French-UAE Intel Satellite Deal in Doubt – US Parts Raise Security Concerns | Hacker News Reader

French-UAE Intel Satellite Deal in Doubt – US Parts Raise Security Concerns

defensenews.com

181 pointsdexen83 comments

If the article is correct (that this has been "discovered" rather than already known about, but not considered an issue until now), my suspicion is that they've discovered that aspects of the satellite's systems are under ITAR control.

ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) applies to almost everything space related that originates in the US, passes through the US, has input from US citizens or is produced by a US based company. It's very easy for something to become subject to ITAR, and once something is considered to be subject to ITAR it's practically impossible to undo. It's possible that they've recently done an audit on the systems used (which are numerous and sourced from hundreds, perhaps thousands of suppliers) and found that something which was previously considered to be ITAR free could actually be subject to ITAR.

Violation of ITAR by a company can result in huge fines or trade sanctions, and the only way to avoid them is not operate at all in the US, or even deal with US companies. I'd imagine that the only people in the space business who don't care about ITAR are the Chinese and Russians.

Avoiding US companies isn't enough. Even the Europeans cannot manufacture an ITAR-free satellite, because they are not completely self-sufficient.

Until last year, you used to be able to buy ITAR-free satellites from Thales Alenia. However, the US State Department aggressively went after the American suppliers -- one of them got fined, and some previously-unrestricted components are now ITAR-controlled. That was the end of Thales Alenia's ITAR-free satellite.

If you want an ITAR-free satellite, you have to buy it from Russia or China. Those are the only two countries that have the capability to build a satellite without using any US components.

To a certain extent, I understand and accept Nations spying on each other is a big game that they all play with each other. I get it. It's very James Bond.

However when your agencies are having a direct financial impact on your industries you really need to clean up your own backyard.

I don't understand or accept it. While your point about unintended financial consequences is very valid, I find this the lowest threshold of decision making.

I don't steal staplers at work, not because I might get caught, or because everybody does it, or because it may adversely affect my company, or due to some other unforeseen consequence. I do it because I've thought a lot about stealing and have concluded that it's wrong to do so.

The US has overwhelming military force (a house full of staplers). The US and/or France could have easily taken the decision to not deliver military satellites to the UAE (or to use political means to block it).

Wake me up when US decides to sell it military tech for security and not money. I agree that financial consequences might not be a priority in decision making, but at the end of the day US (or rather the corporations, which can no longer be attributed to just US) are interested in money. I don't think UAE will stop buying stuff just because it is know to be tainted, but they get upper hand in bargaining the price.

Also I don't understand your analogy to staplers fully. If US is a house of staplers and UAE (or any other nation) is not an employee there then the only reason they are not stealing is because they lack the skill.

On an individual level it is relatively easier to make decisions regarding moral issues like stealing but that doesn't work for a group.

My analogy is that the US shouldn't spy on it's parters because it is wrong and not because they may or may not get caught.

What do you think spy agencies do? They spy on each other, I believe the part that is wrong is when they spy on innocent citizens. But intercepting military communications is what they do period.

Right or wrong its their job, we may not agree with it but its what they are put there to do.

I'm a bit weary of this statement. Just because we created a institution who's job it is to secretly break laws abroad, does not mean that we don't have the right to say "hey, maybe institutionalizing criminal activity abroad was a bad move".

I argue it was. I think that saying that we have these unalienable rights which God has given to all humans, creating a system of democracy around agreeing on them and settling disputes, and then saying "oh, but these rules only apply to how we treat ourselves" is crazy.

If we've decided spying on our own citizens is bad, we should not do it to others. We would (and do) get upset if the government secretly and without cause taps a company's server. We have a right to be upset if China sells us routers which are bugged. We all agree that those are bad things. Yet we do them to others.

That's amoral.

Meant to up vote you but blurry, just-put-contacts-in eyes clicked the down arrow.

Political manoeuvring between states isn't a game that you can just choose not to play. Gathering intelligence about what the other players are doing, or intend to do, is an absolutely necessary part of the whole gambit. If the US and others didn't do this, they would be playing blind against better informed opponents.

Each country is a team, competing on the political, military and economic fronts. Spying on your own citizens is wrong because they are supposed to be teammates, not adversaries. When this is done to consolidate power among those who are meant to be working in our best interests, we see that as an abuse of power and a subversion of the mechanisms of democracy in our own state. It's bad for the long term health of the political system of any democratic nation.

Spying on your opponents is a completely different issue, as typically you are working in your team's best interests. Like many issues in life, it's complicated, and taking a hard line moral stance on the issue just isn't practical.

I upvoted you because I think you raise an important question, but I'm also trying to point out that spying at home and abroad can't necessarily be evaluated on the same criteria. There are practical reasons to stop a government from spying on its own citizens, it isn't necessarily a moral argument.

Treating every country as your opponent does not help either. Each country trying to outdo others will only lead to increased hostility and distrust in the world. At least the countries in comfortable/powerful position can avoid operating in survival mode and resist spying on non-hostile nations.

Which would mean something, if asymmetric warfare weren't as potentially devastatingly effective as it is or it didn't have huge ramifications for our ability to protect and enforce treaty agreements with friendly neighbors.

How do you propose to track the development, sale or transport of nuclear arms without an intelligence service undertaking covert surveillance?

How do you plan to stay informed of the actions and unit deployments of military forces by antagonists, or aware of the political allegiances and likely responses of your notional allies?

I mean right now in various former Soviet bloc countries, there's a lot of back-door manoeuvering going on which is fomenting political tension (you may have seen the unrest in Bulgaria recently, or you know, when the Russians invaded Georgia) in large part due to old cold war east/west divides - even if the prize these days is development and construction contracts (and probably a lot of bribes) and not determining which land gets turned into radioactive waste.

The idea that there are clear good guys who are definitely on "our" side is farcical - country's aren't individuals. They're large aggregate groups, pulled in a million different directions, and their governments consist of a shifting mirage of faces which may or may not be trustworthy and which a good deal of time is spent keeping up with to make sure 'we' know what we're dealing with at all levels.

Since when are countries teams? There's as much conflict in a country, as between them.

You are forgetting this is being backed by Politicians and the organizations lawyers. To them it is not illegal what they are doing, the laws dont apply to people who are not in the US and that is why they think is ok to spy on foreign nationals abroad.

>We have a right to be upset if China sells us routers which are bugged. We all agree that those are bad things. Yet we do them to others.

This is the hypocrisy of it all. When you do it its bad but when we do its not. Do as we say not as we do. This is the part I dont agree with (and spying on innocent people).

That's like saying, "What do you think members of the Inquisition do? Right or wrong, their job is to forcefully convert people's religion under threat of death or torture."

I can see the need, and indeed the duty, for our spy agencies to spy on our enemies. But our allies? Our citizens?

You cant make that argument at the time of the Inquisition it was acceptable to kill people in that manner. Hopefully 600-800 years from now this kind of spying will be a thing of the past.

Have you read up on the real inquisition?

A reasonable amount, I thought. Is there some aspect of it you think I'm mistaken about?

From what I read, they didn't particularly go about "forcefully convert[ing] people's religion under threat of death or torture".

If it weren't a spy agency, but named something else, would it still be okay that they're engaged in highly illegal activities?

Like, we can't murder people. But they can. We can't listen in to anyones conversation. But they can. We can't inject packets that make Daddy look like a child pornographer. But THEY can.

So what makes them so different, since they derive their powers from the state, which is formed on the basis of every citizens' participation in the state agency? Why is it acceptable that we formulate society on the basis of the rule of law, except for a (not-insignificant) percentage of that society is allowed to repeatedly, violently, and without repercussion, violate those laws?

Is it not clear to those who support the military-industrial state, that they are allowing the very conditions that the military is supposed to prevent: namely, the creation of a super-class of humanity who have rights and privileges not granted to the majority?

How anyone can justify this state of affairs as 'normal' or 'acceptable' in this day and age of Civics Classes (do they still teach that?) I just don't understand. It is entirely not acceptable, on the basis of crimes against humanity, to in any way support the activities of the US Military-Industrial complex. It is the most dire threat to the human species that we have allowed this Super-class of uber-mensch to allow themselves the powers they have granted.

> the creation of a super-class of humanity who have rights and privileges not granted to the majority

Do you oppose the use of police to enforce laws? They get rights that I don't have...

Your argument seems too broad / generic.

Yes it is different because they are a spy agency. Just look at when Militaries fight each other. Are they committing Murder? Maybe in the biblical sense but not in a legal sense.

>So what makes them so different

They are the government. Dont agree with it but they have already determined they are legally different.

Nixon Quote: "Oh, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal"

>namely, the creation of a super-class of humanity who have rights and privileges not granted to the majority?

Expand on this.

>Dont agree with it but they have already determined they are legally different.

And therein lies the crux of this problem:

> the creation of a super-class of humanity who have rights and privileges not granted to the majority?

What good is government if it divides itself in half and excludes its constituents from control? Its not a government, but then rather an instrument of oppression.

It seems the new elite-society entry package requires a security clearance. What bollocks!

But intercepting military communications is what they do period.

Intercepting the communications of their allies by subverting their equipment? That seems like an incredibly foolish and short-sighted way to behave.

If the US is saying it can't be trusted because spies will be spies, they'll lose huge satellite contracts, no one will trust US companies, no-one will trust US standards, and no one will want to play along with orgs dominated by the US like NATO, the World Bank or the UN. Legitimacy and soft power is a fragile thing, and spying on your allies is a great way to lose their tacit consent.

We need reforms and more oversight to start. Putting backdoors in consumer devices should not be tolerated but implanting something into a military device is fair game. Let's see what France Germany China and Russia's etc govt are doing in secret.

but implanting something into a military device

While I understand they'd try such things against countries they consider enemies, I disagree it's a good strategy when it involves allies - pursue such a strategy and you soon won't have any allies or respect.

If it's in the best interests of its citizens (and it's partners are doing it too) is it really wrong, or just not the way you wish the world worked?

Individuals have moral agency. Corporate bodies such as governments do not. It is a category mistake to attribute agency to them. Governments are neither moral nor immoral. They are amoral.

Defense satellites are no more staplers than monads are Scottish ballads. Defense satellites do not organize documents. They are tools to facilitate the use of violence. The UAE military establishment is following the same rationales as the US's - a bigger stick better insures achieving diplomatic objectives.

Groups are made up of individuals. Those individuals are responsible for their actions, and hiding behind a group is in my opinion an immoral act. A group made up of individuals acting immorally in that way, is itself immoral. QED, or something.

You state your opinion as facts, but forget to give an argument. The least you could do is provide a reference.

Prima facie, I don't find your view plausible at all.

How can an entity which consists of between dozens to hundreds of thousands of people, each of whom has limited agency over the aggregate actions of that entity, and can be replaced at any time while fulfilling the same function (on paper) be remotely capable of demonstrating human-like moral agency?

States have not-human-like moral codes: agree Amoral states: don't agree

I believe each group of people have their own social and moral codes that guide their behavior. I don't believe its something easy to understand, determine or represent.

That's a question, not an argument.

Here's another question: "How can a human being, which consists of many neurons, each of which has limited agency over the aggregate actions of that entity, be remotely capable of demonstrating moral agency?"

Incidentally, I noticed that you substituted 'human-like moral agency' for 'moral agency' in the OP. I never said states have human-like moral agency (nor am I making a claim to the contrary per se).

No it's a rhetorical question, turn it into one with an answer and you'd have rebutted the argument.

You might also note that the answer to your question is that they don't. It is a problem applicable at scale - and we do terrible things to single neurons all the time in the name of science.

My question wasn't whether neurons have agency. It was whether people have agency.

Also, I intended 'limited agency' to be read as 'zero or very little agency'.

Corporate bodies still have moral or immoral agenda, so it's unrealistic to define them as amoral.

There are some governments whose primary agenda is, say, to develop green energy, and some other whose primary agenda is, say, to bomb other countries to the ground.

But do they do those things because they are moral or immoral? I think you are attributing morality to actions that are made apart from morals.

I may not steal staplers, and would certainly not pee in my neighbour's letter box except if really drunk, but, if I were in the position of Israel, which is a very unconfortable position, a war in fact, I would certainly work hard to find a way to listen to my hostile neighbours.

What does Israel has to do with it?

Maybe because UAE is not very far and they might one day be more openly confrontational?

Laws of morality do not apply to states. India has suffered a lot because it failed to understand this basic fact. I dont think there is any moral argument against what government is doing. The only argument is that American government is not strong enough to go ahead with these kinds schemes any more.

Well, you'd also have to know how much you gained from spying, to know the score. I bet the wins are much more than the loses.

The losses arn't to your 'agency' but to the companies in your country. So the opinion that "we're doing a lot of good but we can't tell you anything about it because terrorism!" outweighing the costs and lost sales to companies in your country seems pretty ridiculous.

You misunderstood me. The losses are to companies of the country, and the gains are again to companies of the country. I am saying that the gains to the companies by the spying must be much more.

Part of me is amazed that these folks don't have a "blowback" plan.

Another part of me isn't surprised at all, out of suspecting a combination of hubris and incompetence.

I doubt this is possible. Every item that goes up is assembled and signed off piecemeal so every bit of hardware will be checked by multiple eyes. The buyer will have people on site checking this. From a software perspective, things are a little more uncertain but the workflows are tightly locked down. It would be extremely difficult to get anything shipped which isn't known about by everyone. Even attempting this is illogical.

I agree with the assertion that this is to secure a better deal.

(I wrote software to manage assembly and versioning of components on space and military equipment).

Right, so I'm guessing that there are two possible explanations:

1) There is something (HW or SW) on the satellite and it was installed with full knowledge of the assembly group.

2) There's nothing unusual on the satellite and something else, politics perhaps, are at play here. I wouldn't count out a desire to not have U.S. sourced parts on a military bird. Just like the U.S. doesn't want to have Chinese sourced hardware (even if it's just door handles).

I had the thought that perhaps how folks are more willing to call the US out on practices that have up-to-now been accepted wholesale or common practice?

Why go through the trouble of accusing them of implanting a backdoor, if all they wanted is to review other countries' offers, which they're doing now anyway (Russia, China)? Are you saying that now they will go back, and say "ok, since you removed the backdoor, we're going to accept your 30 percent discounted offer."? That seems highly unlikely.

If anything Russia and China will charge them more than the French now, to "guarantee" there's no backdoor, and since they are in a better negotiation position now than they would've been if UAE reviewed their offers pre-accusing France/US of backdooring the other offer.

I like your entirely-appropriate scare quotes there. I can't see any reason to believe that Chinese or Russian hardware (or French for that matter) would be any less likely to be backdoored. I wouldn't trust any of it further than I could audit it myself--which makes it a tricky situation for second- or third-party users, since auditing the internal state of modern electronic gear is difficult-to-impossible. You can audit the communications, and hope you can detect any out-of-spec activity, but that's not easy either.

There's more political maneuvering going on here than any legitimate technical concern.

Do not they having cushons, overprovisions, dummy weights, tolerance ranges to account for unexpected spec changes?

I imagine the systems are very complex, so the components are made modular, defining functionality and specs (size, weight, mass balance) and letting the implementation details to subcontractors.

While the subcontractor fullfills the contractual functionality, any eastereggs can be discovered only in a very late phase (qc, assembly), upon delivery.

The wording "discovery was reported" can be read as if it was a surprise discovery for all.

I noticed the source of the article was voice of russia so I looked for other sources:

http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behi... (french news)

http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/06/france-uae-spy-satellite-...

Suggestions are made that the US or another bidding competitor planted the spying tech to ruin the french-UAE deal.

Still can't say if we are talking hardware parts or software backdoor.

I think this was the original source, and it says 2 hardware components from US:

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140105/DEFREG04/3010500...

The reality is not as dramatic as reported. A part of the satellite (probably the radio) was outsourced by the French to a US company. So naturally the US could intercept that satellite's communications.

There are various types of French satellites: those carrying data which is protected from eavesdropping by anyone including the US, and those carrying data for NATO. The former are destroyed at the end of their life, the latter are up for sale. In other words, satellites that are protected from eavesdropping by the US are never for sale.

The UAE, like all Gulf monarchies, is entirely dependent on the US militarily and strategically. This political stunt is for domestic consumption.

My understanding is that the physics of imaging satellites is pretty precise, even a few ounces bias on one side can make the whole thing useless. Getting equipment of any sort installed on a very expensive satellite without anybody knowing would be pretty much impossible. I can't even imagine the complexity of designing such a device...it's not like it's a device that can be fired from a gun 300 meters away that sticks to the satellite and some 007 type happens to make the shot while the satellite is in transit to the payload fairing.

It would have to fit perfectly within the power and payload envelope of the satellite and literally not be noticed by any of the engineers or designers working or designing what's essentially a 1-off piece of space hardware. And having it in relative isolation during assembly for months or even years.

It'd be like somebody sticking an extra hard drive or NIC in the computer you built at home and you not noticing it.

Anybody care to speculate what this device was within the bounds of physics or is this just paranoid politics over some specialized American built hardware that France needed to source for the comm system?

The stated story smells.

http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behi...

has a more reasonable analysis

Finding backdoor technology two months after signing a contract that neither the UAE experts nor the French engineers had been aware of also seems unlikely, according to both experts.

"The most likely explanation is that a competitor has planted a seed of doubt in an attempt to sabotage the deal," said Charret.

Why would you assume it needed to be done without anybody knowing?

It would seem far easier to compromise/blackmail or bribe the right people.

If I were a French general and a colleague from the US came and said, ok, we help you sell this dish to the arabs but we add this little thing in here so a bell ring in my office if they plan to lightgun a nearby country.

I'd say yes. I makes everyone happy: French have the money, US has their bell and Arabs have their dish.

The client (UAE) discovered it, the builder (France) put the tech into the satellite. I don't think anyone is really thinking the USA put these systems in behind their backs. France was in on this the whole time and they were hoping UAE's engineers would not be completely thorough in analysing their designs.

EDIT:

Have a read of: http://www.space.com/12996-secret-spy-satellites-declassifie...

These are older satellites and it sounds like the cameras could move slightly independently so that they may be able to compensate for the entire satellite being off a little bit.

France could be using US components which contain a backdoor and never notice it. Seems perfect plausible.

The other theory that a competitor planted a spy device and nobody noticed is even more troublesome. So my satellite supplier has shaky security procedures and I might end up getting compromised products? Not good.

While I was reading the article one question that kept coming back was who is this unnamed source. It looks much more like a power play than anything else... but given the recent NSA disaster, anything seems possible.

I'd probably bet a dollar that there was nothing at all on the satellite and the current political climate re: NSA is simply being taken advantage of.

Why do you assume it's hardware. I imagine the hardware to send the signal is already there, they just need to add some software to proxy it to https://goodies.nsa.gov

If they are building the ground station tech, then there could be nothing at all on the satellite.

It'd be like somebody sticking an extra hard drive or NIC in the computer you built at home and you not noticing it.

No, it'd be like you buying a NIC and installing it without realizing there was a backdoor in its firmware. Not everything in a satellite is a one-off custom piece, a lot of it is COTS and integrated by the builders.

There's a very strong bias here on HN that everything is software. But Satellite assembly is very much a HW thing as well. Attributing whatever it is to a specific country lends itself to being hardware more than software, probably some parts that have very few or one supplier so the country of origin can be determined.

>My understanding is that the physics of imaging satellites is pretty precise, even a few ounces bias on one side can make the whole thing useless.

I am having a hard time thinking about what you might mean by this. I have no doubt that the imaging platform itself must be machined and assembled to high tolerance, but this is a matter of dimensions rather than mass. What kind of problems could be created by adding a little bit of mass? It may change the rigid body dynamics but that should be easily corrected in software. Care to elaborate?

My university physics prof was a retired satellite engineer for NASA. I don't really understand the specifics, but he took a class period one semester to go over the difficulties of building devices that work correctly in zero-G, because sometimes effects that are ignored on Earth have major impacts in space. Among those things is a requirement to balance the satellite to within very small tolerances using some pretty precise measuring devices. I don't remember the exact precision, but it was some fraction of a gram.

He gave an example of a program he worked on (an environmental imaging satellite) where the circuit created by the electrical bus was geometrically configured (accidentally) in such a way that a slight magnetic field was generated in part of the spacecraft. This part of the spacecraft would interfere with the Earth's magnetic field and produce some impossibly small force on that part of the spacecraft, sending it into a very slow, unintended, roll. The force produced was impossibly small, he used the analogy of a down feather from a baby parakeet resting on your hand. The result would have been that the spacecraft would have used all the mechanical energy in its flywheels trying to stay stable, and then used all of its maneuvering fuel and become useless in just a few days. It was caught during some sort of balance test and they had to reengineer the circuit to produce a magnetic field in the opposite direction to cancel out the effect.

He gave another example where an instrument package was delivered at the wrong weight due to a change in some insulator. I can't remember if it was too heavy or too light. They had to add small weights to a different part of the spacecraft to maintain balance. IIR he said it took them several weeks to get the weights in the right positions to pass the mass balance tests on various axes.

I have no idea how accurate this is, but I thought it was an interesting and not-intuitive insight into how things in space work differently than on Earth.

He had other interesting stories about thermal management issues and other similar.

So, the circuit was an accidental magnetorquer?

If that's what it's called then yes!

I think the term I always associated with it was a linear induction motor.

You forget that each subcontractor writes the specs for its modules. So Subcontractor X specs theirs as being grossly overweight and overpower. The system integrator bitches them out but budgets for overages. After a reasonable amount of time has elapsed, Subcontractir X reveals a miracle: their wonder engineering team has got the module nearly down to the target budget. Attaboys are dispensed to the worker bees, champagne to the management, and the spy module gets installed.

Meanwhile heads are rolling in the French Ministry of Defence, as it slowly dawns on them that they have used the same US spy components in their own satellite systems, and replacing them would cost billions of Euros.

Well, this could be the catalyst for a resurgence in EU industry. Do it yourself or get exploited by someone else?

The most troubling aspect of this story, for me, is that the civilized world is providing this class of technology to countries like the UAE.

Not sure the world you are talking about really qualifies as "civilized", but I agree with the sentiment. UAE, except for the oil, should be a few dunes of sand with a few tribes, not sure what for they would need war satellites.

You may not have noticed, but none of the countries in the middle east like each other very much and satellite surveillance is kind of a big strategic deal...

Everyone is quite sensibly reviewing their US tech relationship and either going elsewhere or asking for an 'NSA tax'.

Thankfully alternative suppliers like Russia and China have such spotless reputations when it comes to espionage.

Sure, but Im not sure we can legitimately accuse them of all the things we have proof the NSA have gotten up to.

See, thats the problem for the US right now, we can play the proof game. Right now we know what the NSA and US get up to. Its no longer the wild speculation of the foil hat brigade. Its fact now. Where as, with everyone else, we have relatively small cases and speculation. So, if you have a choice, and you know absolutely that one supplier cant be even slightly trusted, why would you use it? How could you justify the spending and choice? You cant. If anything went wrong, or political alliances or policies change, well, you don't have a leg to stand on. Your career and reputation are over. You bought from a known bad actor. You cant deny it. So, you have to look else where. At the very least, at this level, you have to make one hell of a case to select US technology right now.

"No one ever got fired for buying IBM."

Open source from now on, until there's a better business model.

US Air Force using counterfeit Chinese parts [1]

s/counterfeit/backdoored/

[1] http://rt.com/news/us-air-force-counterfeit-electronics-879/

It would be pretty awesome if the UAE put the interception technology on the satellites themselves. It would be a great way to get a discount from the French and perhaps a kickback from some American agency.

This may just be postering on the part of the UAE Government to get out of the deal, because they have been offered better terms from elsewhere. A relative in the US who was a very small military contractor delivered a radar system to the UAE Government last decade - on time, and on budget - only to be told that they didn't want it anymore and since they didn't want it, they were not going to pay for it. The company could not tolerate that loss and went bankrupt.

Check out this 30c3 video for more strange facts about US and space ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTVgPw7TR_k

But no one has asked the real question.

The real question is:

  Why the fuck does the UAE even need spy satellites?

Seriously. What the fuck are they even spying on?

And you thought you hated debugging.

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