[Cryptography] Pearl Harbor and Crypto

[Arnold Reinhold]

> On Nov 23, 2015, at 2:39 PM, Donald Eastlake <d3e3e3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Sat phones can locate someone within 10km or so, which can be very
> useful, but, unless they are GPS equipped (which some are), they are
> not going to give you an accurate enough location to take someone out
> with a missile or the like.
> 

That may be true of the satellite phone system itself, but I believe that the U.S. military has other equipment for locating emitters more precisely, especially when they are given a rough position to 10 km accuracy. Some missiles are designed to home in on emitters.

I’m surprised no one has proposed this simple system for dealing with the security implications of the European refugee crisis: when the refugees are being processed initially, give them all cheap cell phones or special SIM cards for the ones they already have. Then get a voice sample along with ID photo and other biometric data, say be asking them to test the phone. Give the refugees a modest monthly voice and text budget they can add to, more if they supply their own phone. The phones would serve a humanitarian purpose, helping the refugees get settled, find lost loved ones and look for work. But the phones would also allow them all to be tracked 7/24, just like the rest of us. Any phone that falls off the network or stops being used by the same voice would add its owner to a suspect list. The phones could even serve as a credential: “Cell phone please” instead of “Papers please” at checkpoints.

Arnold Reinhold