One small page, so many errors. Where to begin? Well the quoted Caracal Radio system doesn't exist for a start. Go to Thales product page, maybe you can find it, or the named Programmer and Fill Gun. Then you perhaps you can explain why none of the Prefixs used in the Intercept page match Thales own Prefix system.BoredShirtless wrote:How the Russians are intercepting and decoding US radio comm:
http://www.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article ... icleId=316
So lets move on to the "this is how we get the freq hopping key". One, the sets actually used as Burst transmission, this works by a digital voice recorder is activated when you use the push-to-talk button and that communication is compressed, the compression is encrypted and this is then sent in a single burst when the operators finger comes off the button. It is impossible to stay on air over the course of mulpiple hops as the burst for a one hour conversation takes less than 1/100th of a second to transmit. A normal comm is contained inside a single freq without going into another. But what the hell, lets say that against physical possibility it actually happens, and the interceptor unit cathces this 1-in-a-million transmission, they now somehow have the hopping key for every other transmission on that net for the next 24 hrs (despite the sample being far too small to give a pattern). Now all they have to do is decrypt the burst... you know, the 128 bit, randomised key with the added benefit of 'noise' being added to the encryption to completely scramble the encryption from analyse. So all these intercept points have, is a 1/100th of a second burst of static that would take Supercomputers years to break.
But you say, although they specifically mentioned an Encrypted and freq hopping system, maybe they meant the old British Army Radio. That was fixed Freq and had no bult in iencryption. they must have meant that. Unfortunately all transmissions on that system bar 2 are in BATCO, a single use code sheet that renders a system of numbers into Letters. The numbers are set on a series of sheets and refer to lines of a report, and without the single use codesheet, and without knowing exactly what role the unit sending it is, you just have something like this :
"Zero, Alpha 10, Bravo, Delta, Whiskey - Tango, whiskey, Romeo - November, Charlie. Over."
Good luck on decoding that.
Basically anyone with Military Comms experince just read that page and pissed themselves laughing. Now please excuse me as I go change my underwear.
See everyone tomorrow.