Comment Re:Sniffing the satelite surf waves. (Score 1) 180
Both MSN and AOL will use MPEG-2 encapsulation of the IP data to make the receiver as cheap as possible. MPEG is easy to look at if you know the multiplexing scheme but the IP addressing will be NATted over the bird. MSN uses a further layer called DVB (http://www.dvb.org/resources/pdf/dvb_cook.pdf) which can provide "conditional access."
DVB is the same format that EchoStar Dish DBS uses for their Digital TV signals. It is possible to use IPSec to encrpyt the IP payload but it takes dedicated hardware in the user terminal and slows the user speed down substantially. It is very unlikely any encryption will be used except there is some "scrambling" associated with the modulation scheme but this is not random...just there to keep from harming other (terrestrial) signals when the radio frequency energy is concentrated in a very small bandwidth.
The return from the user will be on a seperate channel from the first and takes a big dish (maybe 12 feet in diameter) to receive it so sniffing will be a pretty sophisticated (and unesthetical) operation.
DVB is the same format that EchoStar Dish DBS uses for their Digital TV signals. It is possible to use IPSec to encrpyt the IP payload but it takes dedicated hardware in the user terminal and slows the user speed down substantially. It is very unlikely any encryption will be used except there is some "scrambling" associated with the modulation scheme but this is not random...just there to keep from harming other (terrestrial) signals when the radio frequency energy is concentrated in a very small bandwidth.
The return from the user will be on a seperate channel from the first and takes a big dish (maybe 12 feet in diameter) to receive it so sniffing will be a pretty sophisticated (and unesthetical) operation.
