Details of Alan Gross's "telco in a bag"

Tracy Eaton has written a terrific blog post on the project that landed Alan Gross in prison. Eaton has discovered and published documents that finally answer the question "what did Alan Gross actually do?"

The documents show that Gross smuggled in three backpack-sized "Telco's in a Bag," as shown above. He was paid $258,274 for that and had requested more money to continue the project, but was apprehended on his fifth trip to Cuba, before the project could be expanded. (On first reading, I did not see the total cost of the project to the US taxpayer).

The term "Telco in a Bag" is misleading. A better description would have been "a small local area network with a slow satellite connection to the Internet in a backpack."

"Telco in a Bag" no doubt sounded good to the people funding the project, but, as I have written earlier, it grossly overstates the power of the equipment Gross brought to Cuba. Had Gross succeeded, it would not have made a huge difference and, in failing, it provided the Cuban government with a propaganda "threat" that it has blown out of proportion.

Read the post and documents over and let us know what you think.

The US and Cuba both overestimate the impact of small Internet ground stations

The Alan Gross case has been in the news, but Phil Peters just posted a description of another attempt to smuggle satellite Internet ground stations on his blog the Cuban Triangle. The ground stations were the type used by people in rural areas who cannot get cable or DSL connections, and the antennae were disguised as surf boards. Peters summarizes the failed attempt and links to a Spanish language post with several photos of the equipment and a Cuban TV program on the project:

• Granma coverage of the smuggling attempt
• Cubadebate coverage of the smuggling attempt
• Video on the smuggling attempt with English subtitles part 1 and part 2.

Let's put these smuggling attempts in context. In my recent report on the state of the Internet in Cuba, I observed that there were reportedly over 300,000 mobile phones (2008) and 455,000 Internet-connected computers (2009) in Cuba.

How many cell phones, laptops or ground stations could Gross or this project have brought in without attracting attention? Had these efforts succeeded, they would have had a negligible marginal impact -- they would have been minuscule drops in the bucket. Both the US and Cuba appear to have grossly overestimated the possible impact of this equipment.

As I have shown in an earlier post, low-speed satellite ground stations are quite limited, but the Cuban government has reported that they represent a serious threat. In doing so, they have scored a public relations victory -- showing Cuban citizens that they have defended them against a "major" cyber attack.

The US also overestimates the value of personal Internet ground stations. The State Department budget request for Cuba is $20 million for fiscal year 2011. Those funds will be used to

continue to promote self-determined democracy in Cuba. Funds will be used to provide humanitarian assistance to political prisoners, their families, and other victims of repression; advance human rights; strengthen independent civil society organizations; and support information sharing into and out of Cuba.

I don't know what percent of their budget goes toward the "support of information sharing" using Internet ground stations, but it would have to cover the cost of the equipment, travel and expenses, bandwidth charges, overhead charges, etc. On top of these financial costs, there is the possibility of failure and the subsequent PR cost. It is hard to know what they hoped to achieve in these cases, and easy to think of alternative ways to use the funds.

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I got the Cuba budget figure for the State Department here.

The clandestine TV reception discussed in the comments of this post seem much more important than a few Internet links. How many Cubans see foreign TV? What do Cubans watch? How does it influence them?

Is this man a specialist in cybernetic counterintelligence?

Eduardo Fontes Suárez

A 53 minute video of Eduardo Fontes Suárez giving a presentation on the US attempts at cyber war against Cuba was recently leaked and put online. I won't say more about that because you can read an excellent discussion of its content and likely authenticity here. You can also read a transcript in English or in Spanish.

I will focus on the part of the talk during which Fontes Suárez, who is a "specialist in cybernetic counterintelligence," describes a plot by the US to smuggle ten BGAN satellite terminals into Cuba on order to provide unfettered Internet access by NGOs, bloggers and others.

Fontes Suárez seems to have little knowledge of the technology he is describing, which leads him to grossly overstate its capability.

Fontes Suárez says there are "10 BGAN terminals in different parts of the country" and "These ten terminals are around wireless networks which already existed".  Wow -- ten pre-existing wireless networks with unfettered Internet access sounds like it might be a big deal, but let's look further.

How big are these ten wireless networks? The fastest BGAN terminal is capable of "up to" 492 kbps and subject to the usual high latency of a satellite link. So these "wireless networks" are actually just WiFi hot spots with users sharing a slow, high-latency connection. One user may be able to watch a Netflix video or carry on a VoIP conversation, but if there were, say three or four, they would be restricted to very slow Web surfing or text applications.

Fontes Suárez also refers to people sitting at home and seeing a message pop up that says "you're connected to the Internet." He envisions them as pleasantly surprised and happily "logging on" and starting to search, surf and download. Given this description, I get the feeling that he has never used WiFi.

He goes on to talk about connecting 25-30 machines using WiFi. For a start, 492 kbps/25 = 20 kbps. Web sites are unusable at that speed. He goes on to say the 25-30 machines can be spread out over a half mile to a mile. WiFi is designed for small, local area networks. A WiFi link connecting only one user who was half a mile away would take large antennas with line of sight visibility. Even if the 25 machines were in the same room as the access point, the contention for the limited number of WiFi channels and the access point protocols would slow them to a crawl.

He says the minimum number of users of a BGAN terminal is five. Is there a minimum? Does the equipment refuse to work if there are only four users? When BGAN speaks of five users, they are all assumed to be in the same room as or very close to the base station. If there were five users, remember that they would be sharing a high-latency link of "up to" 492 kbps.

Fontes Suárez also asserts that "in Havana there are thousands of wireless computers connected in any neighborhood, from Playa to San Miguel del Padron" and that kids are using them to play games and university students are using them to study collaboratively. Ten BGAN links in different parts of the country would not be of much use to these "thousands" of computers.

I do not know how widespread WiFi is in Havana or elsewhere in Cuba, but I am skeptical of this image of somewhat ubiquitous WiFi in homes and university dorms. I do know that computer ownership and Internet connection rates are low in Cuba. I also know that there would be little reason to have a WiFi access point that was connected to the Internet via a dial-up line.

It also seems that one must register a WiFi LAN. At the MIC Web site, under the heading "Wireless Networks," we see that registration is required:

Los equipos y dispositivos auxiliares que componen estos sistemas están sujetos a la obtención de un certificado de homologación otorgado por el Ministerio de la Informática y las Comunicaciones (MIC), y podrán ser sometidos a los procedimientos de medición y comprobación de sus parámetros por los laboratorios que designe ese ministerio.

The application form is here. (Note that it describes the radios as spread spectrum in frequency band 2456 to 2482 MHz. The frequency is not exactly WiFi -- this may be a typo or indicate some non-standard technology). Does anyone know whether this registration requirement is actually enforced?

Finally, Fontes Suárez claims that BGAN terminals use "linear transmission," which he claims is difficult to detect and it surely sounds nefarious, but what does that piece of snow/jargon mean?

Some have questioned the authenticity of this leak - it may be a plant. One never knows, but it is hard for me to believe that Fontes Suárez is a specialist in cybernetic counterintelligence.