Posted on 04/02/2003 2:31:37 AM PST by kattracks
Thuraya attacks U.S. military ban on its satphones
DUBAI, April 2 (Reuters) - Gulf telecoms firm Thuraya criticised on Wednesday a U.S. ban on some journalists from using its satellite phones in Iraq, saying it was very unlikely the signal could reveal the location of American troops.
Some reporters with U.S. forces in Iraq have been banned from using Thurayas, apparently because of fears the signal could be intercepted. At least one journalist's handset has been confiscated.
Chairman Mohammed Omran told Reuters Thuraya's complex encryption system would make it very difficult to locate journalists using the phone while travelling with U.S. troops.
"The journalists should not be prevented (from using Thurayas). It is highly unlikely that our phones are endangering anyone's lives," Omran said.
"Callers must specifically request to see their position and even when they do, the information beamed back to them via satellite is encrypted and the code is difficult to crack," he said.
But he added: "There is no system in the world that cannot be penetrated."
An official at U.S. Central Command in Qatar said the ban was not intended to restrict media coverage of the war, but to safeguard against attacks by Iraqis. Several technical experts, however, said they were unaware of any field-level technology that could be used to find users.
Thurayas use a highly-accurate Geographical Positioning System (GPS), which can identify a user to within 100 metres (yards) and which could be a reason for military concern.
Rival Iridium satellite phones, which are used by the U.S. military, are said to have less accurate GPS.
Iridium satellite phones download their user location and billing data to the United States. Thuraya location data is downloaded to Thuraya headquarters in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
04/02/03 05:27 ET
More than enough reason to yank the phones right there, IMHO.
Interesting. So we have embedded reporters, who we make a big deal out of not revealing their locations during operations, using a phone that is continually reporting their position back to the UAE.
What is the status of the UAE in all of this? What if they were penetrated by some intel service who was accessing this data and reporting it to some unfriendlies???
There may be no encryption system at all within the Thuraya company itself. So if any employees of the company are more loyal to Iraq than to us, they could give away the locations.
More likely than that too, is the keys to the encryption system are already in the hands of the enemy, so it's not secure.
THIS explains it all...
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