FC: Author of bin Laden radio communications article replies

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

From: "Erich M" <me () quintessenz at>
To: bernies () netaxs com
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 22:05:20 +0100
Subject: Re: FC: More on bin Laden's radio communications system, 
clarifications
CC: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

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Dear Bernie, Declan,

What I sent to you was a pretty quickly done summary of the
contents of my 7000 characters German language article. I tried to
"translate" it in into foreign language named English in a way that
people not at all HF-experienced would understand the point: not
crypto was used but simple masquerading. If Taleban/Al Quaeda
had used crypto in their data broadcasts they would have been
identified immediately as a target. Relief orgs hardly use crypto as
you can see in those screenshots below.

The source of this is Joerg Klingenfuss, 25 years in radio
monitoring. You can see pretty new screenshots from data
transmissions coming from Afghanistan based relief orgs there

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/klingenfuss/hotfrequ.htm

Concerning the rest of the critique:

> there is no such thing as a "high power HF SSB handset."

What I meant: a low power handset communicating with the  "high
power HF SSB" Station. That is the Codan standard product
connecting the handsets as you would have known rechecking the
Codan website, Bernie

>
> CODAN HF radios are not addressable, although they can be optionally
> equipped to be and used in that manner a user-selectable basis.

Well, yes, I know that. And if they were made adressable? That is
their number one feature! And the necessary radio modems, using
ARQ Protocols? No addressing, when they exchange data? Come
on...
>
> it is laughable to assume that afghans, taleban, or others using radios
> stolen from UN personnel would use UN callsigns, or bother with using
> callsigns at all.  they might use some code names to differentiate
> themselves, but certainly not UN callsigns.  if they wanted to try to
> confuse listeners, they could use any two-way radios and callsigns they
> wanted to.

That is what I wrote. Most of the [very much different] ham radio
and professional transceivers I saw had their callsigns glued to the
equipment. Steal a transceiver [as they undoubtedly did] , use the
callsign *written* on it as ID in voice calls, speak Pashtu like most
of the relief workers - identification is not that easy, then.

> HF radios with voice encryption are readily available on the commercial
> market from two-way companies like motorola, racal, etc.  it's a question
> of bandwidth: if you're only using a 5khz voice channel it's not possible,
> but if you're using wider bandwidth spread-spectrum HF, then it is possible
> and often used by US military.  it's not likely the taleban uses these, but
> it's a certainty the u.s. military there is.

> 5-bit "Baudot" code (more properly called Moore coding) was once popular
> for low data rate radioteletype (RTTY) data over HF channels, but it's
> rarely used anymore.

Have you ever seen encrypted shortwave data transmissions from
embassies around the [third] world? They all use some kind of 5
digit number encryption code that *resembles* Baudot, that is what
I wrote

> the two-way radio held by usama bin laden (seen in that frequently
> rebroadcast archive video) is a VHF transceiver that operates somewhere in
> the 30-300mhz range.

Archive, yes. What do you think the US destroyed first? Right: any
VHF and UHF base stations, easy to target, if they could find
many. I doubt that. Codan, more or less the market leader, has
been shipping only HF-Stations to Afghanistan, as they wrote in an
e-mail. UHF and VHF military communications do not make any
sense in Afghanistan if you can't use satellite uplinks or have a
working net of *many* VHF/UHF radio towers. You need to turn to
good ol' dirty shortwave
>
> it's certainty that u.s. forces have sophisticated radio direction-finding
> equipment in several locations in afghanistan that scan and record all
> radio activity in the region, including bearing (direction) data.

Right. But they had difficulties *identifying* the radio activities as
possible Taleban fighters and that is why so many UN and NGO
offices were hit  by "friendly fire"
cu
Erich

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