Topics

61

General Radio Discussion / "Deep web" compromised, Tor users warned

« on: August 07, 2013, 1238 UTC »

From GigaOM:

"A chunk of the “deep web” went down over the weekend, and Tor users should be wary"

"Multiple so-called “hidden service addresses” have disappeared, possibly due to an FBI-linked takedown of an Irish host that carried child porn images. Whatever happened, it seems a flaw in the private Tor browser was exploited."

The security exploit seems to be limited to Firefox 17 or earlier.

Regarding the article, speculation runs along two lines:

• The FBI dunnit to harvest IPs
• Anonymous dunnit to harvest IPs

http://gigaom.com/2013/08/05/a-chunk-of-the-deep-web-went-down-over-the-weekend-and-tor-users-should-be-wary/

62

North American Shortwave Pirate / Red Mercury Labs 6940 USB 8/4/13 0240z

« on: August 04, 2013, 0241 UTC »

Just heard ID for Red Mercury Labs after rock song I didn't recognize.  Only fair via eastern SDR, will try home tuner.
0242z: Commentary on 4th Amendment
0300z: Wall of Voodoo "Mexican Radio"
0307z: Reading online logs, mentioned HFU.
0311z: CCR "Run Through the Jungle"
0315z: RML IDs, 6940 USB in the manliest of modes.  Lynyrd Skynyrd "Man a Simple Bee"
0330z: Sounded like Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction or Porno for Pyros, not sure.
0335z: Shout out to Wm. K. Hertz and FRC, Cars "It's All I Can Do", "Moving In Stereo".  I remember seeing The Cars at their peak, around 1979-81.  They ripped into "Got A Lot On My Head" and put on a great show.  Not much spontaneity but very polished.
0354z: After Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me", closing comments and sign-off.

Rough copy at first, better after 0300z:
SINPO=33243 via east coast SDR - much louder summer QRN
SINPO=32333 via home receiver - much louder ute QRM

By sign-off time, signal was much clearer on my home receiver with indoor antenna than via eastern web tuner.  Still some significant propagation shifts well after dark this summer.

63

SDR - Software Defined Radio / HackRF, 30 MHz to 6 GHz SDR

« on: August 01, 2013, 2229 UTC »

"Up on Kickstarter, [Michael Ossmann] is launching the HackRF, an inordinately cheap, exceedingly capable software defined radio tool that’s small enough to lose in your laptop bag.

"The HackRF was the subject of a lot of interest last time it was on Hackaday - the ability to receive up to 6GHz allows the HackRF to do a lot of very interesting things, including listening in on Bluetooth, WiFi, and 4G networks. Also, the ability to transmit on these frequencies means a lot of very interesting, and quite possibly slightly evil applications are open to anyone with a HackRF. Like the RTL-SDR dongles, the HackRF works with GNU Radio out of the box, meaning all those cool SDR hacks we’ve seen so far will work with this new, more powerful board."

http://hackaday.com/2013/08/01/hackrf-or-playing-from-30-mhz-to-6-ghz/

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mossmann/hackrf-an-open-source-sdr-platform

64

North American Shortwave Pirate / PPVR 6925, 7/21/13, 0325z

« on: July 21, 2013, 0331 UTC »

7/21/13, 6925 USB, 0325z: Couple of songs I didn't recognize, clear ID for Pee-Pee Vagina Radio in kid's voice.  Fair to good signal through heavy regional QRN.
0330z: Clear Pee-Pee Vagina Radio ID in familiar "Close Encounters" jingle style.  Can't quite copy songs, one sounded like lyrics had "dick fart"?  Then a cantina piano style version of Star Wars theme.

Hovering between S1-S5 through fairly strong local t-storm crashes.

65

General Radio Discussion / China Has a New Propaganda Machine -- and This One Can Fly

« on: July 18, 2013, 0445 UTC »

I don't have an account with FP magazine so I'll just reprint the summary by my Facebook friend who does:

"The Chinese plane appears to be modeled after U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command's EC-130J Commando Solo.

The Harrisburg, Pa.-based Commando Solos carry massive amounts of VHF, UHF, AM, FM, and military communications-band broadcast equipment capable of overriding the broadcasts being watched or listened to by the target audience and replacing them with a message of the U.S. government's choosing. Uncle Sam literally takes over your television."

http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/17/china_s_new_flying_propaganda_broadcast_plane

66

General Radio Discussion / Lincoln's equivalent to the NSA total surveillance state

« on: July 08, 2013, 2110 UTC »

-. ... .- / .. ..-. / ..- / -.-. .- -. / .-. -.. / - .... .. ... / ..- / .-. / ..--- / -.. .- -- -. / -. --- ... -.--


"In 1862, after President Abraham Lincoln appointed him secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton penned a letter to the president requesting sweeping powers, which would include total control of the telegraph lines...Having the telegraph lines running through Stanton’s office made his department the nexus of war information; Lincoln visited regularly to get the latest on the war. Stanton collected news from generals, telegraph operators and reporters. He had a journalist’s love of breaking the story and an autocrat’s obsession with information control. He used his power over the telegraphs to influence what journalists did or didn’t publish. In 1862, the House Judiciary Committee took up the question of 'telegraphic censorship' and called for restraint on the part of the administration’s censors."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/opinion/lincolns-surveillance-state.html

67

General Radio Discussion / Historic Victory for Community Radio, FCC Puts 1,000 Low-Power FM Frequencies

« on: June 20, 2013, 2337 UTC »

I'm not sure how "new" this news really is:

"In a major victory for the community radio movement after a 15-year campaign, the Federal Communications Commission has announced it will soon begin accepting applications for hundreds of new low-power FM radio stations in October. This means nonprofits, labor unions and community groups have a one-time-only chance this year to own a bit of the broadcast airwaves. It is being heralded as "the largest expansion of community radio in United States history."" -- http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/20/in_historic_victory_for_community_radio

68

General Radio Discussion / Caution: Check your Yahoo email security

« on: June 17, 2013, 1433 UTC »

If you're on a radio hobbyist email list you may have received email from "Mark M" this weekend - just a URL with a nonsensical message.  It appears his Yahoo mail account was hacked this weekend, which appeared to have part of a large number of Yahoo email accounts hacked over the June 14-16 weekend, including a friend of mine.

Note: This appears to be an actual hack of a large number of Yahoo email accounts, not just spoofing.  My friend's account was shut down after suspicious activity was noted, but only after dozens of emails with suspicious links (probably to trojan installers) were sent to her contact list.

It's probably a good time to check your Yahoo account and change the password.  Also, if you pay for Yahoo's premium service, check your POP and advanced mail settings for forwarding addresses.  Sometimes hacked email accounts will forward mail to the hacker, so you'll want to disable that.  If I'm correctly remembering my own Yahoo account (which I rarely use) the freebie email doesn't include POP or advanced mail settings so you won't need to worry about that.

And this incident is a good example of why I don't use Yahoo mail.  It comes free with my ISP but Yahoo's security is so poor I never use that email service.  This is at least the third instance of a Yahoo email security breach in the past several years.  Even my old Hotmail account from the 1990s has better security, but mostly I use an old Netscape account (now AOL) and Gmail.

This appears to be a major ongoing problem with Yahoo mail throughout 2013: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/yahoo-email-hacking_n_3366259.html

69

North American Shortwave Pirate / RTN 6925 AM 0257 UTC 12 May 2013

« on: May 12, 2013, 0334 UTC »

Not sure if this is Radio True North or other:
5/12/13, 6925 AM, approx. 0300z: Joe Satriani "Summer Song", Bryan Adams "Summer of '69", possibly "Hot Summer Day" by It's a Beautiful Day, others I couldn't ID.  Voice ID, not sure if Radio True North or other.  Rough conditions here.

70

General Radio Discussion / Be careful with those off-air recording file names

« on: March 22, 2013, 1735 UTC »

Just a heads up for folks who upload their off-air recordings of pirate radio broadcasts.

For the past several years I've used "pirate" as a standard keyword for my pirate radio off-air recordings, to make it quicker and easier to sort out those from recordings of shortwave and mediumwave broadcasts, utility stations, numbers, etc.

Apparently MediaFire has an auto-bot that checks for pirated music, software, etc.  So they've recently auto-deleted all of my off-air recordings that used "pirate" as part of the file name, tag or keyword.   It's a freebie account so I'm not complaining.  Most of my files are still intact, so apparently I wasn't consistent about using the term "pirate" as a tag or keyword.

Not a big deal since almost everything was also uploaded to the Internet Archives.  But I'll probably change the file names on those just in case archive.org receives a DMCA complaint and uses a bot to auto-delete any suspicious files.  Can't say I'd blame them since the Internet Archives operates on a shoestring budget.

71

North American Shortwave Pirate / Grizzly Bear Shortwave 6930 USB

« on: September 23, 2012, 0651 UTC »

9/23/12, 6930 USB, 0650z: Listening outdoors with portable, heard some blues, switched to fiddle music with Natalie MacMaster around 25 after the hour.  Grizzly Bear Shortwave ID at 0650z with email contact info.

Just fair here at home with portable, very good via western US web tuner.  SINPO 44423, very good peaks, some fades to barely audible for a few minutes at a time.  Also just barely audible via far eastern N. American web tuner (that usually gets only fair reception of any pirates).

72

North American Shortwave Pirate / Unid FM station web stream relay 6925

« on: August 19, 2012, 0530 UTC »

8/19/12, 6925 USB, 0515z: Unid station relaying what sounds like live/realtime web feed for a Fargo, ND, FM station.  Mention of Bob Dylan and some Dylan music, current time of 12:27 AM at 0527z.
0531z: Announcer talking about in-studio recording of song just played?  Difficult copy due to fluttery peaks/fades.

Fair to good via midwest tuner, not much QRN, some fades to barely audible with strong peaks.

73

North American Shortwave Pirate / Blue Ocean Radio 6930 USB

« on: August 13, 2012, 0537 UTC »

8/13/12, 6930 USB, 0530z: Harry Belafonte "Banana Boat Song", Blue Ocean Radio ID, more calypso music.
0543z: BOR ID from op, shout-out to HFU, "You're listening to Harry Belafonte on Blue Ocean Radio", playing the 1956 "Calypso" album.
0611z: BOR ID, gmail contact info, more fiddle music from "Natalie"? (didn't catch whole name, due to static crashes)
0620z: Ah, Natalie MacMaster, thanks!  Good stuff.

74

North American Shortwave Pirate / Unid 7425 USB after TCS relay

« on: August 13, 2012, 0428 UTC »

8/13/12, 7425 USB: 0405z (approx): Immediately after sign off of TCS baseball theme show, into some version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", some orchestral instrumentals.  Seems to be similar signal strength and audio, not sure it's same station however.
0450z: Alison Krauss "Down to the River to Pray"
0508z: Partial ID, obscured by QRN, more classical instrumental music

75

North American Shortwave Pirate / Unid 6925 USB 0530z

« on: August 12, 2012, 0608 UTC »

8/12/12, 6925 USB, 0530z (approx): Dire Straits "Money For Nothing", Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here", off without audible ID.  Good signal with some fades, outdoors with Sony 2010 portable.