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The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

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Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#41

Post by applicative »

ck2 wrote: post #28

People are complaining about a clickbaity title but it's a fascinating article I am not sure most would read otherwise What's interesting to me is how out of date US GPS system is compared to China's BeiDou and while most US GPS receivers will use Russia's GLONOSS, China's BeiDou is blocked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47849174

The going wisdom seems to be that the EU's Galileo is the most accurate system for civilian use. GPS has undergone frequent systematic update for almost a half century.

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#42

Post by anigbrowl »

The story links to the current issue of the Inside GNSS magazine but the article isn't available in the digital edition, apparently. It's in the print edition, readable at https://lsc-pagepro.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=...

The source data and analytical code (in Julia) is also available at https://lsc-pagepro.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=...

In my view people nitpicking the 404 media story are being ridiculous. Everyone in their audience knows GPS originated as a military system, indeed I think most of teh general public knows that. Bashing them for not mentioning this is just looking for something to be mad about.

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#43

Post by moritzwarhier »

866-RON-0-FEZ wrote: post #33
moritzwarhier wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's simply because of using a public channel for encrypted communication.

Yeah GPS is not the people's airwaves it is operated by the US Space Force, I suggest you read up on your history.

OK, I have to further narrow down my statement then: a publicly readable medium (or one-way channel).

I didn't want to imply that regular people could simply inject data into what's emitted by GPS satellites.

Sorry if that wasn't clear, but I am aware that GPS is operated by the US military.

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#44

Post by robotresearcher »

tokai wrote: post #25
Analemma_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree? The point of a numbers station is that it broadcasts in the clear and anyone with a receiver can get it, but only people with the appropriate decryption key can make any use of it. Since it's broadcasting all the time, there's no need for steganography or covert transmission. That's exactly what a numbers station is. Where the article loses me is the implication that this is somehow sinister or beyond the…

Its all comes down to what we buy as the definition for a number station. For me a number station needs sends a message to be a number station, not a key.

A data payload you didn't already know is a message. This message contains a key.

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#45

Post by 05 »

rafram wrote: post #20

Clickbait from 404 Media? Surely not! The part they kept out of the headline: > for use in distributing the keys for accessing the military GPS signals It’s common knowledge that the military has access to a separate, encrypted, higher-precision GPS signal. “Numbers station” implies that they’re distributing unrelated encrypted information, but they’re not; it’s not surprising that GPS signals would be used to delive…

> has access to a separate, encrypted, higher-precision GPS signal.

That's not it, though. This is available on the consumer L1 band, and you can even read that info using a $5 Ublox receiver (UBX-RXM-SFRBX command).

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#46

Post by sjm217 »

timeinput wrote: post #3

This is an interesting article. It has a very strong AI accent. I really wish I could tell how real it is. When some part of it I can tell is AI slop, how much of it is AI slop? Inside GNSS has always been a marketing rag with sometimes some interesting articles. The author is a security researcher, so maybe poking at GPS bits makes sense, but talking about floating point bit depth? There's too much slop for me to fi…

The code is all available and every claim is traceable back to the statistical analysis. Results are reproducible from the original data which is archived on Zenodo. Further analysis would be very welcome. https://github.com/sjmurdoch/gps-special-messages

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#48

Post by SllX »

causal wrote: post #39
rafram wrote: post #20

Clickbait from 404 Media? Surely not! The part they kept out of the headline: > for use in distributing the keys for accessing the military GPS signals It’s common knowledge that the military has access to a separate, encrypted, higher-precision GPS signal. “Numbers station” implies that they’re distributing unrelated encrypted information, but they’re not; it’s not surprising that GPS signals would be used to delive…

I don't think this qualifies as clickbait in the sense that the headline mismatches the contents. My experience with 404 Media is that they treat every article like they've just released the Pentagon Papers, so you just have to read with that in mind.

> My experience with 404 Media is that they treat every article like they've just released the Pentagon Papers

I think you’ve perfectly phrased exactly what it is that annoys me when I see a 404 Media headline. When it was a new shop, I stomached it more, but this is every single headline I ever see from them.

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#49

Post by DANmode »

SllX wrote: post #48
causal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this qualifies as clickbait in the sense that the headline mismatches the contents. My experience with 404 Media is that they treat every article like they've just released the Pentagon Papers, so you just have to read with that in mind.

> My experience with 404 Media is that they treat every article like they've just released the Pentagon Papers I think you’ve perfectly phrased exactly what it is that annoys me when I see a 404 Media headline. When it was a new shop, I stomached it more, but this is every single headline I ever see from them.

Contrasting the tone of innocence the larger publications use around these institutions feels perfectly within a journalistic mandate.

Re: The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography

#50

Post by jjtheblunt »

wang_li wrote: post #27
jjtheblunt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would point to point laser seem like it's RF and not readily snooped without detection?

Unless you are in a vacuum, a laser that can reach a useful distance can be observed due to atmospheric scattering.

true!
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