that EAM had a weird number of repeated characters in it, more than I'd expect by chance if my ears aren't deceiving me. I thought they used a one-time pad, don't they?
HF-GCS (High Frequency Global Communications System) uses a variety of frequencies, but if memory serves, the two primary frequencies that are always used are 8992 kHz (better for night propagation) and 11175 kHz (day propagation). If you're using one of the receivers listed at websdr.org you might try those for a start.
If you're in northern California and in need of a day trip, drive on Interstate 80 to the town of Dixon and head south on Highway 113 towards Rio Vista. Eventually you'll see a pair of very tall antenna towers. I'm pretty sure those are the "West Coast" HF-GCS transmitting towers, with the receiving antennas located further east near Lincoln.
(And if you're up for a great burger and shake, Dave's Giant Hamburger in nearby Fairfield will set you straight. (Be sure to ask for the hot sauce.))
I think the real lesson is how much effort we put into making bomber crews believe they would return from their bombing runs alive, to functioning airfields, to be used again if necessary.
Many aircraft were well aware that they were headed to recovery bases in countries like Turkey, and that their home air base was almost certainly a radiating ruin. SAC reconstitution teams would meet them to refuel & rearm — in theory.
A friend's dad was an F-4 pilot and sat on nuclear alert on a carrier in the Med. If the alert a/c (armed with nuclear weapons) were sortied, they were instructed to find a NATO airfield to land at because their carrier was almost certainly at the bottom of the ocean by the time they hit their targets and started their return journey.
Victor Alert: 15 Minutes to Armageddon: The Memoir of a Nuke Wild Weasel Pilot
Major General Lee Downer, United States Air Force Academy, 1964, served 33 years active duty in the Air Force-14 years in Europe, 2 in the Pacific. Commander, at Squadron and Wing level, he flew almost 4000 hours in F-4, F-111 and F-16 fighters, including over 150 combat missions with the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Danang, South Viet Nam. In 1991 he Commanded Air Forces (AFFOR) and the 7440th Combat Wing based at Incirlik Air Base during Operation Desert Storm. A fully qualified "Gypsy" member of the 81st Tactical Fighter Squadron 1969-1973-Hahn, Zweibrucken and Spangdahlem Air Bases
Effects of multiple nuclear explosions (blast waves / radiation - aircraft are sensible things, even "hardened" warplanes), their home and secondary bases being primary targets for a soviet retaliation strike, soviet anti-aircraft activities, either ground-based or with fighters (B-52s aren't exactly stealthy), and the fact that even if they make it back somehow, everyone they know is dead or dying horrifically, and the likely chance of a decade-long nuclear winter with nothing growing...
They’re also a reminder of the hidden infrastructure and communications that will be unseen and unheard by the world but is at the ready to handle this contingency.
You then consider that this infrastructure (ie the googles) has been duplicated by at least two other world superpowers, with each having had a slightly different variations on implementation which inherently reflects the values of the nation.
I think the writers of the film WarGames liked it too. They seemed to imitate the call with the phrase "Skybird calling Dropkick" in an impressive radio DJ voice.
I noticed that GMRS radio IDs also have these effects on people sometimes. When I call with my ID in a place like Yosemite I'll hear other people on their FRS radios ask if they have a cool ID too. (Not that I think it is cool, but it's certainly different...and I think most prefer it to calling family and friends by name on a public radio band)
The Wargames RED DASH ALPHA MESSAGE bit has some relation to real life. There were RED DOT and BLUE DOT messages back in the old days (though that was in the encrypted payload, not the preamble) [0].
I visited somewhere which I think was BNFL labs, or a like company in Scotland in the 70s on a schools science visit. They demonstrated some very cool tech, including electronically triggered anti flash glasses. They were still in trial, and flashed white not black but triggered incredibly rapidly. I remember them doing a demo with an SLR camera flashgun. Nice to see the real McCoy
They also showed us NMR machines and talked about getting permission to dredge up iron from the German fleet in scapa flow (orkneys) to make low background radiation measurement chambers. The entire smelting path had to be based on old metal and like to avoid contamination.
Why don't they use encryption? Wouldn't it be preferable for your messages to be completely inscrutable?
[Edit] To clarify my question, I'm specifically talking about these unencrypted parts:
1. The number of "Skyking do not answer"s indicates the severity of the message.
2. The fact that it is known that messages to Skyking are for a nuclear force.
I wouldn't want an adversary to know when or with what severity I am commanding my nuclear force. It leaks significant information that an adversary can use, for instance, to judge your response to some action the adversary took.
That cheatsheet is not accurate. The number of "skyking"s do not have anything to do with priority/severity. Further, SIOP was not strictly speaking retired — it was renamed, most recently to OPLAN 8010-12. I would take the linked page with a very large grain of salt.
Well, the payload is encrypted using OTPs. But if the gist of the question was really "why use such old tech when newer tech is available?":
I suspect these methods of communication remain because of their robustness against attack and simplicity to implement. It's a guarantee that even if all the modern networks go down, commands can still be issued from anyone, to anyone using off-the-shelf hardware.
Plus, you know, oftentimes the people commenting for the US nuclear defense systems to modernize are the same people who put Log4J everywhere they could (meaning: Silicon Valley engineers).
Its funny how hypnotic the word "modernize" is; totally divorced from any measurable success outcomes. More efficient? Possibly. But as we learned with COVID; when you stress an Efficient system, it breaks. Militaries tend to be pretty highly stressed; and it would be best if they don't break.
One thing is for certain: There is much the maintainers of these antiquated systems could learn from more recent engineering practices; but there is just as much we could learn from them.
They don’t. There was talk of a future plane potentially running it, probably as a part of R&D purposes. This rumor was generated from a single person posting on LinkedIn. Very different than the active US military running k8 on their bombers.
>all the modern networks go down, commands can still be issued from anyone, to anyone using off-the-shelf hardware.
Yep, and if there's any single salient characteristic about Nuclear C3, it's redundancy. Normally the launch crews, subs, command posts, bombers, tankers, and strategic reconnaissance aircraft would get their message over secure terminals, but there are many other ways to get a valid EAM (to include via voice transmission).
There's a famous (and perhaps apocryphal) story about Jimmy Carter touring the SAC underground. He supposedly told the senior controller he wanted to talk to the boys in the launch control centers, so they set up the circuits and told the crews to STAND BY FOR A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
This caused quite understandable consternation, as the crews were certain most of the comms networks had been taken out and the nation was somehow in the midst of a general nuclear exchange (though their detonation detection systems were not sounding). A voice message from the President never occurred again.
That was not what I was suggesting. Copying my edit from above:
I'm specifically talking about these unencrypted parts:
1. The number of "Skyking do not answer"s indicates the severity of the message.
2. The fact that it is known that messages to Skyking are for a nuclear force.
I wouldn't want an adversary to know when or with what severity I am commanding my nuclear force. It leaks significant information that an adversary can use, for instance, to judge your response to some action the adversary took.
> I wouldn't want an adversary to know when or with what severity I am commanding my nuclear force.
Usually (when the primary potential enemy is an opposing superpower held in check via MAD), you either want exactly that (as a palpable thread signal to get the other side to back down in an escalating crisis, or as the palpable absence of such a signal when you are just doing routine exercises) or MAD has completely failed and we’re all going to die.
> I wouldn't want an adversary to know when or with what severity I am commanding my nuclear force. It leaks significant information that an adversary can use, for instance, to judge your response to some action the adversary took.
I seriously doubt that the people directly wielding these weapons actually want to use them. A small information leak indicating potential escalation like this, while still hiding exact deployment orders, may actually be desirable.
> I seriously doubt that the people directly wielding these weapons actually want to use them. A small information leak indicating potential escalation like this, while still hiding exact deployment orders, may actually be desirable.
I agree, but I would argue you could decouple notifying the world and notifying your force, but perhaps that would remove the teeth behind the message. And further, it could be entirely possible they've already decoupled and Skyking is just theatrics
2. SKYKING is a group callsign for any aircraft operating under the SIOP (if you don't have the action word on your list, the message isn't for you). I saw a talk from a former U2 spy plane pilot that mentioned receiving a SKYKING message to alert them they had been detected by hostile forces.
Perhaps it's an honest signal that I have lifted my big stick. You know I have the stick. I know I have the stick. Now you know you did something that made me lift the stick. Gives you the chance to undo it. After all, neither you nor I want me to swing the stick.
The salutation is not encrypted because it's designed to attract the attention of the radio operators on the plane. They need a few moments to grab their pens to write down the message that follows so they aren't going to miss any characters.
So far as leaking information - by the time these are sent as real-world communications (i.e. not as a test or during training), the planes are nearing their target. So it won't matter for much longer if the enemy knows, since the positions of the planes are (hopefully) unknown.
Sometimes you want a communication to be public, loud, and undeniable, even if you don't want it to be understood by all.
It makes it difficult to later deny that the order was given, it'll be recorded many times over by friend and foe alike. Recipients can possibly confirm that their counterparts are also receiving consistent orders.
You were the sole person who understood my poorly worded question. How did you come to the correct interpretation of my question, given information was missing from my question?
Did you assume that I realized the content of Skyking messages is encrypted, and then deduce that my question must relate to the other unencrypted parts?
The content is encrypted with one-time pads that are constantly refreshed, which is entirely undecipherable through cryptanalysis. Encrypting the radio signal itself would require a much more extensive infrastructure than binders and radio receivers: specialized hardware that might be compromised or flawed, or simply break down, rendering you unable to listen to the channel over which your critical orders might come; harder to audit as well with more moving parts and components that aren't easily inspected or tested.
This seems like a case of a very simple and robust system being more than sufficient for the task, and anything more complex is a waste of time and money.
Just like TLS, the payload is encrypted. The skyking stuff is just header. It has the advantage that there’s less to go wrong and doesn’t take sophisticated equipment to receive.
> Why don't they use encryption? Wouldn't it be preferable for your messages to be completely inscrutable?
They don't? The letters read out in a phonetic alphabet are most certainly a code that's completely inscrutable without a codebook, which is probably rotated frequently. Encryption like we use it (e.g. encode arbitrary messages) is probably unnecessary and too complicated. All they're probably trying to do is transmit an authenticated order to execute an action that's been agreed upon ahead of time.
For a good explanation on why you don't want these things to be too high-tech and too encrypted, see "Doctor Strangelove", and take particular notice about the roles played by CRM-114.
"The messages are simply a series of letters, relayed in NATO phonetics, and encrypted with a one-time cypher. The receiver would need a code book (by varying reports refreshed daily, weekly, or monthly and inches thick) to identify the key and decrypt the message."
The article implies that the nuclear forces have already been deployed and targets set - this would be the final instruction to launch (the "go/no go" on that USAF cheat sheet).
At that point there's not much to hide or encrypt.
From my understanding each bomber has a playbook so to speak along with the code book. each Play is a different target package. Just like in US football the message from Command to the bombers isn't the verbatim target package but just a code telling them which target package to select from their playbook.
Is that MP3 actual raw recordings, or has it been "enhanced" with interesting interference. I'm hearing lots of echo, telemetry, different voiced "layered" on top of each other, etc.
The "echo" is actually from multiple spatially separated stations simultaneously transmitting the same message. You're hearing the differences in time of flight. The overlapping signals don't interfere as one might expect because they use single sideband modulation.
There is a lot of interesting interference at these low frequencies. I didn't hear anything I wouldn't expect to hear on HF. Also, echo is a complex and somewhat mysterious topic. Long Path echo is easily grasped; the same signal is received twice due to two paths around the Earth which happens when band conditions are favorable. Other forms of echo (Long delayed echo[1], for example) are less easily explained.
An example of an unusually long emergency action message recorded on March 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdiudqqfkLs