WEBVTT

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<i>silent 30C3 preroll titles</i>

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<i>applause</i>

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Travis Goodspeed: First I need
to apologize for typesetting this

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in OpenOffice. I know that the
text looks like a ransome note.

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But that's what happens
when you don't use LaTex.

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I'd also like to give a shoutout
call, mallnarf (?) is here,

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and our Dinosaur rock band.

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<i>laughs, applause</i>

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We're a Christian rock band - we're
called 'Jesus lives in the ISS' and

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we know that he is always watching us,
but we think that it's easier for him

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to hear our prayers when
he's, you know, in an orbit

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that passes over us. So we need to use
orbital tracking to know when to pray!

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<i>laughter</i>

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As I'm sure you can guess I'm not
recognized as a legal minority religion

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in Germany. I'd also like to thank skytee

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and Fabienne Serrière and Adam Laurie

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and Jim Geovedi for some
prior satellite tracking work,

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and the scooby crew (?) at Dartmouth
College for all sorts of fun

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whenever I bounce out there.
This is the mission patch

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of the Southern Appalachian
Space Agency (SASA).

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<i>applause and cheers</i>

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This was drawn by Scot Biben (?) and there are
a few pieces of my people's native culture

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that I need to point out here. On the
right the little Dinosaur type thing

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with his finger going out, you might
call him E.T. but we call these things

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'buggers'. They are like this tall, and
they are green and that's why the man

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on the left has a shotgun.
<i>laughter</i>

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Because he doesn't want to be abducted.
You got a satellite dish in the middle

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and it's sitting on sinter blocks because
that's also a piece of my people's

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native culture. There's a moonshine
still in the background.

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That's kind of like Waldcubbet (?), you
make it at home and from corn.

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And then there's the mountain... a piece,
it looks like there are snowpeaks

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on those mountain tops. But our mountains
aren't tall enough to have snow.

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These are actually that we've blown off
the lids of the mountains for coal mining.

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Which is another piece of
my people's native culture.

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And at the top, in space you can see
the ISS, and you can see a banana,

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and you can see what I think is a bulb.
This is to signify space trash.

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I mean there's a lot of stuff up there.
And, you know it's symbolism that matters

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in these things, you know?

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At BerlinSides, in May of 2012

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I did a lecture on reverse
engineering the SPOT Connect.

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The SPOT Connect is a litte
hockey puck type thing

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– this is what it looks like.
And these things are great.

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It weighs a bit more than your cell phone
but it runs off of a couple of batteries,

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it connects to your phone by Bluetooth.

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Originally these were emergency locator
beacons. So if you're going hiking...

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have any of you seen the movie where
the guy has to cut off his arm

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with a dull knife? If you're hiking and
you don't want that same experience

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you buy one of these things. And
then there's an emergency button

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you can push that transmits your
GPS coordinates by satellite

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to rescue workers. But that was boring,
so they had to add social media.

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<i>laughs, laughter</i>

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So in addition to keeping you
from chewing off your own arm

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this device will also allow you to
tweet and make Facebook posts.

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<i>laughs, laughter</i>

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The idea is that as you're running...
here I'm crossing the Schuylkill River

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in Philadelphia and the Android
phone on the left is making a post.

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And I did an article on reverse-
engineering the Bluetooth side

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of these things. Because... I use a weird
brand of phone that Microsoft killed off,

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and I'm terribly bitter about it. But
I also figured out the physical layer.

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And that's what this diagram shows.
This transmits at 1.6125 GHz.

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And it sends a pseudo-random stream, so
each one of these zeros is a long chunk

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where it's bouncing back and forth
between 2 different frequencies.

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And the same for the ones.
But the way that the pattern works

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is that it switches the signal whenever
it is going from the 0 signal

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to the 1 signal. And internally, there are
these little pops that you can actually

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identify on a Software Defined Radio
recording. And this is how you can

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reverse-engineer the signal that
the SPOT Connect is sending up

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to its satellite network.

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Everything is clear text on this.
And it's completely unencrypted.

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It just has your serial number, your GPS
coordinates, and a bit of ASCII text.

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So if you listen on this frequency and
you have the correct recording software

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you can actually watch all of the SPOT
Connect messages that are transmitting

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up from your location. And this would be
great except that this is designed for

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hiking in areas where there's no cell
phone service. So having an antenna

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on the uplink frequency is kind of
useless. You know you would actually

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have to go out to a national park, find
some guy who is about to chew his arm off,

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and then you could listen to his uplink
where he is like tweeting: "Hey, I'm gonna

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chew my arm off", you know?
<i>laughter</i>

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So that's great as a proof of concept
but it's not really anything practical.

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The current state of that was that I knew
the protocol and I could sniff the uplinks.

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But I wanted to sniff the downlinks. So
it's easy for me to get the thing that

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goes up to the satellite. But what I wanted
was what comes down from the satellite.

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And that requires a satellite dish. But
a geo-stationary dish isn't good enough

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because the satellites that run this
network – there are a lot of them,

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it's called the Globalstar network,
they fly really low across the earth,

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and they fly across the earth in very
tight, very fast orbits. So they'll move

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from horizon to horizon in 15 to 20
minutes. Which means that you either need

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like a sweat shop army of kids
trying to aim the satellite dish

NOTE Paragraph

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as it's going across or you need
to make it computer-controlled.

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Stepping back from the SPOT
Connect for a little bit, and

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discussing some prior research.
Adam Laurie did some work

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with geostationary satellites.
These are the satellites that stay

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in one position in the sky.
He gave two sets of talks

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– one in 2008 and the second in
2010. And he used a DVB-S card

NOTE Paragraph

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connected to a satellite dish with
a diseqc motor, so that it could move

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the satellite dish left and right in order
to scan a region of the horizon.

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His tool is publicly available,
it's called satmap.

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You can grab it at this URL.

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And then after he finds a signal he has
a feed scanner. Normally when you use

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Satellite TV you provider gives you
a listing of the frequencies, and

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your provider gives you an exact orbital
position to aim your satellite dish at.

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But Adam's tool allows you to scan to
see which frequencies are in use and

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which protocols are in use, once
you've correctly aimed your dish.

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And he also describes a technique
for moving your dish left and right

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while doing this in order to
identify where the satellites are.

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This recording here is from
a re-implementation that I made

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of Adam's work, in order to
catch up with it. In this diagram

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the x-axis - because you move left
and right - that shows the azimuth,

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that shows how far left or right my
satellite dish has moved. And then

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the y-axis shows the frequency. And
all of these dots are strong signals.

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So every vertical bar in which you see
chunks of frequencies, that's a satellite.

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But these stay in the same position. So
it's easy for me to repeat this experiment.

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It's easy for me to re-run it, and to find
the same satellites in the same position.

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It's easy to debug this.
But it can't move in elevation.

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This diagram is actually
a very small slice of the sky.

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We're looking at a single line,
maybe 10 degrees across.

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Maybe only 5 degrees across.

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So hacking Ku-band – the television
satellites – has the advantage

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that you can use cheap standardized
hardware. I bought one of these DVB-S cards

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in Mauerpark, in Berlin for 3 Euro. You
can use standardized disecq motors,

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you can buy them at a satellite TV shop.

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TV signals come with video feeds
so you can actually see pictures.

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There was a scandal about 4..5 years
ago where they were finding

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drone [control] feeds that were being
bounced across these satellites.

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In the nineties it was very popular to
listen to the sort of unedited sections

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of interviews, when people would
be interviewed over a satellite,

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before Skype and such
things became options. And

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there are also networking signals here
using TCP/IP packets. So you can actually

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turn your DVB-S card into
a promiscuous ethernet adapter,

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and start sniffing all of the traffic that
comes across. This is also a great way

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to get free downlink bandwidth. Because
you can just flood packets at an address

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that, you know, will be routed to
you, or several addresses, and

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then you sniff it out as the
legitimate receiver ignores them.

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But it also has some disadvantages. It
only works for geostationary satellites.

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If the satellite is not staying in the
same position relative to the ground

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then you can't track it. Your
dish also moves very slowly.

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And it only moves left and right.
It won't move up and down.

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And you're limited to standardized
signals. So while it's great that you get

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video and TCP/IP you're never
going to get anything weird.

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You're not gonna get any mobile
data, you're not going to get any

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Brazilian truck-drivers – we'll
get to those in a bit. <i>laughs</i>

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I misspoke, you actually will get
Brazilian truck-drivers in this.

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So I bought a satellite dish. One of the
best things about living in America is

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that you can buy industrial
hardware cheap as dirt on ebay.

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I know things aren't likely used to being
a cat bite to (?)(?) human children anymore.

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But this satellite dish here on
the left – the one in the radome –

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that's my dish. And to the right,
that's the boat that it came from.

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<i>applause</i>
<i>laughs</i>

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This came from a military ship.
But the dish itself is also available

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for civilian use on very large yachts.

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The dish itself is a Felcom 81 and it
was intended for use with a network

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called Inmarsat. Inmarsat allows
for telephone connections,

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and also data connections when you're on
a boat. So if the crew wants to call home

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or wants to go to AOL Keywords

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or whatever was popular back when
this was common they could do that.

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And the dish was designed to sit
at the very top of a ship's mast.

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The reason why is that at the top of
the mast there aren't any obstructions

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– it has a clear view of the sky in all
directions. But there's a complication

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with being on the top of the mast. Which
is that the ship is rocking beneath you

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and you're moving more
than the rest the ship.

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So they have stepper motors
for azimuth, elevation and tilt.

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And then they have spinning gyroscopes.
Back before the iPhone there was

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this dark, dark time when
gyroscopes actually spun.

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And this is the sort of gyroscope that
it has. It actually has 4 of them so

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that it can measure its movement.

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And then it has a control computer. So the
idea is that the dish itself can be moved

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while remaining absolutely stable
with regard to the gyroscopes.

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So it compensates for the rocking of
the ship beneath it as it's targeting

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a stationary satellite.
In America this costs 250 dollars

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but it's electronics equipment, so while
you think that would only be a 180 Euro

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it's more like 2500. And that's before
import duties and it being impounded.

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We also have this lovely culture in which
people love excuses to use their trucks.

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So the guy that I bought this from offered
to deliver it to my home for only $200.

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It was an 11-hour drive.

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But if you wanted this you'd have to
bring it back in your carry-on luggage

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and that could be awkward.

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I got this dish and I decided I had
to do something with it. So I created

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the Southern Appalachian Space Agency.
I'm from the state of Tennessee,

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formerly known as the State of Franklin
until North Carolina invaded us.

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It's ok, I know Europeans suck at history.

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<i>laughs</i>
<i>laughter and applause</i>

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Now I'm trying to think of how to show
you on a map where Tennessee is

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without having a map. But, you know, it's
okay, I know you suck at geography

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and will forget it soon (?)

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From audience: It's very
near Texas, to the north.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Travis: Texas is our first colony. But
it's actually a decent drive to the east.

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Due east (?). You don't
actually have to go it anyways.

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So what I did was I took these motors
which were designed to be able to move

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the satellite dish to compensate
for the rocking the ship and

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I re-purposed them to track through
the sky while the ground is stable.

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We don't have very many earthquakes in
Tennessee. The last one that we had

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made rivers run the wrong direction.
But it's okay – it's a geography thing.

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<i>laughs</i>
So this allows me to track things

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that are moving through the sky.
But it doesn't actually matter

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where they're moving in the sky because
that's just a software problem.

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So in addition to tracking objects that
are in low-earth orbit by a software patch

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I can also track things that are in deep
space. It's not much harder to track

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deep space probes or stars than it
is to track items in low-earth orbit.

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And then I added a software defined radio
which allows me to record a signal now

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and then demodulate it later.
Which is necessary if you intend

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to reverse-engineer a signal. Because
a lot of the downlinks from these satellites

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are completely non... completely
undocumented. And being able

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to tune in to the right frequency is only
half of it. You also need a recording

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of sufficient quality that you can
reverse-engineer it after the fact.

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We're sort of spoiled by software
defined radios in that when doing

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software defined radio work we usually
have a very good signal to work from.

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So having high quality signals for later
reverse-engineering is necessary.

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I really wanted to be able to identify
undocumented downlinks for low-earth orbit

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in the same way that we already
do this for geo-stationary orbit

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using tools like the ones that Adam
Laurie and Jim Geovedi made.

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So I built a software framework as
a collection of Python daemons.

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And these run across a home
area network in my house.

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There's a Beaglebone inside of the Radome.

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And an x86 server in the house. Or AMD64,
whatever the kids call it these days.

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And then I used Postgres for coordination.
So that all of these daemons can talk

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to each other without... without me really
caring which machine they're on.

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So for maintenance I can have my
laptop pretending to be the dish,

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and I can have stepper motors on my desk,
and I can watch them spin, and I can even

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make a model of the dish and swap these
components in and out without the rest of

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the network being confused. This also
allows for sequal (?) injection attacks to

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physically move my dish. Which is why the
Sassin (?) network is not on one of those

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fancy WEB 2.0 things. Because of you could
inject, say, "UPDATE target SET name=

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'VOYAGER 1'". Then my dish would physically
move and start tracking Voyager 1

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through the sky. Voyager 2

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doesn't actually come into the sky because
of my position in the Northern hemisphere.

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So, it's okay, I know you suck at
geography. But Voyager 1 is going up,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Voyager 2 is going down.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's a Realtek Software Defined Radio
for the radio reception. Although

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
these things are garbage. So I'm in the
process of replacing this for the HackRF.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's also an EiBot board for motor
control. We'll get back to that in a minute.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And there's an Inertial Measurement Unit
from VectorNav which actually measures

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
using the fancy MEMS gyroscopes and
a MEMS compass how I'm moving.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This isn't accurate enough to target the
dish, so I'm still counting steps

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to move the dish. But it is accurate
enough to tell me when my belts

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
have broken. Or when I'm up
against the physical obstruction.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is skytee helping
me out with the dish.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He's zip-tying it. Because, you know
we know everything about duct tape

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where I come from, but we know nothing
about zip ties. So I had to bring in

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a German engineer.
<i>laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We call him a Gerry wigger (?) but, you know...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the satellite dish itself. And you
can sort of see in this photograph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where we've strapped on the equipment.
There's like an embillica (?) cord.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Or more like a spinal column that actually
runs up the back of the dish. So we just

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
added new cables onto that line.
And then zip-tied them in place.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And skytee came up with all these
crazy ideas like that we should use

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
chains and zip-ties to make sure that the
cables don't tear themselves out. And

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that worked tremendously well in practice.
So, as this thing spins around,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by the original design there's a ring
connector that all of the signals

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
go through. That all of the networking
goes through. That all of the rest

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
goes through. And that worked in the
nineties because it had no reason

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to send anything faster than 9600 baud.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But with the modern signals going across
it - I need 100MBit/s or even GB ethernet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That's not enough. I need more than
2 wires. So there's a cable that comes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
across it, and then I rely on the
software to keep it from wrapping

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that cable around itself. So it can only
move, say, 400 degrees around.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But that's still more than a full circle.
So by stopping halfway and moving back

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I can prevent it from getting stacked (?).
We've got the Beaglebone on the left,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the middle there's a USB hub, and
on the right is the motor controller.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Beaglebone runs Debian Linux. And
takes care of sending the software defined

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
radio recordings over the network. It also
takes care of updating the motor positions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to be the ones that the database declares
should be current. The stepper motors

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
themselves are the originals that the dish
was designed with. And they're running

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to an EiBot Board. The EiBot board was
intended for plotting on Easter eggs

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughs</i>
I feel, you know... is that neat?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughs</i>
<i>applause</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So you can actually aim a satellite dish
that's as tall as you are, with of these

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
fancy motors using less sophisticated
equipment than what's used

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in a 3D printer. Don't panic, though.
It's a hell of a lot more reliable

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than a 3D printer. But we needed
some sort of backup. In addition

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the inertial measurement unit telling
us when the device had snagged itself.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It would also help to have a visual
queue. Because the satellite dish

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
sits in Tennessee, and while I love my
home town, and, you know I'm very

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
proud of being Tennesseean it's also
a long way to travel when you need

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to re-orient the dish. Using an
accelerometer it's easy enough

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to correct the elevation. Because you can
use the accelerometer as a level, and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you can use that to tell how high up the
dish is pointing, at an absolute scale.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the compass isn't very accurate. So
instead, as a backup we have a webcam

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's taped to the top. Taping
is my people's native culture.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have it taped to the top, and then
it's pointing backwards. So this gives us

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like a rear view camera, from the
dish's position. So as the dish sits

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
inside of its radome... - junk cars in the XXX
are also my people's native tradition!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So the dish sits there next to my
brother's Toyota Supra. And that thing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know, that thing flies as soon as it
gets an engine put back in it. So it is -

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
sits there and it's moving. But externally
you can't see where it is. Which means

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that I can't call my family in Tennessee
and blackmail them into - yet again -

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
looking at my dish to tell where it's
pointed. There are bolts that hold this

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
down. It takes half an hour to remove the
lid, another half an hour to put it back on.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So instead we took the radome...
that's Frank, he's my cat.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Give a "Cheers!" for Frank!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>applause and cheers</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Yeah, we had such a great time with Frank.
And we never knew that she was pregnant.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you happen to need kittens and wanna
pay the custom's fees I'll hook you up!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So then we took tape and ran tape down the
edges of the radome, and then marked it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So from the markings you can tell
which clock position the back

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of the satellite dish is pointing at. So
if you point the dish towards 12:00

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know that you're roughly at 6:00,
so you know that it's pointing South.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then you can sort of scan the sky
for a stationary target, and navigate

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
off of that, to recover your position.
Software-wise... Remember,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the whole thing runs through Postgres,
so I just tunnel the Postgres over SSH,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then I wrote a Python client that
displays the satellite positions and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the satellite state in PiGame (?). This is
intended for making those games (?)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
really see the rabbit. And the rabbit
jumps on the other rabbit. But it... works!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And it works perfectly well enough
to target the dish. Because all that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this software has to do is plot the
positions of the satellites, and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
give orders back to the database when
I click on a satellite, or click on a position.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It can also display stars. So the red
items are satellites which are not selected.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The green item is Ghost3 (?) which is
the satellite that I'm targeting. And then

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the white items are stars in the sky. Now
this is a plot in which the azimuth is

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the X axis, and the elevation is on the
Y axis. But I can also arrange it into

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a polar plot. Which sort of gives me an
upside-down view of the satellite dish

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
looking at the sky. I doubt you can read
it, but just above the green circle

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the center, that's Polaris which is the
North star. It's also weird because,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know, working on this, you know,
I thought that I got really good at astronomy

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
until I realized that I only knew what the
stars looked like during the day.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughter</i>
<i>laughs</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And it being PiGame (?) you can actually
run it on a mobile device. So the same client

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that runs on my laptop can also run
on my Nokia N900. <i>laughs</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>applause</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A significant portion of the GUI client for
this was written while stuck on the U-Bahn,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
connected over 3G, SSH through, and just
using emacs on the phone. <i>laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughs</i>
<i>applause</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you're one of those people who needs to
complain about the N900 being too old,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it also runs on the N9. And then,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you can take the data out of this,
and run it through scientific software.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In addition of the software defined radio
recordings themselves being dumped out

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to a text file or a binary file on disk
you can also dump out things like

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the received signal strength indicators
(RSSI). So this is a screenshot in which

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm identifying different satellites that
I've seen in the sky. Based upon

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
their downlink signal peaks. You can see
the noise floor there, at the bottom,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then there's a rather strong signal on
the left. And a weaker neverware (?) signal

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the right. Now, the daemons that build
this up... you need an orbit prediction daemon.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because you need to know where the
satellites are, and where they're going,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and where they will be by
the time you get to them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You need to update the orbits themselves.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
LEO satellites are described in TLE files.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These are called 'Two Line Entry'. And
they're called Two Line Entry because

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they're three lines long.
<i>laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These were originally used by Norad for
inter-continental ballistic missile tracking.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And because a ballistic missile is
basically in orbit, it's just that that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
orbit happens to collide with the earth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But this format isn't terribly accurate
for satellites that adjust their own orbit.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So anything that has fuel, or has engines,
or changes mass will vary it's position.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this also doesn't account for drag.
Because, you know, the missile itself,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know it goes up it goes down, it's
not orbiting enough for the light drag

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the upper atmosphere to matter. But for
a satellite it does. So these Two Line Entries

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
will work for a matter of days or maybe
a couple of weeks. But they don't last

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
longer than that. So you need a daemon
that grounds (?) the new files from spacetrack.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this is just a matter of like
a recursive WGET, and then

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
parsing the files. And that still needs
to be done. You also need motor control,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because you need to move the dish
physically to track your target.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You need input for the Inertial
Measurement Unit. This comes over

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a low voltage serial port. And then
you need radio daemons to handle

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
spectrum analysis or downlink recording.
And, these, you'll have several of them,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you have to swap them out. So you'll begin
by using the spectrum analyzer to identify

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that your aim is accurate, that you're
accurately tracking the targets

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
well enough to get a recording from
them. And then after that you begin

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to take software defined recordings off
them. And, eventually, you might have

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a standalone application that parses what
you're receiving. Such as the Osmocom guys

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
did with OpenGMR. So for orbit prediction
I began with a DOS program that had been

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ported to Unix, called 'predict'.
And this works, but it's garbage.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It only supports 20 satellites plus the
sun, the moon, Venus and Mars.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But no other planets because it's designed
for astronomy photographers who want

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to get a picture of something as it comes
over the horizon. You know, I need

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to track hundreds of targets. And then
write a script to opportunistically pick

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the ones that I want to record.
Because otherwise you have to like set

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
an alarm clock for the half-hour pass in
which you can play with something.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That software does allow you to query the
results by UDP, though. So you can just

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
send it a flood of request packets,
then it will flood back with the data

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you're looking for. So I switched to
a library called PiFM which allows you

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to track hundreds of birds. It has no UDP
nonsense. It will also calculate satellites,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
planets and stars. And the really nifty (?)
thing about this is that you tell it...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know, it being a library you tell it
when to update the individual object

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that you're interested in. So you can
update objects that are out of view

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or uninteresting more slowly than the
ones that you care about.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So I managed to track every single
item in geo-stationary orbit.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This thick ring here is the clarke-bell(?)
of all satellites in geo-stationary orbit

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as viewed from my Southern horizon.
<i>applause</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Two Line Entry files you can get
freely from CELESTRAK.COM.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So this is just a simple script that grabs
them and then inserts them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the prediction daemon will actually
select them as it is loading up.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This all inter process communication is
running through this Postgres database.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this daemon can be moved to
a different machine if I needed

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
more computing power, or anything like
that. The motor control demon...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
well, the Eibot board is designed to take
stepper motor commands. It shows up

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as USB Serial device on Linux. So as
I plug it in to the Beaglebone it appears

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as /dev/ttyACM0. And the baud rate doesn't
matter. Because this is a USB device.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You could then send it simple commands.
Like 'SM,3000,500,-400' means that I wanna

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
move a stepper motor for 3000 ms. I want
the first motor to move 500 forwards,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's UP, and the second one to move
400 LEFT which is backwards 400 steps.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then it will count that out, and
then it sends me back an OK.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If I want to disable the motors, I send
'EM,0,0'. This allows the motors to be

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
freely spun. Because normally a stepper
motor will physically hold its position,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you need to turn them off in
order to slide the dish around.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
'EM,1,1' will enable both motors
in 1/16-of-a-step mode.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Stepper motors can do fractional
steps because they're

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
holding themselves in position.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You can see the motors themselves
with the belts and the geartrain.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This thing on the right would probably
be illegal for me to turn on.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The thing on the right is a 250 W amplifier.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The stepper motors themselves just have
6 wires. In a lot of 3D printer type stuff

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they ignore the middle two. So you just
drop (?) off the middle two wires, you run

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the other four to your stepper
controller, and you're good to go.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The belts and stuff need to be measured
in order to figure out exactly

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what the georeduction (?) is. Because you
need to know how many steps form a degree.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The IMU unit, this Vectornav VN100 (?),
it's a MEMS gyroscope and accelerometer

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and a compass in a single box.
It costs $500 which was

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
more than all of the other
equipment put together.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The compass is confused by the stepper
motors because the compass is measuring

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
magnetic fields. So you need to
mount this physically as far away

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from the stepper motors as possible. And
the gyroscope is confused by motor jerk (?)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which is a shame because stepper motors
work as a series of jerks (?) rather than

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as a single consistent motion. And the
accelerometer is confused by gimble lock,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so you have to switch it to
a quaternian (?) mode in order to get

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
consistent values out of it. And if I had
to do this over again I'd really try

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to drop this piece of garbage. But it's
a lovely technology when it works.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>some laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now for position calculations, the
elevation itself comes from the IMU.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The azimuth comes from the motor daemon.
This is because the accelerometer

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
can very accurately tell which way
the earth's gravity is pulling it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
whereas the accelerometer has to integrate
jerks (?) over time in order to figure out

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
its position. So the
accelerometer will drift

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the compass will be confused by the
magnetic fields while the elevation is

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
just a single accelerometer
that doesn't drift.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the IMU will become
a backup for these things

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in order to figure out how to make
it reliable. But at the moment

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the position measurement is infinitely
more reliable. The tilt motor

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm not using at present because on
a ship that's rocking it's necessary

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to tilt the dish. On a satellite dish
that's staying still the only useful

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
tilting the dish is so that you can follow
the arc of a satellite through the sky

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by only moving a single motor.
Photopgrapher do this when they're

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
trying to get long exposures of moving
satellites. At the moment my software

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
doesn't support this feature. But
if it turns out to be necessary

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to get higher quality
recordings I might add it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The radio daemons. The
first is a spectrum analyzer.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This just measures the signal strength
on each frequency. And it does it by the

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
power spectral density function.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the strength itself will
vary with the position error.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So this allows you to figure out how
far off you are by sort of testing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by overshooting just a little bit,
or undershooting just a little bit

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to center on your target. The downlink
recorder dumps the IQ values

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the software defined radio
directly to an NFS share,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which can later be decoded and
read and reverse-engineered.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We've got a whole table of spectrum
data. And then I plot that in a tool

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
called Viewpoints which NASA releases
for dealing with giant scatterplots

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in multiple dimensions. Each view takes
two dimensions, and it's tons of fun.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The client GUI is this PyGame. I have
Postgres for communications, and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the server does all the heavy lifting,
so the Beaglebone itself never has

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to do anything complicated with
regards to software defined radio.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is also about these faint blue lines
are positions at which I've seen

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
particularly strong signals in order to
identify which satellites are active

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and which ones are inactive.
Because satellites die over time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And particularly useful targets, we're
reverse-engineering satellites that are

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
out-of-commission or outdated.
I'm running out of time by these markers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Does this mean that we're skipping
questions, or does that mean that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I need to be off the stage?
<i>mumbling to stage</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not having Q&amp;A, okay. So today I get
accurate tracking of satellites.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this thing can run unattended 24h
a day for months without maintenance.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like I said: it's nothing like a 3D printer.
<i>laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It takes software defined radio
recordings, it can provide maps

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of views of different satellites in the
sky. The next step is I want to publish

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a 'port scan' of the entire sky. So which
frequencies are in use on which birds,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for every bird that ever comes above
Tennessee, on every downlink that fits

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
my antenna. As well as a database
of software defined radio recordings.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If anyone would care to donate a truckload
of disks - that might be handy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'd also like to make other ground
stations. The software that I've written

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ought to be portable to new hardware.
So there's nothing that should keep you

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from being able to port this to run on
your own dish. And I have a large yard,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so I could conceivably have
a dozen of these things.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Another way that you can do it, and
the way that it's traditionally done

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for stationary (?)(?)(?) satellites is having
Yagis or other loosely directional antennas

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in order to receive the signals.
I went with a dish because I wanted

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
more selectivity. I wanted to be able to
get reverse-engineerable recordings

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
rather than intentional ones for which
I already knew the downlink protocol.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So this is my van, my van is amazing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>applause</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thanks to Nick Farr. I had a bit too
much to drink in Montreal and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I called Nick Farr and I said: "Nick,
I want a dukw", like these amphibious

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
troop transport vehicles. And Nick
said: "Sorry, I can't get you one but

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you want a news-van. And I said:
"Hell yeah, I want a news van!"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So - this pole in the background, that's
not a lighting pole. That's actually

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
part of the van.
<i>laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the antenna retracted. This mast
goes up 20m by pneumatic power.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's an air compressor in the back.
Here is the control panel, there's

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
an air-conditioned office in the middle.
<i>laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughs</i>
This has four 19" server racks as well

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as A/V equipment that was left over.
I was particularly excited about

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the video monitor which supports PAL
which you folks are familiar with,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
NTSC or "Never The Same Color"
which is my people's native culture...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughter</i>
But most importantly, it does SECAM,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the system essentially contrary
to the American method.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughter and applause</i>
<i>laughs</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So in addition to my radio equipment
I'm adding my Soviet PDP-11 which was...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughs</i>
...and that's not a joke. I have a Soviet

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
PDP-11 thanks to the kind folks at the
Positive Hacking Days conference.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the control panel,
and that's my talk!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>applause</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Herald: Thank you so much. There
actually is time for Q&amp;A now.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Travis: Well, first I'd like to introduce
you to my cat. If we could go back

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the prior image. This is Frank!
We didn't know it at that time, but

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Frank was not dead when this picture was
taken. If you'd like kittens get in touch!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Okay. Are there any questions?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Question: Great talk. What's the most
interesting signal you decoded so far?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Travis: At the moment I'm sort of stuck
at the L band range. Because of filters

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that I have yet to remove. So everything
gets attenuated, and becomes annoyingly

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
quiet outside of the 1.5..1.6 -ish range.
The Globalstar network is what I'm most

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
interested in targeting next. I cam't wait
to see what people are tweeting

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
while they should be enjoying nature.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Herald: Is there a question
from the internet?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Signal Angel: Yeah, the internet has
many questions. So first one was:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Is there really no authentication or
encryption on the Q band IP services?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So you can just spoof at will? And can the
birds see the physical leakage and of

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the source accurately enough to find who
is spoofing?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Travis: I'm not an expert in Ku band. The...
for the downlink the bird has no clue

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as to the location of the dish. Because
you're only listening. They can roughly

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
figure out your geographic area because...
they need to figure out where

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the spot beam is going. So they might know
whether you're in, say, Germany or

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in France. But they won't know whether
you're in Heidelberg or Mannheim.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They do have forms of authentication for
many satellite networks. Satellite TV

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is one of the best-protected network
services. Because of the satellite wars

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the 90's. In which TV pirates would
fight back and forth with smart card

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
designers. But there are also many
unencrypted links. And there are...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because of standard protocols those
are particularly easy to find in Ku band.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Question: You've been talking about
using RTLSDR from osmocom.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And you were talking about your spectrum
analysis program. Is this one working

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with RTLSDR?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Travis: So... RTLSDR... so I'm using
the RTLSDR not the osmo-sdr.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Which are separate. The spectrum
analyzer is working with the RTLSDR.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My complaint about the RTLSDR is that
when you have a strong signal next to

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a weak signal the weak signal is
utterly useless for interpretation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Question: Okay. Thank you.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Herald: Another question
from the internet?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Signal Angel: Okay, next question from the
internet is: how do you record the radio signal

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from the dish, at what sampling rate?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Travis: The RTLSDR samples at 2 million
samples per second. As soon as I switch it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
over to the HackRF, well, we're having
20 million samples per second.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The sampling rate can be reduced once
the bandwidth of the signal is known.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For radio (?) storage. And the recordings
can also be compressed.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But it's still a hell of a lot of storage.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Herald: Any other questions?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Signal Angel: The internet
has more questions...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Herald: Okay...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Signal Angel: Did you look into obtaining
a capacity of IBAN with copper (?), as used

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for the rotary gentries in CT scanners?
Those can apparently transmit contactless

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
several GBytes per
second, bi-directionally.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Travis: I've not looked into those.
It seemed better to have an Umbellaco (?)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
cable and to be careful not to snap it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The whole thing was done for a budget
of less than 2000 Dollars, and can be

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
recreated for less than a budget of 1000
[Dollars]. And they... so we tried to avoid

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
fancy parts. The local radio shack loved
us because we'd swing in and buy all sorts

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of crazy stuff. As soon as we told them
that we wanted the satellite dish to

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
dance Gangnam style...
<i>laughs</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>laughter</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thank you Carnaugh(?)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>applause</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>silent postroll titles</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
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