[liberationtech] [berkmanfriends] AFP on Senate circumvention funding report to release Tuesday

[Jacob Appelbaum]

On 02/13/2011 10:58 PM, Seth David Schoen wrote:
> Jacob Appelbaum writes:
> 
>> There are some very serious security and privacy concerns - most devices
>> send your GPS coordinates when registering with the satellite system.
>> This is done to ensure that the downlink activates the correct spot
>> beam; one serious unintended consequence is that you have absolutely no
>> location anonymity.
> 
> Is there a way to map the footprints and figure out a randomized
> location that the device could send instead that would elicit the
> same behavior from the satellite?  If so, is there a plausible
> path to getting the device to send that instead?
> 

I think that the spot beams are not public information. I admit that I
haven't done very much digging and only understand the registration
system at a high level. I think that it should be possible to map
responses from the Satellite system but I haven't looked into it.

It is certainly possible to replace the GPS data with your own privacy
enhanced GPS data. Users on the edge of two spot beams might have issues
- I think the spot beams are ~220KM in diameter.

All the best,
Jacob