Here’s a little tidbit from the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict
about radio signal security.
One of the foundational beliefs among US military planners is that our communications will be secure … despite no evidence supporting that belief and a fair amount of evidence to the contrary (see, “Communications Vulnerability”).
So many of our weapon systems depend on guidance signals,
telemetry, data flow, and so forth and the security of those communications has
been taken as an article of faith despite evidence to the contrary. For example, Iran has had success disrupting
and/or capturing our UAV control signals resulting in loss or capture of UAVs.
The US military consistently refuses to test communications
under realistic conditions during field exercises and, in a display of
unbelievable illogic, has publicly stated that using our full capabilities
would be too disruptive during an exercise.
Do we not believe that China will have capabilities at least equal to
our own? Should we not, then, subject
our communications to the maximum disruption possible in exercises to see what
works and what doesn’t and to learn how to work in the face of disruptions?
I have consistently heard from military communications
specialists that our communications are nowhere near as secure as we’d like to
believe. That doesn’t necessarily mean
that China can decrypt our signals.
Decryption is not need to learn a great deal. Signal frequency (number of signals, not
wavelength), strength, location, etc. can offer a great deal of information as
the British found out in the Battle of Heligoland Bight (see, ”The Battle of Heligoland Bight”).
I would hope that the military has conducted extensive and
realistic tests and just aren’t sharing the information publicly but I doubt
that’s the case. It’s simply impossible
to keep large scale tests of that nature a secret. It might be possible to keep the results
secret but not the event.
This is just a brief post to remind us about our potential
communications vulnerability. We need to
begin realistic tests and exercises yesterday or we’re going to be rudely
surprised when war comes.
______________________________
On top of the strikes themselves, Lebanese civilians describe shock at Israel’s ability to obstruct and overtake radio frequencies in Lebanon in order to broadcast an announcement warning people to stay away from Hezbollah sites and forecasting the air strikes to come.[1]
One of the foundational beliefs among US military planners is that our communications will be secure … despite no evidence supporting that belief and a fair amount of evidence to the contrary (see, “Communications Vulnerability”).
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/for-lebanon-a-war-in-all-but-name-has-finally-arrived-experts/
CNOps, another was in WW2. The German U-Boats were "noisy" with radio transmissions. The Allies had ringed the Atlantic with high frequency direction finders (HFDF). Without breaking the code, a position was triangulated to only about 60 miles, but enough to warn or divert convoys. Wet wires would change the signal, indicating the sub had just surfaced. And the "fist" of the operator could identify a particular sub. Best to remain dark and silent.
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