4 ms·
While I can’t comment on if it would be possible from orbit, there are two components to receiving a radio signal - transmitter strength and antenna gain. These
by sitharus 9y ago
While I can’t comment on if it would be possible from orbit, there are two components to receiving a radio signal - transmitter strength and antenna gain. These work together to provide a signal clear enough to be amplified in to something usable.
In a modern portable device the antenna is quite small and often close to other electronics, so the gain is not great. You can buy dedicated hardware that can receive over much greater distances.
Additionally device antennas are omnidirectional, so they pick up noise from every direction but the signal from only one. A directional antenna has much greater gain as it excludes most of the noise.
- dullgiulio 9y agoBut isn't both WiFi and LTE encrypted?
- sitharus 9y agoYes, but you can obtain other info without the keys, such as SSID locations. Personally I’m doubtful, unless the satellite was in geostationary orbit then it wouldn’t have that long over each location. I guess if it was in a Molniya-type orbit, but that would take it quite high. Guess we’ll never know.
- patcheudor 9y agoIt depends. Both WiFi and LTE can be attacked via evil-twin attacks where a base station pretends to be the legitimate one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_twin_(wireless_networks) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_twin_(wireless_networks) and: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4392401-4G-LTE-attacks-paper.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4392401-4G-LTE-attac...
- paranoidrobot 9y agoGiven how frequently we discover major flaws in the implementation of TLS, despite how well that is scrutinised. It's not unreasonable to believe there would similarly be major flaws in the implementation of 3G/LTE security that could be exploited.