A lot of aviation runs on basic radio technology. ILS, VORs, all voice comms with ATC. It’s well known that these frequencies can be jammed or transmitted on by bad actors. If you want to do this, go ahead and roll the dice on having multiple federal agencies come down on you like a ton of bricks. See how it works out.
EDIT: (Since I can’t reply because HN for whatever reason prevents me from posting more than 2-3 replies per day): To clarify, yes I’m arguing that this is not newsworthy.
This, specifically is a feature, and why voice is still done over AM. It allows all planes to be heard by ATC, regardless of their transmission strength relative to other planes. AM signals "add" whereas FM tends to have a "capture" effect, and only receive the strongest signal (or most equally strong signals) at a time.
> ILS, VORs
Slightly OT, but I love the simplicity of design in these systems. They've actually inspired me to go, finally, take my HAM license exam. (Probably early next month due to scheduling.)
I sometimes feel like many systems built are just much to over-engineered and don't even attempt to exploit physics to do their job. On the other hand, as this article points out, VORs and ILS aren't authentication.
I still can't believe that there wasn't designed with some kind of authentication built into the ADS-B system. It's newer and deals with transmitting arbitrary data.
> I sometimes feel like many systems built are just much to over-engineered and don't even attempt to exploit physics to do their job.
PAPI lights are my favourite example of this.
For those that don't know the system, PAPI lights are installed next to runway touchdown point and give visual feedback of vertical approach path: are you too low, too high or just fine.
It needs no moving parts and no electronic control.
Each light has a filter that splits the beam into white and red sectors. Red is shown below a certain angle, white above. Each light is at a different elevation angle.
Viewing from a very low angle, all four lights look red. Slightly above that, one of them turns white. At standard approach angle, two are white and two are red. A bit above approach path, the third one becomes white. At very high angles, the whole row is white.
PAPI lights become more precise as the aicraft gets closer. The system can serve any number of aircraft at the same time, does not have to track them, and does not require receivers/transmitters or any other on-board equipment.
If I may rephrase your perspective as I read it: "how do they stop people from breaking the law when it's still physically possible to occasionally break the law and get away with it?"
If that is in fact what you're asking, then there are a great many societal functions that you should be worrying about the stability of at a much higher priority than flight radio.
They trace the transmitters back to you. Fingerprints, other evidence at the scene, purchase records tied to serial numbers on the transmitters... there's a lot you'd have to get right to leave no way for them to find you.
What? You can't "trace a transmitter" like this. You could triangulate someone's location while transmitting.
> purchase records tied to serial numbers on the transmitters
Yeah, I'm sure second hand sales would update this information if it exists in the first place at all, and even if it did, it's not like transmitter transmits that information.
You brag about it somewhere on the Internet, the post gets traced back to your computer, and the parallel construction does a bunch of hand-waving about serial numbers and purchase records and electronics batch numbers and fingerprint matching.
So.. don't do it? If anyone with rudimentary SDR knowledge can build a system to interfere with aircraft landing, and they can get away with it by taking basic precautions (don't stay at the scene and don't brag), that's still pretty terrifying.
Anyone with decent opsec and pre-existing domain knowledge can easily get away with it while regular cops are watching or investigating. Yes, this is extremely terrifying. The only real deterrent is that national-security-interest-level investigators will probably take a look after any serious incident occurs, and then the perpetrator would need to have perfect opsec to remain uncaught. (And this might possibly be accomplished by never touching SDR again.)
Anyone without rudimentary opsec will likely be caught between the "shits and giggles" phase of experimentation and the "domestic terrorism" phase of doing something extremely stupid near an airport. This person will likely ask questions on a forum site that are sketchy enough that the regular hobbyists report the suspicious user. This is a pattern that repeats often: stupid criminal gets caught by talking about doing crimes, or by showing criminal behavior to non-criminals. Any crime large enough to require a conspiracy is also large enough to have a secret informant.
The biggest threat is someone with a legitimate interest in SDR, and enough skill to devise an attack unassisted, who experiences a psychological stress powerful enough to make them break, and turn against the civil order. That is extremely low probability, but still theoretically possible. People that decide to pick up a weapon and fight are likely to use what is at hand, and the expertise they already have, to attack. Everyone else in the field has a very strong interest in making sure that no one does anything overtly stupid with SDR, because even accidental missteps could ruin the profession/hobby for everyone, entire countries at a time.
They don't matter. It's a belief among the commoners that criminals can be traced by performing magical CSI rituals over the serial numbers. So if you are building a plausible parallel construction, you might say you traced the serial numbers.
Def Con in 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1QAjCH_1oU