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Where has the passive radar code gone?
- xyzal 4y agoThe code should just "accidentally" leak somewhere. I bet there are lots of people outside of the U.S. who would subsequenty host it.
- _0ffh 4y agoSeems like it's something in need of a torrent, then it can be community hosted.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- barnabee 4y agoLooks like it's here: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/Qma1jSwKrY3We1PrB3bgJE7TMZJK5cNRBMchoAEewAz5rJ/krakensdr_pr-main.zip https://ipfs.io/ipfs/Qma1jSwKrY3We1PrB3bgJE7TMZJK5cNRBMchoAE...
- Scoundreller 4y agoOne day I'm going to go to jail for the links I click on here
- squarefoot 4y agoBeing hosted on GitHub, it probably has already been cloned multiple times around the world. Although if I understood the device working principles, this isn't rocket science and the most difficult part is making a receiver in which multiple SDR are synchronized from a single source so that the phase difference between received signals can be accurately measured, which would be impossible by using separate tuners due to the high latencies and unpredictabilities of the USB hardware. I wonder if the interest created by the Streisand effect alone might fuel the production of cheaper multi-SDR hardware in China, to have it then available through say Aliexpress. That would defeat the take down purpose in the most ironic way.
- krisoft 4y ago> I wonder if the interest created by the Streisand effect alone might fuel the production of cheaper multi-SDR hardware in China, The hardware is still available, they just deleted code for this specific application from their repo. https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr
- TeMPOraL 4y agoDoes anyone know what regulatory / legal hurdles they may be facing? Relevant Wikipedia article [0] is strangely silent on the topic, though my guess would be, this might be classified as military technology. -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_radar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_radar
- dmw_ng 4y agoITAR according to Twitter https://twitter.com/vk5qi/status/1591628725141270528 https://twitter.com/vk5qi/status/1591628725141270528 https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr
- sneak 4y agoCould it be time for another Bernstein v US sort of case? The idea that source code publication can be restricted (prior restraint) by classifying it as “arms” seems like an attempt at an end run around the bill of rights.
- rtpg 4y agoWe spent a lot of years with export controls on a lot of things, and continue to have them on many pieces of software. Trying to do legal jujitsu to say “the code is speech”, especially given SCOTUSs current makeup, and the context of this being components of literal weapons systems… you’re not gonna get far IMO
- netr0ute 4y agoThis doesn't hold up if the software is baked into things that are undoubtedly protected by the 1st Amendment. What's going to happen if a music album uses ITAR technology?
- some_random 4y agoHow is a music album free speechier than a github repo?
- xyzal 4y agohttps://github.com/mfkiwl/krakensdr_pr https://github.com/mfkiwl/krakensdr_pr
- RobotToaster 4y agoLegend. Do you know if that was the latest version?
- eskaytwo 4y agoNah there were some October updates before it was pulled
- easygenes 4y agoThis page references the github docs wiki for the project, which has also been altered to remove the Passive Radar page. Does someone have a clone of that to host as well? There was also an edit to remove a reference to a video on Youtube demonstrating the passive radar capabilties. That Youtube video has been deleted as well.
- ar-jan 4y ago`git clone git@github.com:krakenrf/krakensdr_docs.wiki.git` has the passive radar page in the history.
- adrienthebo 4y agowiki page delete commit: https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensdr_docs/wiki/08.-Passive-Radar/191d28c9f2a665558d40f99d526fbfe0e13d2361 https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensdr_docs/wiki/08.-Passive-...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- netr0ute 4y agoLooks like the main code is just a single python script (https://github.com/mfkiwl/krakensdr_pr/blob/main/_signal_processing/krakenSDR_signal_processor.py https://github.com/mfkiwl/krakensdr_pr/blob/main/_signal_pro...), and it's not doing anything special in particular (simply a lot of FFTs).
- dannyw 4y agoHow accurate is this? What are some potential use cases?
- captainmuon 4y agoI wonder what the normal or non-military use cases of this code could be? Planespotting? Indoor navigation?
- tinco 4y agoDrug smuggling. If you don't need to be covert then you could just use active radar, right?
- pkaeding 4y agoIf you have nothing to hide?
- masklinn 4y ago> If you don't need to be covert then you could just use active radar, right? Passive radars can be used to track emissions sources of which you have no specific knowledge e.g. you're looking for a ship or rig, but you either don't want to ping it, or you are looking for its rough location, or you literally don't have the hardware for an active radar at the range involved.
- dzhiurgis 4y agoEuropean SAR space radar already covers earth every few days. Results are free and open.
- 4y ago
- snake_doc 4y agoExplanation of the software and hardware setup: https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr
- muhehe 4y agoWhat was it?
- masklinn 4y agoFrom what I understand, it was SDR[0] code which would allow using the antenna (possibly reconfigurable?[1]) into a passive radar aka a radar which tracks objects through their emissions (radio, bluetooth, wifi, ...) rather than emit electromagnetic waves and track their return. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconfigurable_antenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconfigurable_antenna
- mannykannot 4y agoIn this case, it is not so much tracking things by their own transmissions, but by their reflection of ambient radio (here, broadcast TV.) https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr https://spectrum.ieee.org/passive-radar-with-sdr (thanks to dmw_ng and snake_doc for the link.)
- notanote 4y agoPreviously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33333009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33333009
- mannykannot 4y ago17 days from the HN front page to being shut down.
- eskaytwo 4y agoIt would have been the IEEE article that got the attention
- masklinn 4y agoOh that's cool, so it's a radar using ambient radio as illuminator?
- lokimedes 4y agoI’m in the same industry, and find these attempts of constraining technology through secrecy extremely naive by our legislators. I’d wager that if you already know how to operate an SDR, you properly will have little trouble with the fairly simple algorithm of measuring phase differences, filtering, CFAR etc. to make a passive radar. Synchronizing a bag of RTL-SDRs with a common oscillator is a trivial soldering task. The cat went out of the bag the second SDRs jumped from DARPA R&D to DVB-T commodity. That aside having a passive radar breadboard is not the same as a high-end passive radar where frequency/phase stability, use of wideband multi-source emitters, ultra-low noise amplifiers and N>>2 channels for increased angular resolution are integrated in an operational system. These systems that actually works, should be controlled.
- jand 4y agoIt would be naive under the assumption that the intended goal is secrecy. If the goal would be simply "legislative control over a subject in case of unforseen events" it works exactly as desired.
- ISL 4y agoIf the goal was to state that potentially-ITAR technology cannot be hosted at GitHub nor sold to consumers, that message was received loud and clear.
- kragen 4y agowe've already been through this with crypto in the bernstein case code is speech in the us the 1st amendment protects your right to publish code selling to consumers is a different case of course disclaimer, i'm not related to krakenrf
- twawaaay 4y agoI think you naively underestimate the value of such skills and how easy it is to do this for some actors like terrorist groups. They do not have easy access to people like maybe you who are interested in it and internally motivated to do it. Because people at some intelligence, education and skill level are much less likely to join terrorist organisations. People who join terrorist organisations are usually ones that do not have many other options. The government knows they are fighting a loosing battle but the idea is to make it harder and delay development, not necessarily ensure the knowledge is not available at all.
- downvotetruth 4y ago> KrakenRF notes that if you must use an FM signal, pick a heavy-metal station “since heavy metal is closer to white noise.” Does a white noise correlation analysis exist for other musical genres?
- progre 4y agoI coworker once wondered about my Wolves in the throne room-tshirt and when I sent him a link his comment was "wow, thats... saturated" I would think that the white noise scale from less to more goes something like Nu-metal, power metal, heavy metal, death metal,(edit:) thrash metal, black metal, noisecore
- drivers99 4y agothrash not trash I assume
- CapricornNoble 4y agoAgree with your white noise scale, with Anaal Nathrakh straddling the black metal / noisecore divide: https://youtu.be/5wvkdL7Ra1I https://youtu.be/5wvkdL7Ra1I \m/ >_< \m/
- none_to_remain 4y agoCheck out Merzbow
- hedora 4y agoCthuga and WinAmp used to visualize this well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software) Atari Teenage Riot is definitely closer to white noise than 1990's metal. (Metal has retaken that throne these days.)
- transpute 4y agoIs there overlap between these ITAR restrictions and mmWave radar coming to consumer Wi-Fi routers via IEEE 802.11bf in Wi-Fi 7 (2024)? There are open-source projects which demonstrate Wi-Fi Sensing on $20 Wi-Fi devices, no SDR needed, plus a handful of commercial products with Wi-Fi "motion detection". There are also several hundred public academic papers on the subject. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561338#31563572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561338#31563572 Edit1: is Wi-Fi (2.4Ghz+) radar excluded, due to limited range? > (xxvii) Bi-static/multi-static radar that exploits greater than 125 kHz bandwidth and is lower than 2 GHz center frequency to passively detect or track using radio frequency (RF) transmissions (e.g., commercial radio, television stations); https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-22/chapter-I/subchapter-M/part-121 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-22/chapter-I/subchapter-M... Edit2: 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi can "see" reflections from moving objects through walls and other physical obstructions, at distances much greater than 0.2m from the obstruction. > (xvi) Radar that detects a moving object through a physical obstruction at distance greater than 0.2 m from the obstruction;
- eskaytwo 4y agoThe range on those would be minimal and trivial for any air-based weapons concerns. Definitely home privacy implications but they’re probably less of a concern for ITAR.
- xchip 4y agoWhat algorithm was it using? GCC-PHAT?
- bob1029 4y agoHere's another arbitrary passive radar project I just found on GitHub: https://github.com/Max-Manning/passiveRadar https://github.com/Max-Manning/passiveRadar I suspect this particular cat is out of the bag.
- sklargh 4y agoA procedural victim. Unfortunate, I was hoping to use this to track vehicle speeds on my street. ITAR always falls apart at the edges. High-end thermal and night vision equipment online to “US persons,” but a a bad passive radar’s code isn’t.
- password4321 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11714207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11714207
- fortran77 4y agoWell, you can still do it. You just have to dig a little for the code. And you can use Active radar. Commercial radar guns that are available for consumers, so there must be frequencies allocated to use this legally https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-101911-Velocity-Speed-Gun/dp/B0002X7V1Q https://www.amazon.com/Bushnell-101911-Velocity-Speed-Gun/dp... (though if you build your own device, it won't have specific FCC certification, but if you operate with in the same parameters -- frequency and power -- you're extremely unlikely to be noticed or penalized.)
- some_random 4y agoITAR is about export, not possession. The trouble with our global information network is that it's global.
- HideousKojima 4y ago>ITAR is about export, not possession. Nope, ITAR has been used by the feds to put the squeeze on legal gun manufacturers and sellers, even if they don't actually export guns: https://orchidadvisors.com/i-do-not-export-does-itar-apply-to-me/ https://orchidadvisors.com/i-do-not-export-does-itar-apply-t...
- mikewarot 4y agoI can't help but think that the regulators have just triggered the Streisand effect in this case. The components cost for this type of system has sunk through the floor. As in the case of PGP, I suspect that development outside of the US will take place, and we'll end up having to "import" the very technology from "experts" outside of the US while the internal pool of experts move on to other less forbidden fruit. Thus we'll lose any leadership we had her in the US.
- photochemsyn 4y agoIt does seem comparable to PGP and the whole FBI Clipper chip program from the 1990s: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/12/business/data-secrecy-export-case-dropped-by-us.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/12/business/data-secrecy-exp... > "Mr. Zimmermann developed the software as part of his personal campaign to make it simple and inexpensive to send scrambled messages. Using such software is not restricted or illegal within the United States, but export control laws treat the software as a weapon and place strict prohibition on its export. The Government opposes the scrambling because it wants to be able to check on the activities of criminals overseas and hostile foreign governments. The Clinton Administration has retained strict controls on the export of data-coding software, and has been trying to create standards that would make it possible for law enforcement officials to gain access to scrambled conversations, whether by electronic mail or telephone."
- hollerith 4y agoSince the Pentagon started paying MIT to develop the technology during WWII, there has probably never been a time of no restrictions by the US government on the publication and the export of radar technology. If you want to inquire into the effects restrictions on radar technology have had on US competitiveness, there's no need to look for lessons in the history of restrictions on a very different technology.
- kragen 4y agoprobably the effect restrictions had on radar technology 50 years ago when they were trying to restrict the export of (guessing) high-power radio amplifier tubes and ultra-low-noise amplifiers will be different from the effect restrictions have today when they are trying to keep people from explaining to each other how passive radar works and very similar to the effect they had 30 years ago when they were trying to keep people from explaining to each other how cryptography worked disclaimer, i'm not related to krakenrf
- unknownaccount 4y agoWhy are developers still limiting themselves by posting their code on the clearweb in a manner they can be traced and held liable for? Host everything on Tor from a server outside USA jurisdiction and this should be a total non issue. Code is speech. It’s time to stop letting the government get away with trampling on our 1st amendment rights to free speech.
- fortran77 4y agoI'm not a fan of github for other reasons, but how the heck would your solution work for searchability and discoverability, two of github's largest values?
- netr0ute 4y agoPost the onion link on the clearweb, and then those intermediary sites are mere pawns.
- eternalban 4y agoThis could work for distribution but it's not a solution for shielding the developer(s). If you have already publicly published code with attribution I would not consider tor + forward pawns to be 100% invulnerable to forensics to determine authorship. So now you're looking at tackling code transformation without obfuscation to cover provenance, which sounds non-trivial. (Your comment made me wonder if coPilot can also be used to fingerprint developers based on their existing code.)
- netr0ute 4y agoIf the sites/authors are out of US jurisdiction, then there's not a whole lot that could be done, so there's that.
- dahart 4y ago> It’s time to stop letting the government get away with trampling on our 1st amendment rights to free speech. That needs to be a legal fight, since classified information is specifically exempted from free speech, among a long list of other things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations). Moving to Tor might skirt the rules, but does little to challenge them, and won’t prevent any legal trouble for someone who gets caught. (It could make things worse, as it might demonstrate intent.) If you believe that free speech should be absolute, that needs to be litigated and voted for. Just remember Chesterton’s Fence: all the free speech limitations we have now have already been litigated and fought for. There are good reasons that freedom of speech is not absolute.
- oezi 4y agoFor those who were looking a link from the forum to the homepage: https://Krakenrf.com https://Krakenrf.com
- Animats 4y agoYou can order a reasonably good passive radar on Alibaba right now.[1] The DVB-T/T2 Passive Radar (external radiation source radar) itself does not emit signals, but receives the echo signals of non-cooperative radiation sources (radio, television, communication base stations, etc.) reflected by the target for detection (as shown in Figure 1). The radar is composed of antenna, multi-channel receiver, and signal processor: the dedicated reference antenna receives direct wave signals, and the monitoring antenna array receives target echo signals; the multi-channel receiver amplifies the signals received by all antennas, performing frequency conversion and A/D sampling. The signal processor processes the output signal of the receiver, and outputs target information after reference signal purification, clutter suppression interference, matched filtering, target detection, parameter estimation and tracking processing. Unlike other passive detection systems, DVB-T/T2 Based Passive Radar(external radiation source radar) can achieve single-station positioning and speed measurement, and can detect more types of targets (can detect radio silence targets, such as autonomous cruise drones, birds and balloons), and is particularly suitable for applications where there are restrictions on electromagnetic radiation and high detection performance requirements. Type of Target: Low-altitude targets such as drones, balloons, paragliders, and general aviation aircraft, including non-cooperative targets with radio silence Detection Range Directional model: 5 to 10km (DJI Phantom 4), Omnidirectional model: 2 to 4km (DJI Phantom 4) All suppressing this does is cut the US out of the market. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Silent-Sentry-Passive-Radar_1600484445946.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Silent-Sentry-Passive...
- paulmd 4y agoThe radar knows where the plane is at all times. It knows this because it knows where the plane isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation.
- googlryas 4y agoI love that because it seems like the retro encabulator video, but is actually pretty much how things really work.
- hedora 4y agoThey could always print it on a T-Shirt, sing it (70's folk protest song style), or print it out in book form, then mail it overseas to be OCR'ed. Those strategies worked for RSA. Anyone have a link to the RSA song? Here's a link to the T-Shirt design: http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/shirt/ http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/shirt/
- nojvek 4y agoOr you could buy it from China because they’d build it cheaper and better while US continues strifle the very thing they were experts on.
- infinityio 4y agohttps://gist.github.com/rietta/60b7b3f7ca33bd13948c https://gist.github.com/rietta/60b7b3f7ca33bd13948c
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- RektBoy 4y agoAnyone has the code pls?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jauer 4y agoCombine this with news about how quickly Starlink mitigated Russian EW and the Pentagon's reaction(1). It looks like portions of the US Government have badly underestimated what people and organizations outside their circles can accomplish. It's no surprise that their regulations aren't keeping up with how the open source SDR community has driven down the barrier to entry. 1: https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/spacex-beating-russian-jamming-attack-was-eyewatering-dod-official/ https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/spacex-beating-russian-j...
- littlestymaar 4y agoThe “starlink defeated Russia EW” is mostly a PR stunt: Russia doesn't have air-born EW (not counting the one on their Orlan-10 UAV, which AFAIK isn't made for jamming, but for intel) so there's not much they can do: They can't jam the dishes because no air-born EW, and they cannot jam the satellites either because they are pointing their antenna away from the territories under Russian control.
- noasaservice 4y agoHere's a failed patent on a system to auto-tune an antenna array meant for a KerberosSDR, but easily extendable to a KrackenSDR. https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/pantograph-antenna-array https://gitlab.com/crankylinuxuser/pantograph-antenna-array All the details are here to do autotuning to the frequencies available to a KrackenSDR dependent on frequencies. This device and antenna go from 400MHz to 1.7GHz.
- cactusplant7374 4y agoWho are the users of KrakenRF?
- kragen 4y agowhat jurisdiction is this in disclaimer, i'm not related to krakenrf