Satellite phones with built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities have been confiscated from journalists travelling with US troops inside Iraq, due to fears that they could inadvertently reveal their positions.
Reporters 鈥渆mbedded鈥� with the troops have been asked to hand over satellite telephones operated by Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications, a communications company based in Abu Dhabi. The restriction is limited to units near the war鈥檚 front-line and is expected to be temporary, a spokesman for US central command in Qatar told New Scientist.
A spokeswoman for the US Department of Defense added that reporters with unaffected satellite phones would be asked to share them and that military communications equipment would be made available when possible. Replacement phones could also be sent to the front line.
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Richard Langley, a GPS expert at the University of New Brunswick, Canada, says US military commanders may be concerned that positioning information could be sent in signals from the Thuraya phones and then intercepted and used by Iraqi forces to locate and attack US troops.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not impossible, although it would be rather difficult,鈥� Langley told New Scientist. 鈥淭he signals are line-of-sight [from handset to satellite] so very little would leak out and be interceptable on the ground.鈥�
Ground station intercept
It would be easier to intercept the signal as it arrives from the satellite at the network operator鈥檚 ground station, he says. But even in this case, any interceptor would still have to crack the encryption protecting the signal.
An alternative concern is that the US military are worried that computers used to store call information are vulnerable to cyber attack. 鈥淧erhaps the concern was that there would be a log of these positions kept on a computer somewhere,鈥� Langley says.
Positional information captured by any means would only be useful for as long as the caller remained in the same place, he notes: 鈥淎nyone wanting to use the information would have to work quickly.鈥�
Thuraya telephones can connect to GSM mobile phone networks when they are available, and a satellite network when in more remote areas. The phones can also be used as a GPS receiver, determining its position by communicating with satellites in the GPS constellation.
If the GPS functionality is switched on, the caller鈥檚 co-ordinates can be embedded in signals sent to the communications satellites.