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."
Count down till.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:3, Insightful)
Which ultimately begs the question as to why ALL aircraft transmissions (civilian or otherwise) aren't encrypted.
Don't get me wrong, I'm kind of glad they aren't for cool hacking tricks like this, but seriously, kind of makes you wonder...I mean 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?
Re:Not Propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
"Move and we'll immediately kill you," aka, "We're omnipresent and you're completely impotent - roll over and prepare to be conquered," is the asymptotic extreme of all propaganda, war or otherwise.
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you want them to be public. The other aircraft, including those of your "enemies" and the light aircraft being flown by Bob the gardener down the street need to be able to communicate to avoid smashing into each other.
Encrypting serves no purpose when the entire idea is for anyone to be able to receive the information.
Re:"Propaganda Planes" cover the skies (Score:4, Insightful)
Define "honor-bound", please. I appreciate the good sentiment, but it sounds like a term which can be used to excuse anything. If the nation was seeking to oust its leader, there would be no leader. What's happening is that some of the nation is seeking to oust its leader - something which could be said of every nation on the earth. And almost all leaders, freedom-loving or dictatorial (but I repeat myself), crush such rebellions. Why are we caring so much about Libya? (why did we care so much about Iraq and Afghanistan?)
While everyone was looking at Japan, and while our countries (UK, France, USA) have so much shit to sort out at home, the bastards just managed to engage us in another offensive war.
Re:Pertinent part of the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. They absolutely switch these off. Only the elements which are completely intended for public ears (including potential enemies) are transmitted in the clear. Position reports will typically, only be provided when flying in high traffic areas where civilian traffic is likely, such as airports or published navigation aids. Furthermore, many of the cited navigation aids are likely to have been created by the military and the name of such aid may only be known to the military. So them saying, 135' from RAFLO, or some such, has little direct meaning since the location of RAFLO is completely unknown. Furthermore, that aid may be renamed later for different missions. So even if the enemy figures out where RAFLO is at, they may not realize TRKSTOP is simply a new name for RAFLO.
Lastly, you need to understand, all of these concepts are extremely well understood in the signals discipline, which means some of these transmissions from a given flight may be completely fictitious in nature and transmitted with the full awareness the enemy is listening.
Re:Hope he doesn't get into trouble (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Will he be able to track the missile (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, because he 'intercepted' an open frequency call for ships to stay in port, this was deliberately broadcast to keep people from traveling. Next up 'man who hears siren' will be going to jail for knowing where the police are.
If the Pentagon had transmitted that encrypted, it'd be pretty useless as a general warning.
Re:Count down till.... (Score:4, Insightful)
quite litterally anyone with the right radio could pick up this info.
he's not disclosing anything secret.
This is what the planes are shouting out to the world.
any libyan loyalist could be sitting 2 streets over from him with the same equipment passing on the same info quietly.
Re:Hope he doesn't get into trouble (Score:4, Insightful)
Whole different ballgame. In fact, you're talking about two different ballgames, while trying to infer something into yet another ballgame.
1. Manning is a US citizen, who was sworn to secrecy, and sworn to obey various and sundry orders, general orders, rules, regulations, etc ad nauseum.
2. Assange is a foreign national, who is not in any way subject to US military law, and should not be subject to the various laws that our politicos are trying to subject him to. The man released classified information - but he didn't steal it, intercept it, or anything of that nature. The information was given to him, for the purpose of wide dissemination. In short, he is a new type of reporter who was doing his job.
3. Our Dutch geek freind, on the other hand, is yet another foreign national who is intercepting military radio messages, and seems to be seeking to aid the allies.
So you see, none of the three have very much in common with the others.