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I'm wondering how do they prevent non-NASA entities from sending commands to the rover - are they using some sort of cryptographic signatures when sending the c

by vladd 14y ago

I'm wondering how do they prevent non-NASA entities from sending commands to the rover - are they using some sort of cryptographic signatures when sending the commands?

iwwr 14y ago
You need access to the big Deep-Space Network of radio dishes.
- vbtemp 14y ago
  1. You can hack into the DSN, and try to do it that way. 2. Set up an 80-meter dish in your back yard, with a team of NASA RF experts. With step (2), the authorities will zero in on you in a second, so the emphasis is definitely on the cyber security of the ground infrastructure and not on SSL-over-space-link-communication.
  - vladd 14y ago
    (2): there are plenty of third world countries or foreign government agencies where placing a 80-meter dish is not a problem. Although the process seems a bit intimidating - http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/features/dsnbuilt1.html http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/features/dsnbuilt1.html
    - vbtemp 14y ago
      Not just assembling the dish - you also have to know the ephemeris schedule, bit coding scheme (it changes based on circumstances), packet formats, software infrastructure... In the great scheme of things, my friend, Cuba or Zimbabwe secretly erecting an 80 meter dish just to f--k with a rover on mars isn't really a concern. Even though ESA or China or Japan might conceivably have the theoretical capability to do this... there are other things to worry about.
      - stephengillie 14y ago
        They could just DOS it by blasting it with white noise.
pothibo 14y ago
This kinda raises question. I for one would not use encryption just to maximize bandwith efficiency. Deep space program are no where close to being a tactical advantage over another country. I wouldn't see why someone would like to screw it up. On the other side, there's always a moron out there to crash the party. So even if I wouldn't use encryption, I wouldn't be surprised if they use it.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  I for one would not use encryption just to maximize bandwith efficiency. Encryption typically doesn't make messages longer.
  - pothibo 14y ago
    We're not talking about your average data. We're talking about optimized data. Of course there's an overhead. EDIT: removed specific type of data
    - accountoftheday 14y ago
      There isn't. You could easily achieve zero overhead by shipping a rover with a OTP for time-keyed IVs and just not do any padding.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by "optimized" data. Edit: my very rudimentary understanding of information theory tells me that there's no "average" or "optimized" data, only varying amounts of entropy (AKA compressibility). My limited knowledge of radio and electrical transmission says that transmitted data is encoded to make effective use of the transmission medium (e.g. 8b/10b encoding, 8-to-14 modulation, TMDS). So, if by "optimized" data you mean "high entropy" data, encryption should have no effect on that. Or, if by "optimized" you mean encoded for the transmission channel, you would run your encryption process before the channel encoding process.
      - deleted 14y ago
lavezza 14y ago
I'm not sure about Curiosity in particular, but I work in the space industry and can say that commands are normally timestamped and encrypted. The encryption stops someone from commanding the spacecraft, the timestamp stops someone from recording a transmission and resending it later.
- alanh 14y ago
  So there’s basically a real Goldeneye key. And you could really use a Goldeneye key duplicator before leaving Severneya!

by vladd 14y ago

I'm wondering how do they prevent non-NASA entities from sending commands to the rover - are they using some sort of cryptographic signatures when sending the commands?

iwwr 14y ago

You need access to the big Deep-Space Network of radio dishes.

vbtemp 14y ago
1. You can hack into the DSN, and try to do it that way. 2. Set up an 80-meter dish in your back yard, with a team of NASA RF experts. With step (2), the authorities will zero in on you in a second, so the emphasis is definitely on the cyber security of the ground infrastructure and not on SSL-over-space-link-communication.
- vladd 14y ago
  (2): there are plenty of third world countries or foreign government agencies where placing a 80-meter dish is not a problem. Although the process seems a bit intimidating - http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/features/dsnbuilt1.html http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/features/dsnbuilt1.html
  - vbtemp 14y ago
    Not just assembling the dish - you also have to know the ephemeris schedule, bit coding scheme (it changes based on circumstances), packet formats, software infrastructure... In the great scheme of things, my friend, Cuba or Zimbabwe secretly erecting an 80 meter dish just to f--k with a rover on mars isn't really a concern. Even though ESA or China or Japan might conceivably have the theoretical capability to do this... there are other things to worry about.
    - stephengillie 14y ago
      They could just DOS it by blasting it with white noise.

pothibo 14y ago

This kinda raises question. I for one would not use encryption just to maximize bandwith efficiency. Deep space program are no where close to being a tactical advantage over another country. I wouldn't see why someone would like to screw it up. On the other side, there's always a moron out there to crash the party. So even if I wouldn't use encryption, I wouldn't be surprised if they use it.

nitrogen 14y ago
I for one would not use encryption just to maximize bandwith efficiency. Encryption typically doesn't make messages longer.
- pothibo 14y ago
  We're not talking about your average data. We're talking about optimized data. Of course there's an overhead. EDIT: removed specific type of data
  - accountoftheday 14y ago
    There isn't. You could easily achieve zero overhead by shipping a rover with a OTP for time-keyed IVs and just not do any padding.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "optimized" data. Edit: my very rudimentary understanding of information theory tells me that there's no "average" or "optimized" data, only varying amounts of entropy (AKA compressibility). My limited knowledge of radio and electrical transmission says that transmitted data is encoded to make effective use of the transmission medium (e.g. 8b/10b encoding, 8-to-14 modulation, TMDS). So, if by "optimized" data you mean "high entropy" data, encryption should have no effect on that. Or, if by "optimized" you mean encoded for the transmission channel, you would run your encryption process before the channel encoding process.
    - deleted 14y ago

lavezza 14y ago

I'm not sure about Curiosity in particular, but I work in the space industry and can say that commands are normally timestamped and encrypted. The encryption stops someone from commanding the spacecraft, the timestamp stops someone from recording a transmission and resending it later.

alanh 14y ago
So there’s basically a real Goldeneye key. And you could really use a Goldeneye key duplicator before leaving Severneya!