Thread by @harkank

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Servus the lot of new followers! Much appreciated. Here is a 🧵for you. Intro video to our latest findings on #RusskiSIGINT in Vienna. The 3 large C-band dishes on the embassy to the UN intercept Eutelsat 10B and 3B downlinks as well as SES 5

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... and African Rascom QAF 1R. EU downlinks are the main targets: Data links from UN orgs and Red Cross, ships, embassies and army units in Africa, VSAT terminals & c. This is the most sophisticated of these C-band dishes sporting mainly Norsat filters & waveguide

3/more ...pse note the small black motor in front. 3/4 large dishes can skew the dielectric lenses to peep into downlinks not destined for them. This the gallery of dishes in 1220 Vienna we are talking about.

4/more At least every two months one of these dishes looked eastwards for a while and switched back during 2024. Latest iteration was 2025 03 07, the only large Ku-Band dish turned in the back and they apparently enjoyed a barbecue downstairs

5/more This is the entire complex of the #RusskiSIGINT HQ in Europe [status 2022] , a dozen dishes mainly intercepting western comsats from Greenwich to 15 ° East from 2024. And then a Russian spy satellite named Olymp K2 turned up at 10° East...

fm4.orf.at/stories/302920…

6/ also known as Luch2. Stayed for two months near Eutelsat 10B, stopped at Eutelsat KA-Sat [9° east] next & visited every other comsat in the segment. All of the c-band sats targeted by the Vienna #RusskiSIGINT station included. Here is a graph of these dangerous approaches

🧵 //more
#RusskiSIGINT 20 km distance and less between two sats orbiting at speeds of 11.000 Km/h are close to trigger collision alarm systems. See on this graph how Olymp-K2 was hopping up and down merrily in "geostationary" orbit around the brandnew Eutelsat Konnect VHTS...

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where Olymp K2 spent 3 months intercepting the steering codes of the related Eutelsat ground stations. This is one of the 3 main Eutelsat EU teleports in Aflenz, Austria
cc the venerable @thegrugq bc he had #RusskiSIGINT on topic

🧵9/more Steering commands of the sats are not encrypted. All this is on OSI layer 2, dataframes and forward error control and not TCP/IP. Instead of encryption a combination of rolling codes...
Here is the second short video on #RusskiSIGINT [German]
materie.at/a/spionage-im-…

10/more ...and frequency hopping. With the Olymp-K2 intercepts Russkis could easily jam these frequencies and render the sat temporarily unsteerable. If they manage to re-engineer the steering code sequences as well, the sat could be fired out of orbit.

11/more #RusskiSIGINT One of the sats "inspected" by Olymp-K2 was Eutelsat KA-Sat [9° east], formerly used by the Ukrainian Army. On invasion day 2022 Russian SVR bricked the UA's ~25k VSAT-terminals with a malicious OTA software update.

🧵12/more Her is an epic intial talk on the KA-SAT attack that cost Ukraine dearly. Including hi res photos, a drone video of the main Vienna station & the destruction of most of the #RusskiSIGINT network in EU by expelling RF technicians
media.ccc.de/v/37c3-57903-r…

🧵13/more #RusskiSIGINT spy sat Olymp-K2 spent 3 months very close to Eutelsat Konnect VHTs at 2,7° east. 45 meters wingspan, phased array antennas, 9 meters height, 320 steerable spot beams, overall throughput 500 gbit/sec. By far the largest and most modern birdie in the...

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... entire orbit. Eutelsat Konnect VHTS is now destined to serve the majority of 40k VSAT terminals for the Ukrainian army. Starlink can no longer be trusted in EU just as the US, sadly. We don't know of course what Olymp-K2 intercepted...
reuters.com/technology/spa…

15/...but is highly likely that these Olymp-K2 data terminate on 1 of the 9 smaller dishes on the fornt and on the westside of the Vienna station. Why? Vienna is the lead #RusskiSIGINT station in the EU & besides Geneva the westernmost still functioning
fm4.orf.at/stories/302996…

16/more And here is the epic longread "Im Satellitenkrieg" in the March edition of Datum. If you can't purchase it, DM me & you get a .pdf. We recommend to throw it into https://translate*yandex*com for some phun.
#RusskiSIGINT
datum.at/im-satellitenk…

17/more ... a free .pdf as in "free beer" or "free software". Addendum1: All the intelligence conveyed here is courtesy of the #NomenNescioClub. A dozen civil society folks from .at sporting various skills. Ham radio licenses, high sea patents, data centers, infosec & c.

18/19 This ends on a very sad note. Early in March Lucas OE2LSP etc. has left the #NomenNescioClub forever. Our condolences go to his loved ones. Much of this #RusskiSIGINT reporting 🧵is based on Lucas' vast expertise in satcom & electro-optical components.

19/19 #RusskiSIGINT
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