
French-UAE Intel Satellite Deal in Doubt – US Parts Raise Security Concerns - dexen
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140105/DEFREG04/301050006
======
leoedin
If the article is correct (that this has been "discovered" rather than already
known about, but not considered an issue until now), my suspicion is that
they've discovered that aspects of the satellite's systems are under ITAR
control.

ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) applies to almost everything
space related that originates in the US, passes through the US, has input from
US citizens or is produced by a US based company. It's very easy for something
to become subject to ITAR, and once something is considered to be subject to
ITAR it's practically impossible to undo. It's possible that they've recently
done an audit on the systems used (which are numerous and sourced from
hundreds, perhaps thousands of suppliers) and found that something which was
previously considered to be ITAR free could actually be subject to ITAR.

Violation of ITAR by a company can result in huge fines or trade sanctions,
and the only way to avoid them is not operate at all in the US, or even deal
with US companies. I'd imagine that the only people in the space business who
don't care about ITAR are the Chinese and Russians.

~~~
tanzam75
Avoiding US companies isn't enough. Even the Europeans cannot manufacture an
ITAR-free satellite, because they are not completely self-sufficient.

Until last year, you used to be able to buy ITAR-free satellites from Thales
Alenia. However, the US State Department aggressively went after the American
suppliers -- one of them got fined, and some previously-unrestricted
components are now ITAR-controlled. That was the end of Thales Alenia's ITAR-
free satellite.

If you want an ITAR-free satellite, you have to buy it from Russia or China.
Those are the only two countries that have the capability to build a satellite
without using any US components.

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awjr
To a certain extent, I understand and accept Nations spying on each other is a
big game that they all play with each other. I get it. It's very James Bond.

However when your agencies are having a direct financial impact on your
industries you really need to clean up your own backyard.

~~~
furyg3
I don't understand or accept it. While your point about unintended financial
consequences is very valid, I find this the lowest threshold of decision
making.

I don't steal staplers at work, not because I might get caught, or because
everybody does it, or because it may adversely affect my company, or due to
some other unforeseen consequence. I do it because I've thought a lot about
stealing and have concluded that it's wrong to do so.

The US has overwhelming military force (a house full of staplers). The US
and/or France could have easily taken the decision to _not_ deliver military
satellites to the UAE (or to use political means to block it).

~~~
brudgers
Individuals have moral agency. Corporate bodies such as governments do not. It
is a category mistake to attribute agency to them. Governments are neither
moral nor immoral. They are amoral.

Defense satellites are no more staplers than monads are Scottish ballads.
Defense satellites do not organize documents. They are tools to facilitate the
use of violence. The UAE military establishment is following the same
rationales as the US's - a bigger stick better insures achieving diplomatic
objectives.

~~~
pizza234
Corporate bodies still have moral or immoral agenda, so it's unrealistic to
define them as amoral.

There are some governments whose primary agenda is, say, to develop green
energy, and some other whose primary agenda is, say, to bomb other countries
to the ground.

~~~
sliverstorm
But do they do those things _because_ they are moral or immoral? I think you
are _attributing_ morality to actions that are made apart from morals.

------
thirdsight
I doubt this is possible. Every item that goes up is assembled and signed off
piecemeal so every bit of hardware will be checked by multiple eyes. The buyer
will have people on site checking this. From a software perspective, things
are a little more uncertain but the workflows are tightly locked down. It
would be extremely difficult to get anything shipped which isn't known about
by everyone. Even attempting this is illogical.

I agree with the assertion that this is to secure a better deal.

(I wrote software to manage assembly and versioning of components on space and
military equipment).

~~~
salient
Why go through the trouble of accusing them of implanting a backdoor, if all
they wanted is to review other countries' offers, which they're doing now
anyway (Russia, China)? Are you saying that now they will go back, and say
"ok, since you removed the backdoor, we're going to accept your 30 percent
discounted offer."? That seems highly unlikely.

If anything Russia and China will charge them _more_ than the French now, to
"guarantee" there's no backdoor, and since they are in a better negotiation
position now than they would've been if UAE reviewed their offers pre-accusing
France/US of backdooring the other offer.

~~~
jccooper
I like your entirely-appropriate scare quotes there. I can't see any reason to
believe that Chinese or Russian hardware (or French for that matter) would be
any less likely to be backdoored. I wouldn't trust any of it further than I
could audit it myself--which makes it a tricky situation for second- or third-
party users, since auditing the internal state of modern electronic gear is
difficult-to-impossible. You can audit the communications, and hope you can
detect any out-of-spec activity, but that's not easy either.

There's more political maneuvering going on here than any legitimate technical
concern.

------
johnchristopher
I noticed the source of the article was voice of russia so I looked for other
sources:

[http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-
behi...](http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behind-
france-uae-spy-satellite-doubts/) (french news)

[http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/06/france-uae-spy-
satellite-...](http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/06/france-uae-spy-satellite-
deal-in-jeopardy-over-us-supplied-parts---claim/)

Suggestions are made that the US or another bidding competitor planted the
spying tech to ruin the french-UAE deal.

Still can't say if we are talking hardware parts or software backdoor.

~~~
salient
I think this was the original source, and it says 2 hardware components from
US:

[http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140105/DEFREG04/3010500...](http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140105/DEFREG04/301050006)

------
eliteraspberrie
The reality is not as dramatic as reported. A part of the satellite (probably
the radio) was outsourced by the French to a US company. So naturally the US
could intercept that satellite's communications.

There are various types of French satellites: those carrying data which is
protected from eavesdropping by anyone including the US, and those carrying
data for NATO. The former are destroyed at the end of their life, the latter
are up for sale. In other words, satellites that are protected from
eavesdropping by the US are never for sale.

The UAE, like all Gulf monarchies, is entirely dependent on the US militarily
and strategically. This political stunt is for domestic consumption.

------
bane
My understanding is that the physics of imaging satellites is pretty precise,
even a few ounces bias on one side can make the whole thing useless. Getting
equipment of any sort installed on a very expensive satellite without anybody
knowing would be pretty much impossible. I can't even imagine the complexity
of designing such a device...it's not like it's a device that can be fired
from a gun 300 meters away that sticks to the satellite and some 007 type
happens to make the shot while the satellite is in transit to the payload
fairing.

It would have to fit perfectly within the power and payload envelope of the
satellite and literally not be noticed by any of the engineers or designers
working or designing what's essentially a 1-off piece of space hardware. And
having it in relative isolation during assembly for months or even years.

It'd be like somebody sticking an extra hard drive or NIC in the computer you
built at home and you not noticing it.

Anybody care to speculate what this device was within the bounds of physics or
is this just paranoid politics over some specialized American built hardware
that France needed to source for the comm system?

The stated story smells.

[http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-
behi...](http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behind-
france-uae-spy-satellite-doubts/)

has a more reasonable analysis

 _Finding backdoor technology two months after signing a contract that neither
the UAE experts nor the French engineers had been aware of also seems
unlikely, according to both experts.

"The most likely explanation is that a competitor has planted a seed of doubt
in an attempt to sabotage the deal," said Charret._

~~~
gtirloni
France could be using US components which contain a backdoor and never notice
it. Seems perfect plausible.

The other theory that a competitor planted a spy device and nobody noticed is
even more troublesome. So my satellite supplier has shaky security procedures
and I might end up getting compromised products? Not good.

While I was reading the article one question that kept coming back was who is
this unnamed source. It looks much more like a power play than anything
else... but given the recent NSA disaster, anything seems possible.

~~~
bane
I'd probably bet a dollar that there was nothing at all on the satellite and
the current political climate re: NSA is simply being taken advantage of.

------
junto
Meanwhile heads are rolling in the French Ministry of Defence, as it slowly
dawns on them that they have used the same US spy components in their own
satellite systems, and replacing them would cost billions of Euros.

~~~
Eye_of_Mordor
Well, this could be the catalyst for a resurgence in EU industry. Do it
yourself or get exploited by someone else?

------
leephillips
The most troubling aspect of this story, for me, is that the civilized world
is providing this class of technology to countries like the UAE.

~~~
gbog
Not sure the world you are talking about really qualifies as "civilized", but
I agree with the sentiment. UAE, except for the oil, should be a few dunes of
sand with a few tribes, not sure what for they would need war satellites.

~~~
XorNot
You may not have noticed, but none of the countries in the middle east like
each other very much and satellite surveillance is kind of a big strategic
deal...

------
Eye_of_Mordor
Everyone is quite sensibly reviewing their US tech relationship and either
going elsewhere or asking for an 'NSA tax'.

~~~
peteretep
Thankfully alternative suppliers like Russia and China have such spotless
reputations when it comes to espionage.

~~~
alan_cx
Sure, but Im not sure we can legitimately accuse them of all the things we
have proof the NSA have gotten up to.

See, thats the problem for the US right now, we can play the proof game. Right
now we _know_ what the NSA and US get up to. Its no longer the wild
speculation of the foil hat brigade. Its fact now. Where as, with everyone
else, we have relatively small cases and speculation. So, if you have a
choice, and you know absolutely that one supplier cant be even slightly
trusted, why would you use it? How could you justify the spending and choice?
You cant. If anything went wrong, or political alliances or policies change,
well, you don't have a leg to stand on. Your career and reputation are over.
You bought from a known bad actor. You cant deny it. So, you have to look else
where. At the very least, at this level, you have to make one hell of a case
to select US technology right now.

~~~
Eye_of_Mordor
"No one ever got fired for buying IBM."

Open source from now on, until there's a better business model.

------
msantos
_US Air Force using counterfeit Chinese parts_ [1]

s/counterfeit/backdoored/

[1] [http://rt.com/news/us-air-force-counterfeit-
electronics-879/](http://rt.com/news/us-air-force-counterfeit-
electronics-879/)

------
doctorpangloss
It would be pretty awesome if the UAE put the interception technology on the
satellites themselves. It would be a great way to get a discount from the
French and perhaps a kickback from some American agency.

------
Mankhool
This may just be postering on the part of the UAE Government to get out of the
deal, because they have been offered better terms from elsewhere. A relative
in the US who was a very small military contractor delivered a radar system to
the UAE Government last decade - on time, and on budget - only to be told that
they didn't want it anymore and since they didn't want it, they were not going
to pay for it. The company could not tolerate that loss and went bankrupt.

------
RRRA
Check out this 30c3 video for more strange facts about US and space ...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTVgPw7TR_k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTVgPw7TR_k)

------
downer86
But no one has asked the _real_ question.

The real question is:

    
    
      Why the fuck does the UAE even need spy satellites?
    

Seriously. What the fuck are they even spying on?

------
kmfrk
And you thought _you_ hated debugging.

