6 ms·

RF Spectrum Mapping

74 points by seamac3 3y ago

lm741 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20230630031721/https://www.he360.com/products/rfgeo-radio-frequency-signal-mapping/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230630031721/https://www.he360...
superkuh 3y ago
Or buy a hackrf one and make a wideband antenna like a a bicone or dual planar disk or tapered slot, etc, and use Qspectrumanalyzer with the hackrf_sweep backend to frequency hop at 8 GHz/s (@20 MS/s) for spectrum monitoring. edit: Now that someone provided an archive.org mirror I see the site is actually about truly global radio monitoring as a service. That's pretty cool. There's plenty of public/open SDRs online and some that do hyperbolic multi-lateration of signals but nothing so integrated or comprehensive. The USA's Unified Data Library has a lot of this kind of thing too. Unfortunately for regular US citizen accounts you can't use the RF monitoring endpoints in the API or web interface.
- RF_Savage 3y ago
  I do wonder how much of it is pulled from open sources, how much is bought and how much is from their own deployed hardware.
  - edrxty 3y ago
    Current hotness is building broker companies because all anyone wants to fund is direct sale stuff. It's a tossup whether they have their own satellites or are buying data from someone else. If they're running the satellite constellation themselves then this is more speculative than reality at this moment most likely. The capabilities they seem to be claiming are, funny enough, beyond what the available downlink spectrum can support given current constraints.
  - ge96 3y ago
    Tangent: how would you incentivize people to provide this data with accruacry regarding payment. How do you prove how good the data is, compare it to others I guess or voting.
    - belter 3y ago
      No need. Offer them a free browser + free email + free maps + free mobile OS and you have all the tracking you could wish for.
      - ge96 3y ago
        I wasn't thinking about tracking. I was thinking it would be cool if people can setup data collection sites like an anemometer in the case of weather or an SDR/something like that for RF in this case... what would incentivize them to make it good/get paid more... how do you verify it, not just made up data.
  - tj_astro 3y ago
    They have their own satellites, none of it is open source. You can find all 20+ of them in the SATCAT at http://celestrak.org/satcat/table-satcat.php?NAME=hawk&PAYLOAD=1 http://celestrak.org/satcat/table-satcat.php?NAME=hawk&PAYLO.... Ignore the SEAHAWK and HAWKSAT-1 entries, those are from other organizations.
ampgt 3y ago
“RF Mapping” or open sourced SIGINT? So many issues here. The IC at least has to abide by the constitution (fourth admenment, hello?). What does HE360 have to abide by? Entire company is full of ex-IC contractors and government employees. So.. they’ve essentially taken government tech and now trying to resell it to them? Surprised there isn’t more outrage. These guys will get hacked and a country with no SIGINT program will suddenly have access to an entire constellation. Nice.
imglorp 3y ago
This is some real Enemy of the State scifi capability here. Anywhere they have birds overhead, you are a realtime moving dot on the map even if you have no cell coverage, with history. And because it's a private company, they don't need a warrant to do this AND they can sell it to whoever does need a warrant.
- leon_theremin 3y ago
  [flagged]
- hereforphone 3y ago
  It doesn't quite work like that.
  - anfractuosity 3y ago
    Do you mean a phone wouldn't broadcast an IMSI, without a base station nearby? It sounds like passive IMSI catching is possible though - https://harrisonsand.com/posts/imsi-catcher/ https://harrisonsand.com/posts/imsi-catcher/ at least when a phone connects to a base station.
  - generalizations 3y ago
    That entirely depends on the sensitivity of their detection; but I'd guess that it does work like that.
  - myself248 3y ago
    Explain. Why not? The site advertises the ability to track individual handheld VHF/UHF radios, which are within an order of magnitude of the transmit power of cellular handsets. Even if they don't have the power to do that right now, they certainly could in the next generation of satellites. Or they might already have the power right now and just not be advertising it. Or maybe the hardware is there but the software is still being refined. (This strikes me as the most likely, since the digital transmission from a cellphone is significantly different from analog voice, it would take some different processing layers to handle it.) With the current constellation, they advertise 24 passes per day, but as they continue to add satellites, it approaches continuous. Furthermore, if the capability is commercially valuable, it's possible that other megaconstellations could just add the functionality to their own next-gen birds and then it's completely game-over. The limiting factor, as I understand it, would be downlink bandwidth. And there are a number of mitigations (on-orbit processing and compression, etc) for that.
ge96 3y ago
I wish I had a better macro mindset (to make money) for example you have access to satellite imagery, can do (what) analysis, what makes it valuable for people to buy the insight.
hereforphone 3y ago
https://www.gammarf.io https://www.gammarf.io is (was?) a ground based version of this for local areas. Bought out by https://www.sensorscape.io https://www.sensorscape.io but afaik nothing has been done with it
lebuffon 3y ago
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/interception-and-divulgence-radio-communications https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/interception-and-divulg... Does this law apply in the USA or is it moot because it's not about content?

74 points by seamac3 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230630031721/https://www.he360.com/products/rfgeo-radio-frequency-signal-mapping/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230630031721/https://www.he360...

superkuh 3y ago

Or buy a hackrf one and make a wideband antenna like a a bicone or dual planar disk or tapered slot, etc, and use Qspectrumanalyzer with the hackrf_sweep backend to frequency hop at 8 GHz/s (@20 MS/s) for spectrum monitoring. edit: Now that someone provided an archive.org mirror I see the site is actually about truly global radio monitoring as a service. That's pretty cool. There's plenty of public/open SDRs online and some that do hyperbolic multi-lateration of signals but nothing so integrated or comprehensive. The USA's Unified Data Library has a lot of this kind of thing too. Unfortunately for regular US citizen accounts you can't use the RF monitoring endpoints in the API or web interface.

RF_Savage 3y ago
I do wonder how much of it is pulled from open sources, how much is bought and how much is from their own deployed hardware.
- edrxty 3y ago
  Current hotness is building broker companies because all anyone wants to fund is direct sale stuff. It's a tossup whether they have their own satellites or are buying data from someone else. If they're running the satellite constellation themselves then this is more speculative than reality at this moment most likely. The capabilities they seem to be claiming are, funny enough, beyond what the available downlink spectrum can support given current constraints.
- ge96 3y ago
  Tangent: how would you incentivize people to provide this data with accruacry regarding payment. How do you prove how good the data is, compare it to others I guess or voting.
  - belter 3y ago
    No need. Offer them a free browser + free email + free maps + free mobile OS and you have all the tracking you could wish for.
    - ge96 3y ago
      I wasn't thinking about tracking. I was thinking it would be cool if people can setup data collection sites like an anemometer in the case of weather or an SDR/something like that for RF in this case... what would incentivize them to make it good/get paid more... how do you verify it, not just made up data.
- tj_astro 3y ago
  They have their own satellites, none of it is open source. You can find all 20+ of them in the SATCAT at http://celestrak.org/satcat/table-satcat.php?NAME=hawk&PAYLOAD=1 http://celestrak.org/satcat/table-satcat.php?NAME=hawk&PAYLO.... Ignore the SEAHAWK and HAWKSAT-1 entries, those are from other organizations.

ampgt 3y ago

“RF Mapping” or open sourced SIGINT? So many issues here. The IC at least has to abide by the constitution (fourth admenment, hello?). What does HE360 have to abide by? Entire company is full of ex-IC contractors and government employees. So.. they’ve essentially taken government tech and now trying to resell it to them? Surprised there isn’t more outrage. These guys will get hacked and a country with no SIGINT program will suddenly have access to an entire constellation. Nice.

imglorp 3y ago

This is some real Enemy of the State scifi capability here. Anywhere they have birds overhead, you are a realtime moving dot on the map even if you have no cell coverage, with history. And because it's a private company, they don't need a warrant to do this AND they can sell it to whoever does need a warrant.

leon_theremin 3y ago
[flagged]
hereforphone 3y ago
It doesn't quite work like that.
- anfractuosity 3y ago
  Do you mean a phone wouldn't broadcast an IMSI, without a base station nearby? It sounds like passive IMSI catching is possible though - https://harrisonsand.com/posts/imsi-catcher/ https://harrisonsand.com/posts/imsi-catcher/ at least when a phone connects to a base station.
- generalizations 3y ago
  That entirely depends on the sensitivity of their detection; but I'd guess that it does work like that.
- myself248 3y ago
  Explain. Why not? The site advertises the ability to track individual handheld VHF/UHF radios, which are within an order of magnitude of the transmit power of cellular handsets. Even if they don't have the power to do that right now, they certainly could in the next generation of satellites. Or they might already have the power right now and just not be advertising it. Or maybe the hardware is there but the software is still being refined. (This strikes me as the most likely, since the digital transmission from a cellphone is significantly different from analog voice, it would take some different processing layers to handle it.) With the current constellation, they advertise 24 passes per day, but as they continue to add satellites, it approaches continuous. Furthermore, if the capability is commercially valuable, it's possible that other megaconstellations could just add the functionality to their own next-gen birds and then it's completely game-over. The limiting factor, as I understand it, would be downlink bandwidth. And there are a number of mitigations (on-orbit processing and compression, etc) for that.

ge96 3y ago

I wish I had a better macro mindset (to make money) for example you have access to satellite imagery, can do (what) analysis, what makes it valuable for people to buy the insight.

hereforphone 3y ago

https://www.gammarf.io https://www.gammarf.io is (was?) a ground based version of this for local areas. Bought out by https://www.sensorscape.io https://www.sensorscape.io but afaik nothing has been done with it

lebuffon 3y ago

https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/interception-and-divulgence-radio-communications https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/interception-and-divulg... Does this law apply in the USA or is it moot because it's not about content?