[HN Gopher] Where has the passive radar code gone?
___________________________________________________________________
Where has the passive radar code gone?
Author : pseudotrash
Score : 379 points
Date : 2022-11-13 10:15 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (forum.krakenrf.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (forum.krakenrf.com)
| kragen wrote:
| what jurisdiction is this in
|
| disclaimer, i'm not related to krakenrf
| snake_doc wrote:
| Explanation of the software and hardware setup:
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr
| xyzal wrote:
| The code should just "accidentally" leak somewhere. I bet there
| are lots of people outside of the U.S. who would subsequenty host
| it.
| _0ffh wrote:
| Seems like it's something in need of a torrent, then it can be
| community hosted.
| [deleted]
| barnabee wrote:
| Looks like it's here:
| https://ipfs.io/ipfs/Qma1jSwKrY3We1PrB3bgJE7TMZJK5cNRBMchoAE...
| squarefoot wrote:
| Being hosted on GitHub, it probably has already been cloned
| multiple times around the world. Although if I understood the
| device working principles, this isn't rocket science and the
| most difficult part is making a receiver in which multiple SDR
| are synchronized from a single source so that the phase
| difference between received signals can be accurately measured,
| which would be impossible by using separate tuners due to the
| high latencies and unpredictabilities of the USB hardware. I
| wonder if the interest created by the Streisand effect alone
| might fuel the production of cheaper multi-SDR hardware in
| China, to have it then available through say Aliexpress. That
| would defeat the take down purpose in the most ironic way.
| krisoft wrote:
| > I wonder if the interest created by the Streisand effect
| alone might fuel the production of cheaper multi-SDR hardware
| in China,
|
| The hardware is still available, they just deleted code for
| this specific application from their repo.
|
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr
| bob1029 wrote:
| Here's another arbitrary passive radar project I just found on
| GitHub:
|
| https://github.com/Max-Manning/passiveRadar
|
| I suspect this particular cat is out of the bag.
| hedora wrote:
| They could always print it on a T-Shirt, sing it (70's folk
| protest song style), or print it out in book form, then mail it
| overseas to be OCR'ed.
|
| Those strategies worked for RSA. Anyone have a link to the RSA
| song? Here's a link to the T-Shirt design:
|
| http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/shirt/
| nojvek wrote:
| Or you could buy it from China because they'd build it cheaper
| and better while US continues strifle the very thing they were
| experts on.
| infinityio wrote:
| https://gist.github.com/rietta/60b7b3f7ca33bd13948c
| dannyw wrote:
| How accurate is this? What are some potential use cases?
| noasaservice wrote:
| Here's a failed patent on a system to auto-tune an antenna array
| meant for a KerberosSDR, but easily extendable to a KrackenSDR.
|
| https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/pantograph-antenna-array
|
| All the details are here to do autotuning to the frequencies
| available to a KrackenSDR dependent on frequencies. This device
| and antenna go from 400MHz to 1.7GHz.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Does anyone know what regulatory / legal hurdles they may be
| facing? Relevant Wikipedia article [0] is strangely silent on the
| topic, though my guess would be, this might be classified as
| military technology.
|
| --
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_radar
| ksidudwbw wrote:
| Why would you make something like this when you know all these
| open source tools are used by authoritarian governments...
| [deleted]
| atemerev wrote:
| It can also be (and often is) used by people fighting
| authoritarian governments.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Do you honestly think any government level actor couldn't
| find engineers to make this from scratch?
| imglorp wrote:
| Happened to me once at $work.
|
| We built a system with the most humanitarian application
| imaginable, helping people in need, and it was good. Turns
| out, it's hard to make money at that and the business people
| recast things into a new product that could suppress dissent
| in authoritarian countries, which they sold there. I'm
| positive it's been used to hurt people.
|
| Ethically, all the people that make generic infra like roads
| or computers or sdr software are not responsible if someone
| else does evil with their product.
| pythonguython wrote:
| Because people enjoy tinkering with radio and these sorts of
| projects have become possible in the amateur space now that
| high quality Radio hardware is so cheap. I doubt the people
| who work on this have nefarious intent.
| krisoft wrote:
| How do you see this used by authoritarian governments?
|
| Authoritarian governments just buy normal radars, and
| illuminate to their hearts content.
| mcbits wrote:
| Active illumination isn't always safe. Russians in Ukraine
| have (or at least at one point had) a conundrum where if
| they turn on the radar to detect incoming HIMARS missiles
| then the radar gets targeted by HARM missiles.
|
| In a domestic authoritarian context, an herbal extract
| salesman could detect when illumination is shone on the
| house in preparation for a heist.
| Sporktacular wrote:
| Why would you allow the production of smartphones knowing
| they are used by authoritarian governments.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Smartphones are super useful for everyone, radar not so
| much.
|
| That said would be nice to someone like google just added a
| layer on google maps of all objects you can track. There
| are companies that do all sort of tracking, just not as
| cheaply as this.
| mcbits wrote:
| At a minimum, passive radar could be useful to augment
| more conventional types of cameras in a home security
| system, especially for someone with acres of land with a
| lot of trees, etc.
| NavinF wrote:
| I'm pretty sure he asked because it's not uncommon to see
| mmwave radar on flagship smartphones, especially on
| devices that don't have lidar. Many cars also have radar
| for parking assist or automatic parking.
| dmw_ng wrote:
| ITAR according to Twitter
|
| https://twitter.com/vk5qi/status/1591628725141270528
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr
| sneak wrote:
| Could it be time for another Bernstein v US sort of case?
|
| The idea that source code publication can be restricted
| (prior restraint) by classifying it as "arms" seems like an
| attempt at an end run around the bill of rights.
| michaelt wrote:
| The krakensdr folks could take this fight for code-as-free-
| speech all the way to the supreme court.
|
| Or they could delete the code, spend their time engineering
| instead of lawyering, secure in the knowledge a copy of the
| code is almost certain to end up hosted somewhere outside
| the US anyway.
| q-big wrote:
| Since the code is open source, any other person could
| publish the latest code dump as a book and attempt to go
| with the "free speech" arguments through the courts.
| rtpg wrote:
| We spent a lot of years with export controls on a lot of
| things, and continue to have them on many pieces of
| software. Trying to do legal jujitsu to say "the code is
| speech", especially given SCOTUSs current makeup, and the
| context of this being components of literal weapons
| systems... you're not gonna get far IMO
| wnoise wrote:
| That just means it's covered by both the first _and_
| second amendments.
| netr0ute wrote:
| This doesn't hold up if the software is baked into things
| that are undoubtedly protected by the 1st Amendment.
| What's going to happen if a music album uses ITAR
| technology?
| some_random wrote:
| How is a music album free speechier than a github repo?
| netr0ute wrote:
| Music has always been protected from the beginning of the
| Constitution and there have been zero (0) efforts to
| prevent its protection, while online code repos have only
| existed for about 30 years and don't have that same
| cachet yet.
| dandelany wrote:
| This is a strange legal take. There is nothing about
| music that makes it special in the eyes of the law, it is
| speech like any other, subject to the same protections
| and restrictions as publishing a book. If you release an
| album containing nuclear secrets on Spotify, an
| injunction, removal and arrest will follow.
| netr0ute wrote:
| We don't actually know that this is true, because if you
| don't take the law literally like a lot of coders do,
| then that scenario isn't known to be possible because the
| format is a more explicit from of protected speech
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > Music has always been protected from the beginning of
| the Constitution and there have been zero (0) efforts to
| prevent its protection
|
| Tipper Gore?
| netr0ute wrote:
| The music labels never actually got rid of anything in a
| technical sense, only added information in the form of a
| sticker.
| bananapub wrote:
| Lots of speech is illegal or defacto illegal in the US ,
| though, why would this particular one get undone?
| irjustin wrote:
| This is an interesting concept and thanks for bringing it
| to my attention. I wasn't aware of the case.
|
| My take is it will be significantly more nuanced if it goes
| to a fight.
|
| Bernstein v US is too blanket of a ruling to say "all code
| is 100% protected under free speech". It's like trying to
| argue "all speech is protected under free speech" - this is
| a gross misunderstanding. There are clear examples of
| things you cannot freely say - one of them being classified
| information[0]. Otherwise Snowden wouldn't have to fear
| anything (he absolutely does).
|
| Like wise, saying all code is free speech is too obtuse. If
| my code was open source "puts classified_information_str"
| I'd be in lots of trouble.
|
| Where this falls isn't up to me to decide - I'm not smart
| enough, but it's just not so clear cut.
|
| [0] https://www.mtsu.edu/first-
| amendment/article/859/classified-...
| butlerm wrote:
| There is (generally speaking) no prior restraint against
| publishing classified information in the United States.
| Snowden is in trouble for disclosing classified
| information that he didn't have a right to disclose by
| virtue of his employment. Anyone not so restricted can
| (generally speaking) publish any classified information
| they get a hold of, although they might be strongly
| discouraged from doing so for a variety of reasons.
|
| It is like the situation with trade secrets - anyone can
| publish trade secrets except those who have a duty not to
| disclose them, and often they can as well once the secret
| becomes public knowledge.
|
| There are, however, statutory exceptions for national
| defense information like plans to a military base or
| plans and specifications for certain weapons. In those
| cases it doesn't matter how you came into possession of
| the related documents you can't legally publish it
| anyway.
| [deleted]
| graderjs wrote:
| When your open-source project accidentally reinvents classified
| military technology? Awkward...
| ISL wrote:
| It need not be classified to fall under ITAR.
| moffkalast wrote:
| That's sounds like nonsense. For transmitting signals I can
| understand that there needs to be some kind of order so the
| various low throughput bands can remain usable, but this is
| just receiving what anyone can read with an antenna and
| processing it a bit.
| nimish wrote:
| ITAR limits all kinds of things mostly arbitrarily.
|
| Fast high resolution ADCs, which anyone can simulate using
| fast enough low res sampling (any serdes for modern buses)
| and some math. Thermal cameras can be sold up to a certain
| refresh rate but not higher.
|
| It's not really about the tech so much as it is about making
| it difficult and annoying to work around.
| jakzurr wrote:
| Another interesting link:
|
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr
| eternalban wrote:
| Very informative. Thanks. [apparently can't up vote]
| mikewarot wrote:
| I can't help but think that the regulators have just triggered
| the Streisand effect in this case. The components cost for this
| type of system has sunk through the floor. As in the case of PGP,
| I suspect that development outside of the US will take place, and
| we'll end up having to "import" the very technology from
| "experts" outside of the US while the internal pool of experts
| move on to other less forbidden fruit. Thus we'll lose any
| leadership we had her in the US.
| hollerith wrote:
| Since the Pentagon started paying MIT to develop the technology
| during WWII, there has probably never been a time of no
| restrictions by the US government on the publication and the
| export of radar technology.
|
| If you want to inquire into the effects restrictions on radar
| technology have had on US competitiveness, there's no need to
| look for lessons in the history of restrictions on a _very
| different_ technology.
| kragen wrote:
| probably the effect restrictions had on radar technology 50
| years ago when they were trying to restrict the export of
| (guessing) high-power radio amplifier tubes and ultra-low-
| noise amplifiers will be different from the effect
| restrictions have today when they are trying to keep people
| from explaining to each other how passive radar works and
| very similar to the effect they had 30 years ago when they
| were trying to keep people from explaining to each other how
| cryptography worked
|
| disclaimer, i'm not related to krakenrf
| photochemsyn wrote:
| It does seem comparable to PGP and the whole FBI Clipper chip
| program from the 1990s:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/12/business/data-secrecy-exp...
|
| > "Mr. Zimmermann developed the software as part of his
| personal campaign to make it simple and inexpensive to send
| scrambled messages. Using such software is not restricted or
| illegal within the United States, but export control laws treat
| the software as a weapon and place strict prohibition on its
| export. The Government opposes the scrambling because it wants
| to be able to check on the activities of criminals overseas and
| hostile foreign governments. The Clinton Administration has
| retained strict controls on the export of data-coding software,
| and has been trying to create standards that would make it
| possible for law enforcement officials to gain access to
| scrambled conversations, whether by electronic mail or
| telephone."
| muhehe wrote:
| What was it?
| masklinn wrote:
| From what I understand, it was SDR[0] code which would allow
| using the antenna (possibly reconfigurable?[1]) into a passive
| radar aka a radar which tracks objects through _their_
| emissions (radio, bluetooth, wifi, ...) rather than emit
| electromagnetic waves and track their return.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconfigurable_antenna
| mannykannot wrote:
| In this case, it is not so much tracking things by their own
| transmissions, but by their reflection of ambient radio
| (here, broadcast TV.)
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr (thanks to
| dmw_ng and snake_doc for the link.)
| notanote wrote:
| Previously discussed here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33333009
| mannykannot wrote:
| 17 days from the HN front page to being shut down.
| masklinn wrote:
| Oh that's cool, so it's a radar using ambient radio as
| illuminator?
| samus wrote:
| Indeed, it's so cool that it has military applications
| and gets restricted as a result.
| xyzal wrote:
| https://github.com/mfkiwl/krakensdr_pr
| netr0ute wrote:
| Looks like the main code is just a single python script (https:
| //github.com/mfkiwl/krakensdr_pr/blob/main/_signal_pro...), and
| it's not doing anything special in particular (simply a lot of
| FFTs).
| counttheforks wrote:
| So glad the US regulators protect us from such scripts.
| easygenes wrote:
| This page references the github docs wiki for the project,
| which has also been altered to remove the Passive Radar page.
| Does someone have a clone of that to host as well? There was
| also an edit to remove a reference to a video on Youtube
| demonstrating the passive radar capabilties. That Youtube video
| has been deleted as well.
| ar-jan wrote:
| `git clone git@github.com:krakenrf/krakensdr_docs.wiki.git`
| has the passive radar page in the history.
| [deleted]
| adrienthebo wrote:
| wiki page delete commit: https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensd
| r_docs/wiki/08.-Passive-...
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Legend.
|
| Do you know if that was the latest version?
| transpute wrote:
| Is there overlap between these ITAR restrictions and mmWave radar
| coming to consumer Wi-Fi routers via IEEE 802.11bf in Wi-Fi 7
| (2024)? There are open-source projects which demonstrate Wi-Fi
| Sensing on $20 Wi-Fi devices, no SDR needed, plus a handful of
| commercial products with Wi-Fi "motion detection". There are also
| several hundred public academic papers on the subject.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561338#31563572
|
| Edit1: is Wi-Fi (2.4Ghz+) radar excluded, due to limited range?
|
| _> (xxvii) Bi-static /multi-static radar that exploits greater
| than 125 kHz bandwidth and is lower than 2 GHz center frequency
| to passively detect or track using radio frequency (RF)
| transmissions (e.g., commercial radio, television stations);
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-22/chapter-I/subchapter-M..._
|
| Edit2: 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi can "see" reflections from moving objects
| through walls and other physical obstructions, at distances much
| greater than 0.2m from the obstruction.
|
| _> (xvi) Radar that detects a moving object through a physical
| obstruction at distance greater than 0.2 m from the obstruction;_
| Animats wrote:
| You can order a reasonably good passive radar on Alibaba right
| now.[1]
|
| _The DVB-T /T2 Passive Radar (external radiation source radar)
| itself does not emit signals, but receives the echo signals of
| non-cooperative radiation sources (radio, television,
| communication base stations, etc.) reflected by the target for
| detection (as shown in Figure 1). The radar is composed of
| antenna, multi-channel receiver, and signal processor: the
| dedicated reference antenna receives direct wave signals, and the
| monitoring antenna array receives target echo signals; the multi-
| channel receiver amplifies the signals received by all antennas,
| performing frequency conversion and A/D sampling. The signal
| processor processes the output signal of the receiver, and
| outputs target information after reference signal purification,
| clutter suppression interference, matched filtering, target
| detection, parameter estimation and tracking processing. Unlike
| other passive detection systems, DVB-T/T2 Based Passive
| Radar(external radiation source radar) can achieve single-station
| positioning and speed measurement, and can detect more types of
| targets (can detect radio silence targets, such as autonomous
| cruise drones, birds and balloons), and is particularly suitable
| for applications where there are restrictions on electromagnetic
| radiation and high detection performance requirements._
|
| _Type of Target: Low-altitude targets such as drones, balloons,
| paragliders, and general aviation aircraft, including non-
| cooperative targets with radio silence_
|
| _Detection Range Directional model: 5 to 10km (DJI Phantom 4),
| Omnidirectional model: 2 to 4km (DJI Phantom 4)_
|
| All suppressing this does is cut the US out of the market.
|
| [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Silent-Sentry-
| Passive...
| paulmd wrote:
| The radar knows where the plane is at all times. It knows this
| because it knows where the plane isn't. By subtracting where it
| is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is,
| whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation.
| googlryas wrote:
| I love that because it seems like the retro encabulator
| video, but is actually pretty much how things really work.
| Animats wrote:
| "Silent Sentry" passive radars are a Lockheed-Martin
| product from 1999. At that low price, maybe it's a used
| unit left behind in Iraq or Afghanistan.
| kragen wrote:
| > _All suppressing this does is cut the US out of the market._
|
| what makes you think the us is the relevant jurisdiction to
| this krakenrf thing
|
| disclaimer, i'm not related to krakenrf
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Of course you can also get the following, if you have slightly
| deeper pockets.
|
| Phase array X-band radar unit with electric azimuth/elevation
| mount and >10km range for UAVs, i.e. not limited to targets
| flying below 1000m. _Can be set up to aim and trigger
| electronic countermeasures._
|
| https://m.alibaba.com/product/1600180136523/10KM-X-Band-Phas...
| Animats wrote:
| That's an emitter, not a passive radar. Operate one of those
| and someone will notice. The passive unit doesn't broadcast
| its existence.
|
| Much to the annoyance of the USAF, passive radars can often
| see stealthed aircraft. The geometry part of stealth is
| minimizing straight-on reflections by reflecting them off in
| other directions. That works against single-location radars.
| But passive radar is using signals from other transmitters in
| other locations, so that trick doesn't work.
| [deleted]
| sklargh wrote:
| A procedural victim. Unfortunate, I was hoping to use this to
| track vehicle speeds on my street.
|
| ITAR always falls apart at the edges. High-end thermal and night
| vision equipment online to "US persons," but a a bad passive
| radar's code isn't.
| password4321 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11714207
| some_random wrote:
| ITAR is about export, not possession. The trouble with our
| global information network is that it's global.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >ITAR is about export, not possession.
|
| Nope, ITAR has been used by the feds to put the squeeze on
| legal gun manufacturers and sellers, even if they don't
| actually export guns:
|
| https://orchidadvisors.com/i-do-not-export-does-itar-
| apply-t...
| fortran77 wrote:
| Well, you can still do it. You just have to dig a little for
| the code. And you can use Active radar. Commercial radar guns
| that are available for consumers, so there must be frequencies
| allocated to use this legally
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-101911-Velocity-Speed-Gun/dp...
|
| (though if you build your own device, it won't have specific
| FCC certification, but if you operate with in the same
| parameters -- frequency and power -- you're extremely unlikely
| to be noticed or penalized.)
| xchip wrote:
| What algorithm was it using? GCC-PHAT?
| lokimedes wrote:
| I'm in the same industry, and find these attempts of constraining
| technology through secrecy extremely naive by our legislators.
| I'd wager that if you already know how to operate an SDR, you
| properly will have little trouble with the fairly simple
| algorithm of measuring phase differences, filtering, CFAR etc. to
| make a passive radar. Synchronizing a bag of RTL-SDRs with a
| common oscillator is a trivial soldering task.
|
| The cat went out of the bag the second SDRs jumped from DARPA R&D
| to DVB-T commodity.
|
| That aside having a passive radar breadboard is not the same as a
| high-end passive radar where frequency/phase stability, use of
| wideband multi-source emitters, ultra-low noise amplifiers and
| N>>2 channels for increased angular resolution are integrated in
| an operational system. These systems that actually works, should
| be controlled.
| 323 wrote:
| What are the supposed dangers?
|
| I can think of turning drones into self-guided missiles,
| obviously intercepting from the front since they are slow, but
| you can track planes visually too.
|
| And if this is to prevent foreign states, I'm sure in a couple
| years you'll be able to buy this stuff on AliExpress.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The dangers are the capability to intercept stealth cruise
| missiles.
|
| Which appear to be the future weapon du jour for degrading
| integrated AA systems from outside A2/AD bubbles.
| toss1 wrote:
| Not just supposed dangers -- real danger.
|
| The saying the mil guys have about using active radar is "he
| who lights up first gets smoked". As in you turn on your
| radar, and it'll be a beacon seen in milliseconds, located in
| a few more milliseconds, and then receiving an incoming
| missile. Radar has to be passive, using ambient RF frequency
| 'noise', in any modern military operating theater to survive.
|
| So, yes, keeping passive radar technology as maximally secret
| as possible among the world's democracies retains an
| advantage over the expansionist autocracies, which are
| increasingly belligerent, from Russia attacking in Europe,
| China making louder noises about attacking Taiwan (sending
| fighter jets to the shore today), NK launching missiles near
| Japan... yeah, we need to keep an edge.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| https://m.alibaba.com/product/1600484445946/Silent-Sentry-
| Pa...
| twawaaay wrote:
| I think you naively underestimate the value of such skills and
| how easy it is to do this for some actors like terrorist
| groups. They do not have easy access to people like maybe you
| who are interested in it and internally motivated to do it.
| Because people at some intelligence, education and skill level
| are much less likely to join terrorist organisations.
|
| People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones that
| do not have many other options.
|
| The government knows they are fighting a loosing battle but the
| idea is to make it harder and delay development, not
| necessarily ensure the knowledge is not available at all.
| q-big wrote:
| > Because people at some intelligence, education and skill
| level are much less likely to join terrorist organisations.
|
| > People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones
| that do not have many other options.
|
| Don't you rather believe that if the government makes life
| hard for engineers (legal redtape etc.), it makes such people
| who, as you claim, have many options more likely to choose
| the "become a terrorist" option because of their increased
| hate for the government?
| paulmd wrote:
| > Don't you rather believe that if the government makes
| life hard for engineers (legal redtape etc.), it makes such
| people who, as you claim, have many options more likely to
| choose the "become a terrorist" option because of their
| increased hate for the government?
|
| no, I'd imagine that mostly it's things like religion,
| having a foreign power occupy and invade your country, or
| having a military junta seize control of your government
| and displace the democratic processes.
|
| like we even have statistics about this stuff, it's
| measured and we know what the answers are here.
| domestically it's alt-right extremism (neo-nazis and
| associated ideologies, with some religious extremism rolled
| in), followed by religious extremism, everything else is a
| rounding error. Internationally, true terrorism is pretty
| much only religious extremism. In cases like the iraq war
| or myanmar, it's people fighting the junta/occupying power.
|
| https://www.newamerica.org/international-
| security/reports/te...
|
| https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-
| problem-u...
|
| like jeez what a HN answer that is... thinking that
| insufficient libertarianism and "too much red tape" is the
| cause of terrorism. absolute rorschach blot moment, those
| are the causes that YOU think could radicalize YOU.
|
| Which is kinda sad, like, really? You could see yourself
| (ok, not "you" but hypothetically you could see ""other
| people"") killing over _red tape_? seriously? in the most
| libertarian nation on the planet?
|
| man we live in a fucking society, don't we. one where
| people low-key think actual civil war, neighbor against
| neighbor, is better than red tape...
| [deleted]
| hobs wrote:
| I read multiple times during the invasion of Iraq that the
| opposite was true, that engineers greatly were over-
| represented in terrorist cells -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-
| IdeaLab-t....
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Man, that's an interesting read
|
| > For their recent study, the two men collected records on
| 404 men who belonged to violent Islamist groups active over
| the past few decades (some in jail, some not). Had those
| groups reflected the working-age populations of their
| countries, engineers would have made up about 3.5 percent
| of the membership. Instead, nearly 20 percent of the
| militants had engineering degrees. When Gambetta and Hertog
| looked at only the militants whose education was known for
| certain to have gone beyond high school, close to half (44
| percent) had trained in engineering
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220106004629/https://www.nyti
| m...
| ksidudwbw wrote:
| If a foreign country invades you it pisses allot more than
| radicalists off
| [deleted]
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| I mean consider how many engineers in the US work for
| either the government or a contractor for the government.
| Folks who studied Computer Engineering or electrical
| engineering, especially things like RF, control systems,
| high speed embedded systems, etc work mostly in the
| government space, as the private space has a small portion
| hardware/embedded and a large portion of web technology.
|
| Many of those engineers create weapons. Deadly missiles,
| jets, drones, robots, and other tools to maintain military
| superiority.
|
| And many of those completely ignore the implications of
| their career.
| hcrean wrote:
| Engineers are people who are driven to find and implement
| solutions. Sadly we don't always agree with the correctness
| of the chosen solutions.
| aksss wrote:
| When you have to denigrate your opposition to understand why
| they think differently than you do, you are understanding
| nothing.
| nimbius wrote:
| >These systems that actually works, should be controlled.
|
| Why? to know your enemies and friends share this technology is
| to succor temperment in your foreign and domestic political and
| military policy. in other words: Parity encourages clarity.
| That the United States specifically sees "technological
| advantage" as a blank cheque to blow up things and people it
| does not like.
|
| to put it short, the reason we dont park aircraft carriers near
| china, or mine their ports as we did Nicaragua, is due to a
| technological parity that forces our statesmen to sobering and
| challenging political discussion.
|
| learning radar means empowering nations to guard their airspace
| and detect an adversary, an achievement the US will fight to
| keep many other nations from gaining as it would see their
| exodus from the duly designated "evil countries" list.
|
| Radar is an interdisciplinary adventure in electrical
| engineering and the material sciences as well as the further
| reaches of mathematics and physics. it is an enriching pursuit
| that enables independence and growth through learning and
| mastry. its uses are not strictly warlike, much to the scorn of
| ITAR.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Further, how do you even define "enemy" when it comes to how
| modern products get built?
|
| An engineer who is a citizen of country A, but works in
| country B for a company whose headquarters is in country C,
| builds a product that gets used by a warrior of country D's
| army, stationed in country E.
|
| Which country-to-country enemy relationships count when
| determining whether the engineer is supporting "his enemy"?
| bagels wrote:
| From personal experience, if you're building things that
| have itar restrictions, you just don't hire people that are
| in other countries.
| toss1 wrote:
| Indeed, and beyond that, you are restricted from even
| _DISCUSSING_ of _SENDING_ any info to any party that is
| not authorized under the Joint Certification Program
| (JCP), and there are databases to check whether a person
| or program is authorized
|
| It is sad to see all these upstream comments that are
| plainly ignorant and advocating either some ideal of free
| info exchange, or that it is not possible to contain the
| info because once it is in the commercial domain,
| everyone must have it.
|
| While it is almost certain that there will be some leaks
| in almost any containment system, it is a massive fallacy
| to assume that therefore all efforts to contain tech
| transfer are futile. I've literally watched as likely
| agents from adversary nations attempted in public forums
| to get even mid-level tech info in my field. It all
| seemed very collegial until the source of the requests
| was noticed to be Iran and they were shut down.
|
| Yes, this does often result in 'false positives' and
| restrict technology transfer to a harmless person. Maybe
| that guy really was just some student trying to learn
| (or, more likely, he was well funded and trying to get
| info for their drone program which is literally at this
| moment killing people in a democratic nation).
|
| Too bad -- the possible benefit isn't even in the same
| orders of magnitude from the potential harm. The
| expansionist authoritarian nations (Russia, Iran, China,
| NK, etc.) are literally waging war against the
| democracies of the world. We need to treat it as such.
| Yes, there are sincere colleagues behind those borders.
| The best we can do is to help them escape their awful
| governments. Helping them, and their awful governments
| advance only increases the risk that those awful
| governments will also rule us.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The world you believe exists, doesn't.
|
| > _to know your enemies and friends share this technology is
| to succor temperment in your foreign and domestic political
| and military policy._
|
| Any modern superpower will jealously guard strategic military
| technologies.
|
| Ergo, any country openly sharing their own will be faced with
| an adversary who doesn't, who will then have an advantage.
|
| Furthermore, if you follow your line of reasoning to its end,
| we should dissolve the NNPT [0] and BWC [1], which would
| result in a much more dangerous world for everyone...
|
| Now where the line is on what technologies fall into and
| outside of this delineation is a fair argument. And, I'm
| tempted to say, should often be at the mercy "of what's
| available commercially internationally" (in this case, cat
| seems out of the bag).
|
| But saying that democratizing access to military-applicable
| technologies has a restraining effect on military adventurism
| doesn't seem like a cohesive argument.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-
| Proliferation_Tr...
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_Weapons_Conven
| tio...
| musingsole wrote:
| > Any modern superpower will jealously guard strategic
| military technologies.
|
| Parts of it will, probably. But societies aren't
| homogeneous, and modern ones in particular are interwoven
| in ways that produce behaviors at odds with protectionism.
|
| > But saying that democratizing access to military-
| applicable technologies has a restraining effect on
| military adventurism doesn't seem like a cohesive argument.
|
| Ukrainian combatants use of commercial drones and anti-tank
| shells might be a great example of how this argument is
| 100% cohesive. If a neighbor has the parts and ingenuity to
| craft weapons upon threat...maybe you try to play nice with
| them and their toys instead lest those toys turn deadly.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Ukrainian combatants use of commercial drones and
| anti-tank shells might be a great example of how this
| argument is 100% cohesive._
|
| That's a circular argument, as it's observing that a
| country fighting a defensive war will use available arms
| in a defensive manner.
| jasmer wrote:
| Russia is doing the same thing.
|
| Moreover, what they are doing is 'very crude' and the
| higher end drones, equipment, targeting, munitions are
| not available to them largely because that information is
| guarded.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| They aren't missing information. They are missing parts.
| _That_ embargo is what 's important.
|
| Russians are not actually morons. Neither are Iranians
| for that matter.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| There's a difference between being "morons" and lacking a
| self-sufficient industrial base.
|
| As to the latter, there's a reason Russia is buying
| drones and SRBMs from Iran...
| carabiner wrote:
| Legalize nukes. Bro, just give me your phone password and
| I'll give you mine. We should all just share all of our
| information and be friends. Information wants to be free.
| jand wrote:
| It would be naive under the assumption that the intended goal
| is secrecy. If the goal would be simply "legislative control
| over a subject in case of unforseen events" it works exactly as
| desired.
| derefr wrote:
| It's very analogous to regulating certain common chemicals as
| "controlled precursors." It's not that the government wants
| people not to have these substances, or that they want to
| restrict their use in making useful, non-controlled substances;
| rather, it's that they want to _know who has these chemicals_ ,
| so as to be able to _attribute_ and _trace_ any controlled
| substances that might be produced.
|
| In this case, they want to have a list of everyone who's
| playing around with radar systems, because any such person
| could -- entirely just by taking the commonly-available tech
| and advancing their own private understanding from there --
| become a fully-fledged radar engineer, and build a system that
| _could_ be interesting to terrorists et al.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > it's that they want to know who has these chemicals,
|
| This is why we have the police around farms a lot, to see how
| safely the diesel and nitrate fertiliser is locked up. A
| legacy of the Republican violence of the 1970s to 1990s, when
| we had a lot of keen "amateur chemists" bimbling about in
| white vans at night...
| osmarks wrote:
| If they were particularly consistent about this, they would
| have to watch a lot of electrical engineers.
| prpl wrote:
| We tried to do passive radar for detecting high energy cosmic
| rays in 2009 (GNU Radio/USRP) that turned into passive-ish when
| the team brought a 20kW Harris NTSC Ch 2 (52Mhz) transmitter we
| decommissioned as part of the move to ATSC.
|
| We had a hard time with cosmic rays (relativistic doppler is
| fun), but meteors, planes, and lightning strikes were common
| sources of unwelcome signal.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I spent an evening at a star party chatting with someone that
| spent a bit of time at the big radio facility on the east
| coast that is famous for having total radio silence in the
| area surrounding it. (too early in the morning to remember
| the name.) One of the stories was specific to listening to
| meteors from well past the horizon from where they were, and
| then talking to someone that was able to confirm them
| visually. This same individual was also previously in the
| military spending time playing with radars. The stories from
| that time were even more entertaining. Steering the beam to
| mess with the sheriff's car, and a few other stories that
| seemed so crazy I'm still not sure he wasn't just seeing what
| he could get us to believe.
| blamazon wrote:
| That'd be the Green Bank Observatory[1], located within the
| US National Radio Quiet Zone [2] where radio emission is
| tightly managed. In the highest sensitivity zones near
| observation facilities, only diesel engines are allowed in
| motor vehicles as the spark plugs found in gas vehicles
| effectively constitute a spark-gap transmitter. [3][4]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bank_Observatory
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_R
| adio_Q...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter
|
| [4]: https://raoulpop.com/2012/04/15/chasing-rfi-waves-
| part-seven...
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > only diesel engines are allowed in motor vehicles
|
| One would assume mechanical diesels at that, since the
| piezo injectors in common-rail systems require almost as
| big a bang as a spark plug.
|
| Once I rescued a broken-down Citroen CX that had
| experienced a complete electrical failure, by removing
| the little brass slug from the injector pump and screwing
| the valve body back down, and then push starting the car.
| Pop the clutch in second and - clattaclattaclattaVROOOM,
| off it went.
|
| Cue a hilarious 15 seconds or so where the power
| steering, suspension, and crucially braking system had
| absolutely no hydraulic pressure and I was piloting an
| unguided unbraked 5mph "missile" across the yard...
| blamazon wrote:
| Haha, love the story. Always wanted one of those Citroen
| sedans. It sadly feels like that culture of being able to
| get out of a jam with one's car with a bit of simple
| mcgyvering disappears a bit more every day in modern
| times.
|
| And yes, you're right, mechanical diesels only in the
| most sensitive areas. You can see some delightful photos
| of those in the blog post at [4] above :)
| ISL wrote:
| If the goal was to state that potentially-ITAR technology
| cannot be hosted at GitHub nor sold to consumers, that message
| was received loud and clear.
| kragen wrote:
| we've already been through this with crypto in the bernstein
| case
|
| code is speech
|
| in the us the 1st amendment protects your right to publish
| code
|
| selling to consumers is a different case of course
|
| disclaimer, i'm not related to krakenrf
| jauer wrote:
| Combine this with news about how quickly Starlink mitigated
| Russian EW and the Pentagon's reaction(1). It looks like portions
| of the US Government have badly underestimated what people and
| organizations outside their circles can accomplish. It's no
| surprise that their regulations aren't keeping up with how the
| open source SDR community has driven down the barrier to entry.
|
| 1: https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/spacex-beating-
| russian-j...
| oezi wrote:
| For those who were looking a link from the forum to the homepage:
|
| https://Krakenrf.com
| unknownaccount wrote:
| Why are developers still limiting themselves by posting their
| code on the clearweb in a manner they can be traced and held
| liable for? Host everything on Tor from a server outside USA
| jurisdiction and this should be a total non issue. Code is
| speech. It's time to stop letting the government get away with
| trampling on our 1st amendment rights to free speech.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| My failed startup operated in a similar space: SDRs & military
| applications. I dunno how people don't plan from Day 1 with a
| knowledge of Uncle Sam's heavy-handed export restrictions in
| their mind.
|
| I was using existing open-source software as a basis (GNU
| Radio), all of my engineers were foreigners in their home
| countries, my SDRs and single-board computers were dual-use
| hardware from multiple other nations, and my company was in
| Hong Kong. All because I knew I primarily wanted to target
| foreign countries with behind-the-power-curve militaries, not
| the admittedly-huge US defense market with its obnoxious
| barriers to entry. If you operate in the US, just keep your
| stuff closed source until you can afford expensive lawyers to
| tell you what you can share.
| reachableceo wrote:
| Please email me. I can't find your contact info.
|
| Charles@turnsys.com
|
| I'm working on an ITAR SDR startup and would like to chat.
| (Goes for anyone who may want to chat on those topics).
| fortran77 wrote:
| I'm not a fan of github for other reasons, but how the heck
| would your solution work for searchability and discoverability,
| two of github's largest values?
| netr0ute wrote:
| Post the onion link on the clearweb, and then those
| intermediary sites are mere pawns.
| eternalban wrote:
| This could work for distribution but it's not a solution
| for shielding the developer(s). If you have already
| publicly published code with attribution I would not
| consider tor + forward pawns to be 100% invulnerable to
| forensics to determine authorship. So now you're looking at
| tackling code transformation without obfuscation to cover
| provenance, which sounds non-trivial.
|
| (Your comment made me wonder if coPilot can also be used to
| fingerprint developers based on their existing code.)
| netr0ute wrote:
| If the sites/authors are out of US jurisdiction, then
| there's not a whole lot that could be done, so there's
| that.
| dahart wrote:
| > It's time to stop letting the government get away with
| trampling on our 1st amendment rights to free speech.
|
| That needs to be a legal fight, since classified information is
| specifically exempted from free speech, among a long list of
| other things
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations).
| Moving to Tor might skirt the rules, but does little to
| challenge them, and won't prevent any legal trouble for someone
| who gets caught. (It could make things worse, as it might
| demonstrate intent.) If you believe that free speech should be
| absolute, that needs to be litigated and voted for. Just
| remember Chesterton's Fence: all the free speech limitations we
| have now have already been litigated and fought for. There are
| good reasons that freedom of speech is not absolute.
| unknownaccount wrote:
| If someone independently invents something using the
| available resources at hand it shouldn't be able to be
| considered classified or copyright restricted, if it was
| really that advanced and sophisticated then nobody should be
| able to discover it unless it leaks. If there's no proof it
| leaked to the public in violation of a government employee's
| oath then the information should be legal. In that case I
| agree anyone who leaks classified documents should be charged
| for treason. But there's a major difference between a
| software developer accidentally inventing a banned algorithm
| and getting slammed with the full force of the government and
| secret information the government has being leaked.
| dahart wrote:
| I can agree with everything you just said, but there's a
| bit of a misconception of what free speech means tied up in
| this. The government isn't claiming ownership. Freedom of
| speech is a protection the government offers to protect
| citizens against itself, and the government defines what
| freedom of speech means. It's probably best to leave
| copyright aside, introducing that now and mixing it up with
| free speech is going to muddy the discussion. This isn't a
| copyright issue.
|
| It doesn't matter if I independently invent nuclear
| weapons, I'm still not currently allowed to open source
| them for other people, possibly in other countries, to use.
| That isn't because the government thinks they own my ideas,
| it's because the government believes that sharing
| information on how to build nuclear weapons is bad for us
| and threatens our safety. (Edit) BTW, it's also important
| here to recognize that claiming "independent" invention is
| risky and problematic, if you received any benefit from
| your environment in the form of education, ideas,
| collaborators, parts, market conditions, etc. There are
| very few, if any, truly independent inventions.
|
| Note I'm not making any arguments on whether ITAR should or
| should not be classified. What I'm pointing out is that
| that is what needs to be debated - whether ITAR is
| classifiable (or otherwise export controlled), and this
| isn't otherwise an issue of free speech failing to be
| absolute. It's a simple fact that freedom of speech is not
| absolute, and therefore demonstrating perceived abuses
| needs to be demonstrated based on the specifics of the
| case. Why should ITAR be declassified/open? That's what
| needs to be shown.
|
| > The government shouldn't be able to classify scientific
| information that the public is able to discover on their
| own
|
| Why? I don't necessarily agree with this.
| RektBoy wrote:
| Anyone has the code pls?
| [deleted]
| downvotetruth wrote:
| > KrakenRF notes that if you must use an FM signal, pick a heavy-
| metal station "since heavy metal is closer to white noise."
|
| Does a white noise correlation analysis exist for other musical
| genres?
| hedora wrote:
| Cthuga and WinAmp used to visualize this well.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software)
|
| Atari Teenage Riot is definitely closer to white noise than
| 1990's metal. (Metal has retaken that throne these days.)
| none_to_remain wrote:
| Check out Merzbow
| progre wrote:
| I coworker once wondered about my Wolves in the throne room-
| tshirt and when I sent him a link his comment was "wow,
| thats... saturated"
|
| I would think that the white noise scale from less to more goes
| something like
|
| Nu-metal, power metal, heavy metal, death metal,(edit:) thrash
| metal, black metal, noisecore
| drivers99 wrote:
| thrash not trash I assume
| hurlaside wrote:
| progre wrote:
| Sorry, of course.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Agree with your white noise scale, with Anaal Nathrakh
| straddling the black metal / noisecore divide:
| https://youtu.be/5wvkdL7Ra1I
|
| \m/ >_< \m/
| [deleted]
| captainmuon wrote:
| I wonder what the normal or non-military use cases of this code
| could be? Planespotting? Indoor navigation?
| tinco wrote:
| Drug smuggling. If you don't need to be covert then you could
| just use active radar, right?
| pkaeding wrote:
| If you have nothing to hide?
| masklinn wrote:
| > If you don't need to be covert then you could just use
| active radar, right?
|
| Passive radars can be used to track emissions sources of
| which you have no _specific_ knowledge e.g. you 're looking
| for a ship or rig, but you either don't want to ping it, or
| you are looking for its rough location, or you literally
| don't have the hardware for an active radar at the range
| involved.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| European SAR space radar already covers earth every few
| days. Results are free and open.
| krisoft wrote:
| You have a much more active imagination than I do.
|
| Others have linked the code and an article about someone
| trying it out. What you can do with this is that you wave
| around two yagi antenna. You point one at a broadcast source
| and an other at something flying in the opposite direction
| from the broadcast source. If all the stars align and the
| system works you then get the range, and the dopler. The
| measured range is the full distance from the broadcast source
| to the object and back to you.
|
| This is not a radar where the user gets a display full of
| tracks in front of them. One maybe one day might develop
| something like that from this core.
|
| Even if it were a stealth radar like that it is very dubious
| how it would help a drug smuggling operation, or why they
| would bother with it at all.
| amalcon wrote:
| The most often cited are things like the fire department
| figuring out which parts of a burning building have people in
| them, or a hospital noticing when a patient tries to get out of
| bed on their own.
| maltalex wrote:
| I have the same question. Kraken's main product is a 400$
| "software defined radio for applications such as radio
| direction finding and passive radar" [0].
|
| At that price point they'd have to sell quite a few of these to
| make a living. So who's buying these, and what for?
|
| [0]: https://www.krakenrf.com/product-page/krakensdr
| wl wrote:
| I bought one to play around with. I've located radio
| transmitters by driving around and used the passive radar to
| track cars on a highway and airplanes at an airport.
| rasz wrote:
| They would do great in Ukraine right now for direction
| finding shitty Baofeng UHF radios ru have to use after their
| general embezzled funds for development of Azart system
|
| https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1184964805565792257
|
| >Interfax reports that the Deputy Chief of the General Staff
| and the most senior communications officer in the Russian
| military, Colonel General Khalil Arslanov, has been arrested
| for fraud in relation to the purchase of special equipment.
|
| >The investigation isn't limited to 2.2 B RUB worth of theft,
| but also to fraud related to contracts for the Azart comm
| system built by NPO Angstrem JSC and Yaroslavl Radio Plant.
| Of 18 B RUB spent on the radios, 6.5 B RUB might have been
| stolen due to artificially high prices.
| livueta wrote:
| Yep, I have a Kraken and can confirm it is fantastic for
| DFing shitty Baofengs, especially when they're being used
| as HAMMER-style acoustic modems for something chatty.
| Practically the best possible scenario for easy DF. Perhaps
| logically, even though chirp spread spectrum isn't
| _actually_ FHSS, it struggles a lot more with LoRA
| transmissions.
| thakoppno wrote:
| There's a decent group of amateur radio enthusiasts who buy
| these things to track illegal operators.
| fortran77 wrote:
| It's more done for sport. A low power beacon is purposely
| hidden somewhere and teams try to find it first.
| thakoppno wrote:
| My local club does foxhunting activities but also has
| been trying to identify a set of transmissions meant to
| disrupt the repeater's operation.
|
| At least three members bought krakens at least in part to
| find the perpetrator. To me it's a pretty interesting cat
| and mouse game. It seems like the illegal transmissions
| are mobile which has prevented success at stopping them.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Another user case is non-malicious interference.
| Sometimes something is radiating a strong harmonic
| because of a corroded connector, etc, and the source can
| be identified with doppler direction finding equipment.
|
| Finding a culprit in a repeater war is a more difficult
| thing to do, because what do you do with the person once
| he's identified?
| wl wrote:
| > because what do you do with the person once he's
| identified?
|
| Hand the evidence over to the FCC. The FCC isn't going to
| proactively go after someone, but they're more than
| willing to take cases and issue fines if someone has
| already done most of the legwork.
|
| Example:
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-19-989A1.pdf
| mkl95 wrote:
| Tracking rogue drones maybe. Also stranded jets.
| angry_octet wrote:
| Tracking anything you might track with an active RADAR, but
| without needing a permit to operate a RADAR emitter. The
| ability to track 'stealth' aircraft is just a niche. Similar
| techniques are used to measure atmospheric density (for
| meteorology) using the known signals from GPS satellites.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Who are the users of KrakenRF?
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