asymetric warfare

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 23:41:35 GMT, Fred J. McCall
::co-ordination = radio
:
:In which case we're going to KNOW when you're spooling up to shoot and
:you'll be dead before everybody gets rolled out and ready.
:
:Hasve you never heard of encryption, or are you trolling?

Hasve [sic] you never heard of traffic analysis, or are you trolling?

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Fred J. McCall wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote:
:On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 23:41:35 GMT, Fred J. McCall
::co-ordination = radio
:In which case we're going to KNOW when you're spooling up to shoot and
:you'll be dead before everybody gets rolled out and ready.
:
:Hasve you never heard of encryption, or are you trolling?

Hasve [sic] you never heard of traffic analysis, or are you trolling?

Done properly, especially with one time pad encryption,
one can handle this sort of situation.

Consider... the use of CD-R's for pads. They give you 650
megabytes of storage. Assume one message of 1k contents
per minute is sent; that works out to a bit over 43 megabytes
of pad per month, or about 518 megabytes per year. Each receiving
station can have its own pad and its own recipient keying.

The messages are sent, every minute, every hour, every day.
Most of the time they decrypt to "Nothing is happening,
the wind is west at ten kilometers per hour in central
Bagwabadad, the temperature is twenty three celsius,
our fearless leader wishes you good will guarding our
important sacred borders, have a nice day. [spaces padding
out to 1k total chars]"

Which the computer at the launch site merely notes in a log
and ignores (or, prints out a receipt note on a dot matrix
printer or something, so that people can see that messages
are coming in and being decoded).

There's no traffic analysis to do: there's always a message
of 1k contents going out to each recipient station every
minute, and it's under a one time pad key so you can't tell
what it is unless you bust into the station and copy its
CD-ROM.

And then, you invade, and instead of the weather report
all the stations get code "ZERO ZERO ZERO FIRE WHEN READY GRIDLI"

This is all pretty easy to jam, since the frequencies are
all known beforehand, but that general *approach* is very
hard to penetrate with traffic analysis.


-george william herbert

(George William Herbert) wrote:

:And then, you invade, and instead of the weather report
:all the stations get code "ZERO ZERO ZERO FIRE WHEN READY GRIDLI"
:
:This is all pretty easy to jam, since the frequencies are
:all known beforehand, but that general *approach* is very
:hard to penetrate with traffic analysis.

It's also pretty easy to locate a station that is transmitting all the
time and just take it down. Note that the station also has to be some
sort of intel hub if it is going to be passing out target coordinates.
Again, it's suddenly easier to find and silence.

If you don't broadcast all the time, traffic analysis tells a lot. If
you do broadcast all the time and the other guy owns the sky (and if
the other guy is the US and you are a 2nd tier nation, you have to
assume that the other guy WILL own the sky), you can bend over and
kiss your ass goodbye. You've just made the ATO.

--
"You keep talking about slaying like it's a job. It's not.
It's who you are."
-- Kendra, the Vampire Slayer

(George William Herbert) wrote:

This is all pretty easy to jam, since the frequencies are
all known beforehand, but that general *approach* is very
hard to penetrate with traffic analysis.

note: This is more-or-less how the SSBN comm system works in fact.

It's hard to penetrate with traffic analysis, yes. However a station
transmitting 24/7 is a station that's easily located, and a station
that will eat a gross of ordinance at H hour + .01 second.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 08:45:07 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

(George William Herbert) wrote:

This is all pretty easy to jam, since the frequencies are
all known beforehand, but that general *approach* is very
hard to penetrate with traffic analysis.

note: This is more-or-less how the SSBN comm system works in fact.

It's hard to penetrate with traffic analysis, yes. However a station
transmitting 24/7 is a station that's easily located, and a station
that will eat a gross of ordinance at H hour + .01 second.

So everyobody goes on red alert as soon as the primary station stops
broadcasting, and the targetting information has to be sent by the
second backup station.

To anticipate some objections, yes, if you get all the backup
stations, you will prevent the sending of the targeting information
(as well as any other sort of C&C activity).

pervect wrote:

:On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 08:45:07 GMT, (Derek
:Lyons) wrote:
:
(George William Herbert) wrote:
:
:This is all pretty easy to jam, since the frequencies are
:all known beforehand, but that general *approach* is very
:hard to penetrate with traffic analysis.
:
:note: This is more-or-less how the SSBN comm system works in fact.
:
:It's hard to penetrate with traffic analysis, yes. However a station
:transmitting 24/7 is a station that's easily located, and a station
:that will eat a gross of ordinance at H hour + .01 second.
:
:So everyobody goes on red alert as soon as the primary station stops
:broadcasting, and the targetting information has to be sent by the
:second backup station.

Then we're back to traffic analysis. If they stay up, they get
killed. If they don't stay up, coming up tells you something is going
on. No way around that.

--
"We come into the world and take our chances.
Fate is just the weight of circumstances.
That's the way that Lady Luck dances.
Roll the bones...."
-- "Roll The Bones", Rush

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 15:48:46 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

pervect wrote:

:On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 08:45:07 GMT, (Derek
:Lyons) wrote:
:
(George William Herbert) wrote:
:
:This is all pretty easy to jam, since the frequencies are
:all known beforehand, but that general *approach* is very
:hard to penetrate with traffic analysis.
:
:note: This is more-or-less how the SSBN comm system works in fact.
:
:It's hard to penetrate with traffic analysis, yes. However a station
:transmitting 24/7 is a station that's easily located, and a station
:that will eat a gross of ordinance at H hour + .01 second.
:
:So everyobody goes on red alert as soon as the primary station stops
:broadcasting, and the targetting information has to be sent by the
:second backup station.

Then we're back to traffic analysis. If they stay up, they get
killed. If they don't stay up, coming up tells you something is going
on. No way around that.

Actually there's something I forgot to mention - using similar spread
spectrum techniques as, for instance, GPS, it will in general be
fairly hard to tell that a high tech wide bandwidth low power
transmitter is "up" at all.

So even the 24 hour radiating link might not be terribly conspicuous
from an emissions point of view. And the backup links will be even
less conspicuous.

OTOH I would guess that good (high altitude with good field of view)
locations for antenna systems will be bombed as a matter of principle,
including anything that even looks like an antenna farm.

In any event, one of the first profitable investments for Elbonia
might be a modern C&C infrastructure that will be hard to monitor,
spoof, or take down.

pervect wrote:

:Actually there's something I forgot to mention - using similar spread
:spectrum techniques as, for instance, GPS, it will in general be
:fairly hard to tell that a high tech wide bandwidth low power
:transmitter is "up" at all.

So we've established the following so far in this discussion:

1) Tanks can't kill anything, since it can dodge.

2) ECM doesn't work.

There was another equally silly one, but I forget what it was. No
matter.

Even trolls should know more about their subject than we're seeing
demonstrated here.

--
"Nekubi o kaite was ikenai"
["It does not do to slit the throat of a sleeping man."]
-- Admiral Yamamoto

pervect wrote in
news
In any event, one of the first profitable investments for Elbonia
might be a modern C&C infrastructure that will be hard to monitor,
spoof, or take down.

All this talk about communications misses the point somewhat. The
Americans open most of their imperial conquests by dropping a GBU-28 into
the victim country's central command bunker. Robust communications aren't
all that much use when there's no one left to give the orders.

The goal for Elbonia should not be robust communications alone but rather
to develop a heavily distributed command system that isn't particularly
vulnerable to the kind of golden-BB decapitation strikes that the Americans
have perfected. This is, however, only going to be possible for values of
'Elbonia' along the lines of India, China or the EU.

--
Coridon Henshaw - http://www3.telus.net/csbh - "I have sadly come to the
conclusion that the Bush administration will go to any lengths to deny
reality." -- Charley Reese

pervect wrote:

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003 08:45:07 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

(George William Herbert) wrote:

This is all pretty easy to jam, since the frequencies are
all known beforehand, but that general *approach* is very
hard to penetrate with traffic analysis.

note: This is more-or-less how the SSBN comm system works in fact.

It's hard to penetrate with traffic analysis, yes. However a station
transmitting 24/7 is a station that's easily located, and a station
that will eat a gross of ordinance at H hour + .01 second.

So everyobody goes on red alert as soon as the primary station stops
broadcasting, and the targetting information has to be sent by the
second backup station.

And then the secondary system gets targeted PDQ...

To anticipate some objections, yes, if you get all the backup
stations, you will prevent the sending of the targeting information
(as well as any other sort of C&C activity).

You and Phil, and to a lesser extent George, who should know better,
don't seem to realize that killing the enemy C&C is how the US fights
wars today. The days of grinding towards the Capital worrying only
about the front line and hoping a golden bullet takes out the Leader
are dead and gone. This is 2003 not 1943.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.