5 ms·

I'm kind of wondering if there even needs to be. If you keyed up on frequency near a major airport as described in the GP, I'm pretty sure the FAA and FCC would

I'm kind of wondering if there even needs to be. If you keyed up on frequency near a major airport as described in the GP, I'm pretty sure the FAA and FCC would be working together to track you down in short order. I could see the argument that it would be good to add authentication to the radios to complement the strict enforcement for a sort of belt-and-suspenders approach. However, I think a more pressing concern for aviation radio is that is is kept simpler, and thus with fewer failure modes, and thus more reliable Because when you need that radio in an emergency, that has to be the worst possible time to have to deal with authentication hiccups.

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
Could they? A moving target? Say the soundproofed back of some van.
- zentiggr 7y ago
  I personally would volunteer to be on one of the teams in another van with directional antennas to triangulate your transmissions and shut down you ASAP. The fact that no one has ever truly tried that sort of poisoning of radio calls is more due to the tower and aircraft having a very well defined set of calls, so that the likelihood of false transmissions being able to cause havoc is minimized already. I agree with another commenter that aviation radio systems should be the simplest, most reliable systems possible, and have that layer of communication depend on proper radio call discipline and no more.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
    My question was of theoretical nature, i'm not up to mischief of that sort. Though i'm often thinking about the vulnerabilities of our technological society, and the (false) assumptions we have about that. Compare it with lock picking. Most are easily bumped, or not even bothering with that, the door kicked down, some window used instead, and so on. Now, when someone kicks your door down, that's getting noticed, sooner or later. But what about cheap SBCs dropped somewhere with a battery and some custom periphery working as a relay? Of course the SUVs could find that. After the fact.
    - sfifs 7y ago
      Pulling these kinds of attacks - especially undetected - requires a certain level of intellect and education that should also be unaffected by things like substance abuse that hamper systematic planning. People with that level of capability almost always manage to create sufficiently comfortable life situations for themselves that they they lack motivation to do so. Problems happen when either (1) technology to do harm becomes commoditized and freely available so less capable people can acquire and use (eg. Easy conversion of semi automatic to automatics, commoditized hacks for script kiddies) or (2) capable people feel they're been sufficiently wronged that they don't care about the consequences of revenge (pretty much all the really big headline terrorist actions) Most intelligence activity on prevention focuses on (2) since pulling off such actions generally requires the capable planners to coordinate with less capable "feet on the ground" who can give things away. However capable people acting alone which happens occasionally is pretty much impossible to stop (Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kazynski, Kaloyev)
- jcrawfordor 7y ago
  VHF radios are relatively easy to locate by direction finding techniques, using for example a doppler direction finding array. The FCC's enforcement division is well-known to possess SUVs with this kind of equipment discreetly installed, although due to their famously limited budget you aren't too likely to see one in the wild. On the other hand, though, many large airports have such equipment permanently installed (e.g. RFEye).

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago

Could they? A moving target? Say the soundproofed back of some van.

zentiggr 7y ago
I personally would volunteer to be on one of the teams in another van with directional antennas to triangulate your transmissions and shut down you ASAP. The fact that no one has ever truly tried that sort of poisoning of radio calls is more due to the tower and aircraft having a very well defined set of calls, so that the likelihood of false transmissions being able to cause havoc is minimized already. I agree with another commenter that aviation radio systems should be the simplest, most reliable systems possible, and have that layer of communication depend on proper radio call discipline and no more.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  My question was of theoretical nature, i'm not up to mischief of that sort. Though i'm often thinking about the vulnerabilities of our technological society, and the (false) assumptions we have about that. Compare it with lock picking. Most are easily bumped, or not even bothering with that, the door kicked down, some window used instead, and so on. Now, when someone kicks your door down, that's getting noticed, sooner or later. But what about cheap SBCs dropped somewhere with a battery and some custom periphery working as a relay? Of course the SUVs could find that. After the fact.
  - sfifs 7y ago
    Pulling these kinds of attacks - especially undetected - requires a certain level of intellect and education that should also be unaffected by things like substance abuse that hamper systematic planning. People with that level of capability almost always manage to create sufficiently comfortable life situations for themselves that they they lack motivation to do so. Problems happen when either (1) technology to do harm becomes commoditized and freely available so less capable people can acquire and use (eg. Easy conversion of semi automatic to automatics, commoditized hacks for script kiddies) or (2) capable people feel they're been sufficiently wronged that they don't care about the consequences of revenge (pretty much all the really big headline terrorist actions) Most intelligence activity on prevention focuses on (2) since pulling off such actions generally requires the capable planners to coordinate with less capable "feet on the ground" who can give things away. However capable people acting alone which happens occasionally is pretty much impossible to stop (Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kazynski, Kaloyev)
jcrawfordor 7y ago
VHF radios are relatively easy to locate by direction finding techniques, using for example a doppler direction finding array. The FCC's enforcement division is well-known to possess SUVs with this kind of equipment discreetly installed, although due to their famously limited budget you aren't too likely to see one in the wild. On the other hand, though, many large airports have such equipment permanently installed (e.g. RFEye).