[108018] in Cypherpunks
Re: Will Iridium Become SatCom Of Choice
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dan Veeneman)
Mon Feb 1 14:28:06 1999
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
From: Dan Veeneman <dan@decode.com>
Date: Mon, 01 Feb 99 13:38:40 EST
Reply-To: Dan Veeneman <dan@decode.com>
Declan McCullagh writes:
> Right. I wrote a cover story on Iridium, noting the DoD's interest in it.
> But it does not use encryption to secure communications channels. --Declan
Inadequate encryption is the least of the risks to military users.
Traffic analysis aside, that little Iridium phone transmits an
easily-detectable narrowband TDMA signal that serves as an excellent
beacon for any moderately-equipped direction-finding team. Putting an
Iridium phone in front-line units would give the opposition an excellent
locating and targetting mechanism. LPI/LPD it is not.
> At 04:08 PM 1-24-99 -0800, Steve Schear wrote:
> >[Although Iridium can enable many military operations it also opens up the
> >opportunity (via a hack or break-in) for adversaries to clandestinely close
> >track and monitor one another's operations]
Not even clandestinely. Iridium, as a commercial telecom provider, must
open their gateways to governmental "law enforcement" agencies in which
they operate. Obviously such agencies are already compromised, and
therefore all voice and data traffic flowing through these gateways
should be considered entirely unprotected.
Dan
--
dan@decode.com (Dan Veeneman)
Cryptography, Security, Privacy BBS +1 410 730 6734 Data/FAX
