Pirates spammed an infamous Soviet-era short-wave radio station with memes | Hacker News Reader

Pirates spammed an infamous Soviet-era short-wave radio station with memes

vice.com

142 pointscaaqil40 comments

This happened maybe a week ago, over the course of several days. I was there and talked to the pirate via Telegram.

I don't really like Vice and don't want to reveal anything about the pirate (singular) in particular, but I believe they are Russian, not Ukrainian (I just sent a message asking), and it is a younger gentleman (perhaps early 20's). His name on the SDR messages was Alex but his Russian name is something different. He was very kind, at least through messages (we spoke via Russian and some simpler English messages) and he accepted requests for music and images.

By far the clearest hijacking broadcast was the first day. The buzzer was completely gone, Alex's broadcast absolutely drowned it out for most online receivers I could find. The following days seemed to battle a bit more - perhaps the military did something to boost the signal.

As well, the days following the hijacking there were a lot of cryptic messages sent out, at a much higher frequency than usual. You can find what they sound like on YouTube if you just type "uvb76 broadcast". There were several per day whereas historically the channel could be unused for months at a time. There is still no known meaning behind the messages but they're always broadcasted by a live human, speaking Russian.

I screenshotted almost everything I could find, sans his Telegram handle for obvious reasons, Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/bad_at_computer/status/14839824282219397...

You were rused. Any ham can look at that spectrum and instantly tell you why it’s fake. You just helped Vice to spread disinformation, lad.

What? lol I was literally there watching the waterfalls on three different online receivers at the same time.

You want to die on this hill? Or would you like me to dig up the recorded footage for you?

Yeah give me the IQ file, while a screen shot has proof of what I’m saying the IQ data will have it in spades.

You are very welcome to tune to 4625kHz USB yourself, or use a suitable European WebSDR if you're in the US.

I am a ham and I have a pretty good antenna farm going. Being a ham with plenty of time behind my own SDR is how I know this is fake.

You've been very vocal about how this is supposedly fake so far, but you've been very mysterious. You say it's so obvious that any ham can instantly tell why, yet you treat the reason like some kind of secret that only you must hold. I can't help but think you may be the one spreading misinformation. You're welcome to prove me wrong though.

I’m going to wait a while and see how many more fake news articles come out about this before I describe exactly why these reports are fake. In the mean while you’re welcome to try to locate I/Q recordings of the incident. Trust me, none will be offered.

I’m mostly a radar guy so I’m missing it — is it the fact that we only see the upper sideband, as though the signal is analytic? I don’t know this software (only a bit of GNUradio now and then) so I don’t know if the green bar up top is just the filtered passband or what. If it’s supposed to be the passband, I get that some of the spectra (“demo2,” for example) creep out of it, which is fishy. Any insight is appreciated!

You're not a very good HAM then.

Wide band HD spectrum painting.

https://www.w6rz.net/spectrumpaint.mp4

The other day they (not sure if it was the operators or someone trying to hijack the frequency) were playing forever young in the background and the combination of reverb and static was quite the hauntological experience.

Found a post about it on HN few days ago here. Not much was said though. Although the twitter thread does show more than this vice article.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061543

These spectrograms are something! ) But the inflamation of "Russia attacks!" hysteria ruined the reputation of Vice for me forever (

There’s at least some speculation that UVB-76 could be part of a Russian Doomsday machine.

It makes this rf activity slightly less amusing to me.

Considering, when reading about this station it has been taken down intentionally before, had periods of being offline, and also offline when the station was moved once before it's quite unlikely.

From what I recall there's been things like talking voices and downtime on the Buzzer so there's also at least some speculation that it's not part of Dead Hand or anything.. possibilities are open

I highly doubt it's connected to any Cobalt-Thorium G. What's more likely is them parking the frequency for if they need it.

It would be a very bad Doomsday Machine if taking out one radio station would trigger it.

That's supposedly a criteria for British subs to launch their missiles. If the BBC is off the air (and a bunch of other things have happened), the captain is authorized to launch in retaliation as the assumption is that the UK no longer exists.

Sure, but a system like that would most likely require multiple independent variables to trigger - it there is no broadcast from Kremlin, if there is no broadcast from the military command, if all the satellites are offline or if they are broadcasting an all out launch sequence, AND the buzzer is off....then trigger the system. It wouldn't be just one radio station.

This was actually a hoax that Vice fell for. Pretty sad.

Which part is a hoax exactly? I've observed and recorded some of this myself and I even messaged the pirate on Telegram after he drew his handle through spectrogram painting. It was hearable on multiple receivers in various places in Europe.

He didn’t make any transmission. If you’re a radio person you’ll see instantly how and why this is fake. Since you’re not, and neither is your purported pirate, I won’t tell you the critical error which was made. You should be careful that you don’t get rused, or worse - spread misinformation intentionally.

Roughly 30min ago there was music being played at 4625kHz in various receivers around Europe. Am I wrong in my understanding that if you can hear a radio signal, there is something being transmitted?

The only possible scenarios I can imagine where this is fake is either A) there is no transmission and the signal is somehow being directly injected into these WebSDRs who have all conspired; B) there are transmissions but they're very low-power and local near each WebSDR; or C) the transmission is actually coming from Russia's buzzer transmitter.

I find A to be extremely unlikely as it would require some kind of grand conspiracy. B might be possible with enough motivation but I fail to see one. C seems unlikely as I found the music's signal strength to vary differently based on location than the buzzer.

I tried to pick up the music with my own SDR at home and a shoddy antenna setup. I was able to pick up the buzzer and not the music, while some WebSDRs had loud music, so I don't consider C to be true. I do live in what could be a skip zone for the pirate's transmission.

If there is a critical error in my assessment, it would be helpful to point it out if you truly wish to curb this supposed misinformation.

B sounds the most logical but even that is a stretch. Whoever hoaxed this forgot one essential thing about radio which I won’t say, because I suspect we haven’t seen the end of these hoaxes. All in due time though.

As I understand it, transmission typically takes modulated RF and boosts it. Its applying brute force to a pre-shaped signal as the "carrier". The RF has to come into the amplification stage over a waveguide. Typically it's being sent from somewhere else, down a landline or local point to point microwave link. If you can "flood" the amplifiers input with a stronger signal generated locally, with either a path into the RF waveguide or a strong directional antenna and a receiving dish for the microwave signal, it will latch on to it, and amplify it too. If it's stronger at source, it's stronger post amplification/transmission. Being stronger at source is easy if you are close.

It probably does not work as well on a digital stream, or a multichannel, agile frequency hopping signal but these tend to be short range. These numbers stations have to work with old, crude and remote receivers and with more traditional (deliberate) interference from distant sources so they are more prone to being subverted by a motivated local phreaker who can inject a strong signal from e.g. a car parked close by and then run away.

You would think military communications are 24/7 guarded but perhaps in some economies people assume distance from the urban area is protection. It doesn't stop motivated attacks. By the time you find out, they've taken the Max Headroom VHS and their radio rig away in an anonymous van.

Maybe this attack is smarter? Doing something less brute force and not just flooding the last-stage RF amplifier?

There's a good chance that this transmission comes from a completely different transmitter / location, and it is just on the same frequency as the Russian transmitter.

You can do this with amateur means (a simple dipole antenna and a amplifier in the low kilowatt range, plus a SDR to generate the signal); in fact many radio amateurs are already equipped to do this at any time. Here's some background on the "spectrum painting": https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/spectrum-painter/

Sorry, but no. These pirates are simply transmitting on the same frequency. There's no way they are "hacking" the original signal.

>If you can "flood" the amplifiers input with a stronger signal generated locally, with either a path into the RF waveguide or a strong directional antenna and a receiving dish for the microwave signal, it will latch on to it, and amplify it too.

In other words, those russian radio transmitters are like open relays? It will amplify any signal you feed to it?

I think, (and as a non-Ham, I expect to be corrected on this), putting to one side the numbers stuff is meant to be "modem-like" tone encoded signals and so implicitly sort of digital, to the radio amplification its just analogue waves. Amplifying for transmission happens as close to your antenna as possible. You're pumping out radio waves. Not amplifying "bits", you're amplifying waves. Or phase encoded, whatever, The last stage amp is not able to discriminate what's to be amplified, what comes in is what goes out into the masts.

This 40s/50s/60s/70s long distance radio stuff, is pretty much dumb tech. It's not just Russian transmitters, a lot of the old VHF TV was capable of being subverted by brute force injection, and FM radio. All you have to do is assert a stronger time signal and it's going to cohere to it.

There are awesome photos on the Web of these transmitters, huge valves, mercury rectifiers, scary giant coils, oil cooled stuff, it's RF but you treat it like power engineering, because energy is energy: it's "hot".

If you were building one now, you'd send encrypted signal digitally into the gear and avoid as many of the risks as possible. Probably have to be right up close inside the building to phreak the last stage amplifier.

Some ham or ex forces RF person will probably say I got this wrong btw. I'd believe them.

Funny because a while ago I had some problems with a somewhat noisy neighbor listening to dubious music at odd hours -- not enough to even record his music on my phone, but I live in an old apartment building and it was enough to keep me up at night; in fact once I made peace with it I could sleep through his noise.

So I remembered back in the day I could hear beeps in my speakers when my cell phone rang and I wondered it I could do the same to his speakers. After a lot of search I found out that a lot of speaker amplifiers were vulnerable to CB frequency injection and being close enough you could actually highjack some vulnerable speakers/amplifiers given you were close enough/transmitting at the right frequency and power.

In the end I just angrily knocked at my neighbor's door at 2AM and complained about the noise, he apologized, turned down the volume and I've never had problems ever since.

I got to know the guy eventually when some other neighbor flooded our toilets by pouring concrete down the toilet drain, he was just a nice uber driver in his 40s having problems with his wife, drinking into the night and listening to dubious gypsy blues that resonated to his sorrows.

You mean you were able to solve a problem with a few minutes of talking rather than an elaborate technological process? I’m shocked, truly.

It's amazing what engineers are willing to try before actually talking to someone ;)

In my apt. building the home control system is absurdally easy to hack - literally anyone can hijack their neighbour's light&ac control system via WiFi.

A friend of mine just shuts down lights of their neighbor when they make too much noise after midnight. I was close to doing the same when our neighbors were too loud, but decided on just going there and talking to them :)

I was really shocked myself. I guess I got to my senses when I started studying for radio license and made a very expensive list of radio equipment that I couldn't otherwise use because I live in an apartment building (antennas and all that) and even if it worked I would get into problems with the police for emitting above legal power limits.

The beeping is almost certainly just to hold the frequency. There is no digital component. The pirate has another HF transmitter somewhere else with a good antenna and an amplifier. There is no “carrier” on USB transmissions. It is suppressed, so many transmissions can be received at once.

> There are awesome photos on the Web of these transmitters ...

What would I have to google to learn more about this? it sounds fascinating.

The really good ones are pre 1940s. Look up klystron, or arc transmitters

And while you're at it,

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Pole_2_T...

(human for scale)

and

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Me...

This is high power HVDC transmission line gear.

This is exactly how pirate radio stations used to get presence on CASEMA, the Amsterdam cable system. Especially at night there wasn't a relay frequency that wasn't occupied, with some of the pirate radio stations duking it out for dominance on the receivers. Prime property was near Centrale Hemweg and the Okura hotel, both at the time some of the highest real estate in Amsterdam so that's where the receiving antennas were located.

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