Alert: BBC news making incident in Tonk-, er *Persian* Gulf sound Very Serious

Just watched the BBC World News at 6pm EDT - They're on full propaganda mode. The top-of-the-hour reporting was done straight from the UK naval ship that dispatched the crew of 15 now in Iranian custody. The TV crew has been on the ship for some time already, and filmed the same crew of 15 men while they were on yesterday's mission. They were just doing their job as good British citizens, searching a merchant ship 3000 miles from London for suspect cargo, when they were taken into custody early today by Iranian revolutionary guards. Iran says they were seized in Iranian territorial waters, but the BBC repeatedly stated the British claim that they were in Iraqi territory about six times without a hint that this claim is contested.

The report went on to cite British officers in the Basra zone with intelligence that attacks on them are being orchestrated and supplied from Iran. A Basra cleric was briefly shown, saying Iran supports the oppressed, at least according to the translation. Back to the ship, where everyone is very solemn and concerned about the fate of their crew members and appalled at this apparent violation of international law. Then there were briefs on the strangled cricket coach before a taped interview with a Tehran professor was broadcast starting on the 12th minute.

He for the first time notes that Iran is claiming the incident happened in its own waters. Three times he is asked a variation on the same "question," which amounts to "Isn't it outrageous and stupid that Iran should choose to do something so undiplomatic just at this time and screw with the righteous exercise of British power?" His answer is that maybe the guards thought they were doing their jobs and weren't considering diplomacy. The question is repeated, then back to the BBC reporter on the ship who assures that everyone on board knows their people were in Iraqi waters, no question. The scrawl informs that Ahmedinejad's trip to the UN has been delayed due to visa difficulties, Iran claims.

Watch out, because this looks like it could turn into the crisis certain war planners who want to attack Iran are dreaming of.

for the next terrorist attack.

and I heard that the BBC news crew did a special report on HMS Cornwall today before the incident.

Like the Brits try a rescue raid that leads to a missile being fired at a US/British ship that leads to...

...Spring break is over.

This is just another way to force our Congress to shut up and pay up.

We all knew here at the DU that something will *happen* during March to set up the Iran invasion.

I bet Bush will bring us to war while our government is out on vacation.

If Iran seized U.S. troops I'd want every thing done to get them back. I'd take it very seriously. England should as well.

I mean, why believe them?

Britain should ensure their safety, but this just seems all to convienient.
However, there was no actual conflict in 1964, here there is one.
Still it all seems suspect, seeing the times we are in.

In the case of the GoT incident, there was no actual incident. Nothing happened at all. US repeatedly violated North Vietnamese waters looking for a response, which they could then claim happened in international waters. When those uncooperative commies repeatedly failed to fire on the US warships invading their waters, the Pentagon finally just went and made up the whole thing. Worked just as well, thanks to a media that, yes, even before the fall of the print newspapers, was well-trained to say moooooooo.

Not that I have a clue, but if I were the agent of a world power looking for a war with Iran, I might try to screw around with their electronics and test to see if I could trick their GPS systems into registering locations as Iranian that were actually Iraqi. (Of course, failing that, I'd just go and dance around on the edge of their waters acting important until they responded.)

I'm afraid it isn't the Iranians that are "outrageous and stupid"...

I was starting to get hopeful again.

Maybe cooler heads will prevail . . .

:(

Let's hope that's enough.

reveals that screwing with the signals would be a piece of cake for those sophisticated in electronic warfare. I presume the British and Americans have put billions into developing e-warfare, as have others...

http://gpsd.berlios.de/gps-hacking.html

How GPS Works

First, the basics of how GPS works. It depends on the fact that satellite orbits are very predictable. A GPS sensor is a specialized computer that knows about the orbits of GPS satellites, and in particular can predict exactly where each satellite will be at any given time with respect to the fixed Earth. (For those of you who enjoy such details, what they actually predict is each satellite's position with respect to an imaginary ellipsoid called the "WGS 84 geoid" which closely fits the mean sea level of Earth.)

There are presently 28 dedicated GPS satellites, 11,000 miles up in high-inclination orbits so that each one's trajectory wraps around the Earth like a ball of yarn as the planet spins beneath them. The inclinations are tuned to guarantee that about twelve will be visible at any given time from anywhere on Earth (coverage falls off a little at high latitudes). Additional GPS coverage is provided by a couple of maritime navigation satellites parked in geosynchronous orbits over the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

You can look at a very nifty simulation of GPS satellite orbits. (Also includes GLONASS, the Russian military equivalent of GPS.) You can also look at pictures of GPS satellites and the control system.

Each satellite broadcasts identification pulses, each one including the clock time it was sent. A GPS receiver, picking up one of these pulses, can compare it to an internal clock and know the time it took to arrive. Multiplying by lightspeed gives the distance to the satellite. This starts to be useful when the GPS can get accurate timings to three or more satellites; at that point, computing the GPS's exact position with respect to the satellites becomes a relatively simple if tedious exercise in spherical trigonometry (which, fortunately, the GPS's firmware does for you).

That's the theory. In practice, the system has important limits. Anything, natural or artificial, that messes with the signal timings will degrade the accuracy of your position fix. Until it was abolished by Presidential decree in 2000, the most important limit was artificial, the so-called 'Selective Availability' feature. The satellites were programmed to introduce patterned timing jitter into the signals. The U.S. military knew the pattern, but nobody else did (or, at least, nobody who was admitting it).


http://www.hacking-gps.com/gps-notes/archives/2005/04/lowcost_gps_jam.php

Technical article on building a portable GPS jammer that affects the L1 carrier signal. This means that it would have no effect on the military L2 carrier or the P-code that that carries. It does however cast a huge cloud of doubt over the use of GPS in tracking tagged criminals.

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,77702,00.html

January 17, 2003 (Computerworld) -- Government officials and communications experts are assessing the public safety and security implications of a newly posted online article that provides directions for making cheap devices that can jam Global Positioning System (GPS) signals.

Information in the article that appears in the current issue of the online hacker magazine Phrack potentially puts at risk GPS devices used for commercial navigation and military operations, authorities said.

The Phrack article provides a detailed guide to building a low-cost, portable GPS jammer out of components that can be easily obtained from electronics supply houses. According to the article, the "onslaught of cheap GPS-based navigation (or hidden tracking devices) has made it necessary for the average citizen to take up the fine art of electronic warfare." Electronics and GPS experts who read the article this week called it technically competent and said amateurs with a certain amount of technical skill could build a GPS jammer from the plans.

Although the article said the jammer is designed to work only against civil-use GPS signals broadcast on the frequency of 1575.42 MHz and not the military frequency of 1227.6 MHz, James Hasik, an Atlanta-based consultant and author of the book The Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare, disagreed. (...)

http://www.fuhs.de/en/news/sathack.shtml

Press Release 03.04.2003
'Coalition Guidance Systems Compromised'

The explosion of an alleged allied forces so-called smart bomb on a market place in Baghdad where about 50 civilians were killed could have been caused by the deliberate jamming of the guidance system by a GPS jammer. This is the opinion of the internationally well-known security consultant Howard Fuhs. ‘This incident is similar to the bombing of the Chinese embassy during the Kosovo conflict’, Fuhs said. ‘It is a safe assumption that the error was caused by GPS jamming transmitters and not through navigational errors.’

Fuhs maintains that not only is the jamming of GPS signals a threat to allied forces and civilians in Iraq, but there is also the danger of the enemy, even terrorists, hacking into satellite communication channels. Such hacking and jamming may explain the level of civilian casualties and attack from 'friendly' fire.

'I have seen not only ex-Soviet hand-held GPS jamming devices for sale on the internet, but details of how to make jammers out of cheap components. The threat of jamming is widely known, but rarely publicised'. See:
www.computerworld.com
www.ac11.org
www.space.com

What is even more disturbing is the possibility of satellites actually being taken over and their communication channels used for ill. 'Satellite security is at the same stage as computer security was ten years ago, with the 'owners' in denial. Usually, encryption is either weak or non-existent, in the belief that little-known modulation types are sufficient security. This is palpably untrue. There is no modulation type that cannot be decoded with money to buy the equipment. In some cases, sufficient wattage is all that is needed to open up the controls. (...)

http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/story/0,10801,65096,00.html

Pentagon is probably jamming GPS in Afghanistan, experts say
Bob Brewin

October 26, 2001 (Computerworld) -- The U.S. Defense Department has probably been selectively jamming signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) in Afghanistan since the start of the air campaign earlier this month, according to nonmilitary GPS experts.

The experts emphasized that the jamming in Afghanistan will have no effect on civilian users, including airlines, which increasingly rely on GPS for transoceanic navigation. Signals from the GPS satellite system available to civilian users provide an accuracy of 36 meters or better, while separate, encrypted military signals used to guide so-called smart bombs in Afghanistan provide accuracy within 6 meters, according to Richard Langley, a professor of geodesy and precision navigation at the University of New Brunswick. Langley's Web site plots the GPS military signal over Kabul as of Oct. 11.

Langley said the Pentagon has developed the capability to jam civilian GPS signals within a specific targeted area and could easily deny the 36-meter-accuracy civilian signal to the Taliban forces without interfering with users in other areas of the world. Depending on whether the Pentagon, which developed and operates the 28-satellite GPS constellation, uses airborne or ground jammers, this could deny the signal to the Taliban over a wide area, with some of the jamming potentially spilling over into Pakistan.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/04/universal_autom.html

GPS, my behind. Who needs to hack those tamperproof big brother GPS boxes when it's much easier to jam the weak satellite signals? Couple of hours of soldering and assembling, top, for an amateur.

Oh, and that will also screw up GPS navigation for everyone unlucky to be close by.

The law of unintended consequences strikes again.

Police comedy, the next round: the hunt for GPS jammers. "What's that in your pocket, boy?"

Where this silliness is going to end? EMP guns?

http://www.dailywireless.org/2006/10/08/satellite-jam/

Ground segments and communications links remain the most vulnerable components of space systems, susceptible to attack by conventional military means, computer hacking, and electronic jamming. A number of intentional jamming incidents targeting communications satellites have been reported in recent years and Iraq’s acquisition of GPS-jamming equipment for use against US GPS-guided munitions during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 suggests that jamming capabilities are proliferating.

BBC did not provide that information earlier today.



Of course, this doesn't say which side of the line on a presumably wide waterway the British search crew were on.

It does imply an Iranian decision to begin challenging the searches, though.

The top-of-the-hour reporting was done straight from the UK naval ship that dispatched the crew of 15 now in Iranian custody.

Wait - you mean to tell me that the BIGGEST news story of the day was done from somewhere near the LOCATION where it happened?!? Shock! Horror!

hey were just doing their job as good British citizens, searching a merchant ship 3000 miles from London for suspect cargo

In compliance with international law. Shock! Horror!

but the BBC repeatedly stated the British claim that they were in Iraqi territory about six times without a hint that this claim is contested.

I'm sorry, but bullshit. From the front page of the BBC's website right now:

Tehran had made a "firm protest" about the "illegal entry" in the Gulf by the UK personnel, an Iranian official said.

Ah yes, so... contested.

He said in a statement that he had delivered a "firm protest from Iran against the illegal entry of British sailors into Iranian territorial waters".

Contested!

Mr Rahimpour accused British sailors of having illegally entered Iranian waters "a number of times".

Contested?

Both the Royal Navy and UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett denied the personnel from HMS Cornwall, which has its home port in Plymouth, had sailed into Iranian waters.

Double-triple contested!

The same information is viewable in the videos from the BBC's website. I can't claim to have seen the exact broadcast of which you speak, but if you're accusing the beeb of contradicting itself and spewing propoganda I'd appreciate some kind of, you know, supporting evidence, since you're making such a serious charge.

A Basra cleric was briefly shown, saying Iran supports the oppressed, at least according to the translation. Back to the ship, where everyone is very solemn and concerned about the fate of their crew members and appalled at this apparent violation of international law.

Well, hell, I guess I'm disappointed that they weren't praying for the Iranians to shoot their colleagues.



Watch out, because this looks like it could turn into the crisis certain war planners who want to attack Iran are dreaming of.

Right. Except for the rest of the report, which you conveniently fail to mention, which states that:

She said Iran's ambassador to the UK, Rasoul Movahedian, had met Foreign Office officials for a "brisk but polite" discussion on Friday afternoon.

Which basically means that the diplomats will bitch at each other for a couple of days and then the troops will be handed back, as has been the case in every single incident of this sort since the end of the Iran/Iraq war.

I'm still waiting for the screeching from Bushco about this incident that was predicted by everyone this morning.

This morning I thought this incident would prove to be minor. Then the hysterical tenor of the BBC report made me think otherwise. Tomorrow I may have to change that opinion, as perhaps the Iranians will liberate your precious British troops, these occupiers of a land they have no business in - a land they have helped to destroy.

You do make one claim I find absurd, and one might reasonably expect you to back it:

In compliance with international law. Shock! Horror!

Show me how the British presence in Iraq - the invasion, the occupation, or the ongoing policing of any Iraqi territory - is in compliance with international law.

Which law might that be?

Thanks.