Hacking AIS Merged

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Pete7

That's interesting, wonder if NATO would consider a little ruse and put half a dozen extra destroyers in the Northern Indian Ocean

Pete

Radar spoofing to create aircraft carrier sized targets has been around for a long time. Makes it hard to target the real carrier.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Interesting read for those with AIS.

Ship Tracking Hack Makes Tankers Vanish from View | MIT Technology Review

That's called turning it off.

I recently hacked my tv so that it didnt display any picture .....

Dave

[sabray]

That's the question I would like to know. . If a satellite can receive VHF can the satellite also transmit.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by sabray

Once again the reporting is horrible. I think the hack is on the network side. Not the VHF side. So if you are using the net to gather data it can be hacked. What is not clear is if the hack is on the transmit side. So that the hack is broadcasting fake data through land based towers or satellites. Anyone able to clarify this. I'm taking this as I get vhf reception of ais target it is real. If I'm web based it could be false. Not clear reporting. Maybe I missed something.

They did both. They hacked marinetraffic.com ( which is a fun site and has no official function or recognition ) , plus they generated a spurious AIS signal using an SDR, so what its irrelevant.

Dave

[Opie91]

Originally Posted by sabray

I resemble that comment but have a job? Which fool were you talking about.

I am talking about the fool messing with our AIS

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by sabray

That's the question I would like to know. . If a satellite can receive VHF can the satellite also transmit.

Technically , of course, but what would be the point.

Dave

[sabray]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

They did both. They hacked marinetraffic.com ( which is a fun site and has no off owl function or recognition ) , plus they generated a spurious AIS signal using an SDR, so what its irrelevant. Dave

Not clear how the SDR was broadcast. Assume it's very local/ reception area. Goes back to point iof worst written article of the month.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

plus they generated a spurious AIS signal using an SDR, so what its irrelevant. Dave

The relevance is that a radio hacker can make an ECDIS think a collision is in the offing. What's to be gained from that ability isn't clear though a lot of hackers don't get any obvious benefit from their activities. But this news may convince some rec boaters to delay implementing AIS and that would be a shame.

[goboatingnow]

[QUOTE="transmitterdan;1369041"]

The relevance is that a radio hacker can make an ECDIS think a collision is in the offing. What's to be gained from that ability isn't clear though a lot of hackers don't get any obvious benefit from their activities. But this news ma

[sabray]

As I vhf ais reciever underway should I be concerned that someone is over writing ships positions and rebroadcasting them?
I think not. I am not worried about buying new now available equipment given this hack report.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

The relevance is that a radio hacker can make an ECDIS think a collision is in the offing. What's to be gained from that ability isn't clear though a lot of hackers don't get any obvious benefit from their activities. But this news may convince some rec boaters to delay implementing AIS and that would be a shame.

Firstly you have to be within VHF range , then you give your location away by starting up a VHF transmitter , thirdly big ships use Marpa for collision avoidance not AIS. ( many ECDIS don't even show AIS targets )

Even if you went to the bother , all that would happen is you'd generate a false AIS collision alarm , rapidly disabused by MARPA and mark 1 eyeball.

Then you'd report it To the authorities , who usually a simple VHF directional finder , hunts down the VHF site on land and cuffs the hacker.

The fact is an public ID beacon must be , by definition , in plaintext. Encryption is useless , if everyone can buy receivers and transmitters.

Just review the Trend micro claims

( a) hacked marinetraffic,com -who cares

(B) generated false AIS mob , well I can do that simply by driving into a forest and setting off my AIS sart , unless there happens to be a big ship with VHF range of my forest , what happens , nada

(C) I send telecommands to disrupt AIS on board receivers , this I give you is an issue, even though all I do cause class A units to switch channels, all ships still receive, I can change the reporting rates , but not below the technical minimum , so in reality I can cause a little nuisance but not much more and to do that I have to establish , a local VHF AIS transmitter that promptly gives my position away !!!! Anyway I can easily cause a " Denial of service " by just jamming the AIS frequency , I dont need any fancy SDR for that !! N

Dave

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The fact is an public ID beacon must be , by definition , in plaintext. Encryption is useless , if everyone can buy receivers and transmitters.

Dave's right for all practical purposes, but this one point may be debatable. It would be possible to set up a public key encryption system which would verify the identity of the sender. Software could then drop any AIS signals coming from an "unsigned" source, while decrypting and displaying the legitimate ones.

I guess you could go one step further and use another key that you could give to "authorized" receivers. For example, your fishing buddies. Others wouldn't be able to see your position (unless they were equipped with RDF, and even then wouldn't know it was you.)

It's an interesting concept. I can see maybe needing to do this as AIS becomes more widely used (and abused.)