03, etc.
If the US military wanted to "talk to him" they would have before.
Some of the stuff he passes on is helpful, like identifying a plane that has a transponder set to the wrong setting, and passing it on to Africa Command.
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:4, Informative)
Wait, they don't switch these off, when they go for a bombing run? Doesn't this defeat the whole idea of stealth?
Not all military aircraft are stealth. Note one of the examples is a F-16 running Wild Weasel missions; not a stealth aircraft. Aircraft are also pretty noisy on the RF spectrum. During the Gulf War, there was a very high demand for F-4G Wild Weasels. Initial Weasel strikes did a pretty good job taking out the normal collection of AAA / SAM threats. But most missions still called for a F-4G in the mix to suppress remaining SAM threats. Those remaining threats tended to remain because as soon as they identified a F-4 by its nav radar, they shut down. Mission planners took a risk and occasionally included a F-4C (unarmed reconnaissance aircraft) in the place of a F-4G since the Recy looked like a Weasel to SAM operators and essentially filled the same role when SAM threats when offline to avoid being attacked by what they mis-identified as a Weasel.