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U.K. Pirate Broadcasters Steal Car Radio Listeners 261

Posted by Roblimo from the d00d-we-own-your-car-radio dept.
Ant sent it: A BBC News story about how illegal stations in the U.K. are exploiting the new Radio Data System (RDS) standard that is now used in Europe and South Africa, and is coming soon to Australia, China and the US, by using RDS signals to force nearby motorists's car radios to tune automatically to their stations instead of legitimate ones.
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U.K. Pirate Broadcasters Steal Car Radio Listeners More

U.K. Pirate Broadcasters Steal Car Radio Listeners

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  • Is this already happening in the US? (Score:4)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @01:51PM (#1392979) Homepage
    Every time I turn on the radio, within 5 minutes I'm listening to an old navy ad.
    --Shoeboy
  • A long time? Ii i remember corectly RDS has been available in Europe for well over 6 years now. The coolest thing i saw with RDS was the Dutch station SkyFM(?) using RDS to do Traffic & Weather reports :) I can't believe the great & all mighty US of A doesn't have RDS yet?
  • ... and what are they broadcasting?

    The article seems to be implying that normal radio stations are doing this to get listeners. Of course, that doesn't seem likely. What would pirates want to broadcast anyhow?
  • RDS is a somewhat cool idea. I think limiting it to traffic reports is a waste of a really great technology, enter the pirates of radio. I'm a fan of pirate radio just because I have radio experience, and I like the little guys who don't have to worry about sponsors and Arbitron ratings and all that schmuk. Their stations just plain sound better. Hijacking my radio isn't too cool, but more power to the radio pirates :-)
  • These people who are forcing station switching should be dragged into the street and shot. I mean come on, you need traffic information. Suddenly you here "Baby baby, how was I supposed to know..." and end up in a traffic jam that could be avoided if only someone wasn't overriding your radio. True, this whole system is a stupid idea to begin with, so obviously open to abuse, but those who are taking advantage of it are certainly in the wrong.

  • I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner (Score:4)

    by linuxci ( 3530 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @01:54PM (#1392984)
    If this thing is possible with RDS I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner but I thought it was only the RDS signals from the station you were listening to that could change the frequency.

    For those of you unfamiliar with RDS it is a feature built into most european car radios that allow additional data to be broadcast along with the audio. Most stations broadcast the stations name so if for example you were listening to Metro FM the display would say that rather than it's frequency. It also can transmit other data such as the type of music the station plays and alternate frequencies for the station so if it goes to a weak signal it can try for a better signal as well as the frequencies for related neighbouring stations. It can also interrupt tape or CS's when a traffic announcement is broadcast.
  • Those of you in Europe or UK, how aware have you been of this 'feature' in car radios?

    Are there any laws specifically regarding the abuse of the RDS system (as opposed to just plain unauthorized transmissions)?

    I can see the benefits for civil defense, but the abuse potential is staggering.
  • ...though it seems that once a hack is employed by one commercial entity against another (at least for potential econimic gain of any sort), the prack aspect suddenly becomes criminal.

    I more (or less, depending on your point of view) beneign prank would be a "War of the Worlds" style broadcast...

    "We interupt this broadcast to bring you a live broadcast from our new alien overlords..."

    (c:
  • *static*...."I am God and I have taken over your radio you shall now drive through that building up ahead at a very high speed, I will remove it for you" *!crash!*
  • I'll finally be able to find the pirate stations!
    Much better listening then the prefab, spoon fed crap that consistantly spews out of the "legit" choices...

    OB - What is it with the quality of radio nowadays? I heard the word f**k 3 times on my way to work, pity when I can't even listen to morning radio with my kids in the car...Not that I would listen to the pirate stations when my kids were in the car, due to the above, we just enjoy happy disny tunes or *gasp* have "conversations"

    (conversation: to converse, to exchange packets in meatspace)

  • I can't help but believe that even though there is a legitimate reason to go after these "pirate" radio stations (their broadcast is in effect, a false claim to being a local traffic report) that the reason that will be put forward for arresting them will be "You hacked our proprietary format" or "You need to be licensed to broadcast radio signals" (at least the licensing one is probably a real law.)

    O well...

  • It's not particularly rare that the US doesn't have something that we in Europe consider commonplace.
    Teletext is another example, it's very difficult to buy a TV in Europe that doesn't have Teletext but in the US it's unheard of.
  • That's what happens when you make radios that can be made to switch stations upon receiving a certain signal. I don't think cracking down on these so-called "pirate" radio stations is going to help (one would think that there wouldn't be any "pirate" radio if enforcement was effective). As long as bizarre "features" like this (and, similarly, Javascript in email) exist, then people will exploit them. Nail one exploiter and two will pop up in his place. Probably the most effective solution will be a combination of
    1. Trying to shut down as many hijackers as is cost-effective, and
    2. Making this "feature" optional.
    If I had a radio which forced a station on me, I'd probably rip it out and put an old-fashioned radio in its place.
  • This looks to me like yet another example of technology that looks like a panacea to the let's-protect-people-from-themselves nanny governments, who adopt these things as requirements without considering all of the ramifications (cf. GPS-enforced speed limits, earlier this week). I could be way off base here, as the article wasn't really clear about the technology: is this an always-on feature, or something the driver switches on when he wants to know why there's a traffic jam? If it's the latter, I don't see that these pirates are such a huge problem (and as a voluntary thing, I can see where it might be a useful feature); if it's the former, why haven't I heard anyone objecting to the adoption of this technology before now?
  • The opposite is also true: how many
    cable modem/DSL subscribers are there
    in Europe vs. the US for example?
  • Without making everyone buy a new car stereo, that is. Seems like if your radio accepts a certain signal as an order to change to frequency X, the only "countermeasure" would be to jam the signal. And if they could do that, the pirates would be out of business already.

  • Way Too Cool (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is great! I've always dreamed of something like this so I could tell off that bastard in the next car. I gotta get it!
  • In the 10 year or more that RDS is available in Europe, I have never heard of such abuse.
    For those of who in the US: RDS not only displays traffic and other information, it also has automatic switch-over to stronger frequencies that carry the same radio station. In Europe, country wide radio stations very popular and the automatic switch over is really helpful when driving distances longer than, say 40 miles.

    I assume that the pirates somehow transmit a second signal that overlaps with the frequency of a national radio which causes the redirect. As far as I know, doing this would result in quick reaction to search and shutdown the pirate, though.

  • Re:Clarification please? (Score:3)

    by linuxci ( 3530 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @02:04PM (#1393003)
    It's definitely an optional thing although most radios come enabled with it by default.

    You can choose what exactly you want it to do, you may want to turn the traffic announcements off and the auto retuning off but may want to keep the station's name rather than the frequency displayed.

  • Re:Who are the pirates? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Of course, that doesn't seem likely. What would pirates want to broadcast anyhow?

    Views on current events, breaking stories on their enemies, neighbors, local politicians.
    Basically they would/could broadcast anything you'd care to put a web page up about.
    But there can't be many thing like that can there? :)

    Just another AC who hasn't bothered choosing a nick yet....

  • Well it isn't completely unheard of in North America. I just purchased a new Chrysler Cavalier LS 2000. The more expensive radio (the one with CD and tape player) has RDS.

    Unfortunately, I couldn't hold out for it. The reason I was getting a new car was because the old one was rear ended and written off. I couldn't wait the 6-8 weeks for the car I wanted to ship from the factory.

    BTW this is in BC Canada.

  • The licencing one is a real law, and for a good reason too. Just above FM radio on the spectrum are the avation bands. If some yutz with a pirate station in Boston starts broadcasting on 124.4 mhz, it is going to cause major problems, that is Boston/Logan Aproach control. Many other frequencies are being used for avation, both for communications and navigation.
  • Pirates are just stations that don't have a license to broadcast. I can't give you a good overview of UK pirate radio, but I do know there are a lot of cool techno/jungle/house/etc pirates. Pirates are at least partly responsible for the popularity of electronic music in the UK.
  • Yeah that's true. RDS is starting to appear on other radios these days too, it's still more commonplace in cars though.

    It's particularly useful when you're living away from whereever you normally live. I went down London and without RDS it would have took ages to work out what station was what.
  • Where do you live? I moved back to Edmonton from Calgary a few months ago, and was surprised to hear the proper, un-edited versions of songs at 3 in the afternoon. Guess CRTC's been easing off on the censorship some more. DJ type guys still can't swear, but I like not being stuck with "radio-friendly" versions of the music I like.
  • I can see this as being usefull for true emergency broadcasts. Imagine you are driving down the road in your car listening to a CD or tape, normaly I don't want to be bothered, but for example if a tornado had been sighted 10 miles away, there would be a very good reason for letting everyone know *NOW*. but the set of cases in which you would want this to be used would be very limited.

    Mostly things like "A Tornado has been spoted at place X if you are near there get to cover NOW!" ofcourse this is just a more fancy version of the EBS system.

  • Just hilarous. (Score:4)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @02:09PM (#1393011) Homepage
    Step 1: Come out with closed specifications for a "revolutionary" protocol that will allow people to have their radios jump to any "bulliten."
    Step 2: Include no authentication, "ignore traffic broadcasts" buttons, or common sense auto-ignore if > N requests per time slot are made.
    Step 3: Go after "evil radio pirates" who are abusing your "security, what security?" technology.

    Yes, Viriginia, there are stupid beurocrats.
    ---
  • If this thing is possible with RDS I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner but I thought it was only the RDS signals from the station you were listening to that could change the frequency.

    If this is true (and I don't know if it is, IANARSNDIPOOTOR [i am not a radio specialist, nor do i play one on tv or radio]) all you would need to do is transmit just the station chaning data on the same freq. as the beeb or sky radio or something.

    But from what I understood from the article, RDS includes an option to change to the station transmiting a traffic report.

    Anyway... time to get that old transmiter out of the basement. =)

  • Yeah, I figured out that's the type of people they were talking about after a few comments showed up. Only thing that came to mind while reading the article was somebody in a room reading anti-government propaganda...
  • Really? All I seem to get is that damned "Blue" song with the cheap Vox sound effects. I guess I'm in the wrong pirate radio zone :-(
    ---

  • That would be funny... (Score:4)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @02:12PM (#1393017) Homepage Journal
    That would be funny if it wasn't so damn true. And as bad as the Old Navy ads are, the Foley's ones are worse (If you don't have Foley's in your area, be happy.) I need a vehicular MP3 CD player so I can fit a reasonable amount of music in my vehicle and don't have to listen to the damned annoying adverts OR the damned annoying homogenous Dave Mathews Band playing CRAP that defines the FM radio spectrum from one coast to the other these days.

    I woke up to my clock radio today and the DJ's were talking about some list of the top 100 songs this century and complaining about some of the selections of artists in various places, but that same radio station would not deviate from their play list if you beat them with a fucking stick (I know, I've tried.) Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. At least there's one radio station around here that has some semblance of personality. Unfortunately even on that one there's no escape from the Old Navy ads.

  • It sounds like you have to turn this feature on. And it does sound usefull, when driving having your radio search out trafic reports for you. Even better if it could find the ones for the roads you are actualy going to be using. It does not sound like these pirates are a huge problem, just really annoying.
  • All you need to do to make it impossible to hijack an RDS radio would be put an "off" button to the feature.
  • Dude, don't be paraniod - this has nothing to do with nanny governments (as much as I hate them); this option is not required, but it's nice to have it to avoid traffic.
    Cool hack, anyway, and yet another proof that security by obscurity doesn't work.
  • I was just wondering whether there could be a better solution than RDS. I find it a bit too limited, in fact you can just trasmit very few bits of data. Seeing what is now possible with digital TV, I think there could be better solutions and digital radio is now becoming a reality in most parts of europe
  • Is this the first case of an electronic denial-of-service attack that isn't computer or internet related? :-)
  • Yep that's true, bloody incompetent UK Cable and Telcos, telewest promised us Cable Modems would be around in 1997 - it's 2000 and they still haven't launched.
    They expect a launch soon, NTL has done a bit better in this respect.
    In the case of ADSL BT seem to be starting to offer services now although it's in very limited areas at the moment.
  • Usually broadcasters shoveling out anti-government propaganda are referred to as "clandestines," especially if they operate on irregular schedules from uncertain locations and appear to be allied with particular political movements. A few stations could fall into either category; certainly many US pirates are subversive in their point of view, even though they aren't backed by a political organization.

    Pirates can be subversive in their own right as well. I seem to remember visiting an HMV shop in London over Christmas in 1977, and The Sex Pistols were at the top of their charts, even though their music was banned in the UK. I'm not sure exactly how this worked, but I seem to remember pirates had something to do with it.
    --
  • The countermeasure was to turn off the 'switch to traffic announcement' feature...

    So this is an option, not a requirement? Do all RDS-enabled radios have the option of switching it off?

  • I'm not exactly sure what teletext is, but I do know that all (or almost all) TVs in the US have "CC" - closed caption. How's that different?

  • Sounds like a job for crypto (Score:3)

    by David Price ( 1200 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @02:21PM (#1393029)
    Picture this: Your radio stores the public keys of the legitimate traffic alert agencies out there. When an alert goes out, the agency signs the RDS codes it's about to transmit, and if the signature checks out, your radio switches over. Boom, bye-bye radio pirates.

    This'd probably be really easy to implement in hardware - drive the cost of the radio up a couple bucks, at most.

  • What's that? I'm from the US, so (obviously) I've never heard of it before.

  • What about the listener's rights? (Score:3)

    by Versalis ( 29051 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @02:23PM (#1393031)
    The last paragraphs grabs my attention...


    The radio investigators say they are
    now close to raiding and seizing the
    equipment of an RDS pirate
    operation. This will allow them to find
    out precisely how the pirates operate
    their listener-stealing trick. They then
    hope to help broadcasters around the
    world develop countermeasures.


    Why just help the broadcasters? How about coming up with countermeasures to help the listeners? Forgive me for sounding like an over-zealous culture-jammer; but does anyone else feel that maybe they should be concerned about the listeners that are having something they didn't ask for forced upon them? Rather than the corporations that are having business stolen from them?

    There seems to be a bias here. More of a concern for businesses then human beings. If a rep from Pepsi stole my Coke and forced me to drink a Pepsi (no offence intended to Pepsi) I'd like to think the police would arrest him and press charges on my behalf rather than Coke's. They sound more concerned that a company is losing business than they are about people's rights being violated.
  • This is great! I've always dreamed of something like this so I could tell off that bastard in the next car. I gotta get it!

    Oh gawd yes! Mobile 500mw transmitter, with RDS spoofing. Handsfree mic, so yr not so obvious when talking to the guy in front of you.

    That's even better than the "LED scrolling sign in the windscreen" idea!

    -Isaac

  • 3 station can never please the nation...

    -- Shabba Ranks
  • In the St. Louis area, (smack in the center of the US for non-Merkins)
    And Yes, on a couple of stations they do the unedited versions of several songs... I don't particularly like the *cleansed* versions of the music, but then again, I don't particularly like answering questions from my 5 year old like "Daddy, what does f**k mean? and why does that guy do it to all the b***hes?"
  • Teletext is a way to transmit different data over an (analog) TV channel. You can send up to 800 pages with text and some kind of graphics, but this system is mainly text based (there now newer standards which let you send more complex data, but they aren't so widespread). On teletext you can find for example news, weather informations, sport results, timetables of airports and railway stations, tv programmes, closed caption, and so on. Almost every tv station in Europe has now got its own teletext.
  • Just tune in at Radio Data System(RDS) WWW interface website [campus.luth.se] and enjoy...
    -- ----------------------------------------------
    Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
  • I have a nifty little CD player with RDS support even though I am in Australia where we dont have it yet, and I can turn it on or off as i see fit. It's in the manual somewhere :)
    It just defeats the purpose of RDS, the overlays and TRUE emergency information if it's disabled.
    But then again, I have never heard a pirate radio station here in Australia. I have never even heard of one on the news.
    Maybe I just lead a sheltered life.
    Me.
  • Why do European countries have RDS? Because most nations have radio stations that transmit throughtout the country, but have different frequencies for different regions.

    The problem is: do you know what type of stations transmit throughout the entire country? Only the big corporate ones. So all RDS gives is to listen to the same Top40 hits as you travel across the country. The only other stations that transmit nationwide of government stations like the BBC in England, RAI in Italy, etc... Those stations are also worthless (hmmm, wait, I actually like BBC!).

    The only good use for RDS in America is to listen to NPR. Other than that always listen 'left of the dial'. That is where all the good music is.

    Peace!

    --Ivan, weenie NT4 user: bite me!

  • RDS is found on a miniscule # of stations in the US, and IIRC there is no 'traffic' feature. In the NYC area for example, IIRC 102.7 WNEW has it, as well as 88.3 WBGO. That might be it.

    I have RDS in a crap home theatre receiver of mine, and was psyched until I discovered how few stations had RDS in this bass ackward country.

    BTW, teletext is just too neat, though when I was in Munich the RDS confused me somewhat as my German is quite rustig.. ;)

    Your Working Boy,
  • Why go thru the hassle and risk of heavy fines and conficated expensive equipment by the police, all for a lousy pirate radio station??? Most pirate signals have a lousy signal anyway,i'd try a streaming mp3 server (running linux of course :)) before i went to a pirate radio station
  • What's the current state of wireless Internet? How soon will I be able to have a small monitor/keyboard/trackball in my car so that I could listen to mp3 radio and check out the latest news in traffic? How much does it currently cost/what's the bandwidth? How fast is this changing?

    Once this technology gets wide acceptance, all these "pirate" problems will become obsolete...
  • I must say, i like the comment Those of you in Europe or UK...

    Last time i checked, the UK was in Europe. Although lately i wish we wern't ;)
  • I assume you haven't used RDS. It provides many functions, all of which can be disabled. In it's most basic mode it will simply display the station name your tuned into (and it's content type), which in itself is handy on the ever crowded bandwidth. Switch it into traffic mode (which what this story is about), and it will interrupt whatever your listening too (CD/MD/Tape/Radio/MP3) as soon as another station starts broadcasting a traffic report. If it's not of interest you can press a button, and it cancels, returning you to whatever you had on before (it does this automatically after the broadcast too). Press the button again, and it switches off completely.

    It does other things too, like synchronize your clocks.

  • >2.Making this "feature" optional.

    RDS is optional, you can listen radio stations sending RDS programs without RDS. Many RDS radios have option to turn off RDS.. Some stations use RDS text feature for advertising, that's a another good reason also to turn it off.

    I've found it usefull though, it really helps 'tuning' right channels. You don't have to remember frequencys when you see name of the radio station.
  • Well as no radio expert but as someone who drives a lot and listens to the radio and can only guess myself how RDS works but from what I hear I'm sure it's the station you are listening to that has the control.

    For example where I live we have some independent local stations: Metro FM, Century and Galaxy as well as BBC Radio Newcastle. If you're listening to one of the independent stations and have traffic announcements switched on you only hear the announcements made by that particular station.
    If you're listening to a national BBC station (e.g. Radio 1) it'll switch over to the local BBC station when the local station is broadcasting a traffic announcement.

    Therefore the way I see it although it's possible to make an RDS radio switch frequencies for a traffic announcement it has to be the station you're listening to that lets it.

    The pirates have probably just found a loophole in the way the BBC have set up their stations traffic announcements and are exploiting it.
    (Please remember what I say may be wrong and if it is I'd like to know).
  • I seem to be tragically uninformed about this RDS technology. Before I read this article, I had never before heard about RDS, so this may be a knee-jerk reaction here but....
    This technology seems to be one of the worst ideas I have ever heard of. From the article:

    "When a local traffic announcement is being broadcast, a signal is sent and the car radio switches to it."

    On the surface, this technology seems to be harmless. In the event of an emergency, it can be used to quickly inform the public of important information.
    The problem here is that it does not seem to be optional. (correct me if I am wrong, as I said, my knowledge level on this is VERY limited.) If this 'switching' is not optional, it can very easily be used to control what information is allowed on the radio. If there are any 'incorrect viewpoints' being expressed, well, simply tune all radios to a special frequency that is broadcasting a recording saying that radio services are temporarily unavailable. Then track down whoever is making the unacceptable broadcast.
    No wonder the government is so upset about this break of their (non) security...Imagine, someone other than the govt telling people what it is ok to think!
  • From the article:
    "the radio stays tuned in until the car goes out of range or the driver switches off the RDS feature."
    So, it's easy to fix this problem:
    Step 1. Notice the signals' been hijacked (hmm... I don't remember my Classic Rock station ever playing 'N Sync before....)
    Step 2. Hit the "RDS Off" button (or equivalent)

    doesn't seem so tough to me....
  • In Europe, country wide radio stations very popular and the automatic switch over is really helpful when driving distances longer than, say 40 miles.

    OH MY GOD that we don't need. We have too few good real radio stations now with out them buying up good radio stations to make networks. Jxsxs Fxckxng Chrxst! is there anything these people will not do to force us to hear their god forsaken commercials. I tell people I don't need mp3s or cds because I listen to the radio but now they will ruin that.
  • Read the article:

    They appear to have used the published RDS standards to make devices that constantly transmit the signal to switch, thereby grabbing listeners.

  • I'm not exactly sure what Teletext is, but if it's the same thing that we call Closed Captioning, then every TV which I have seen in the last several years has had it included.
  • :: Sinister voice ::

    "There is nothing wrong with your radio
    Do not adjust your radio set.
    We are in control of this transmission ..."

    -=- SiKnight
  • Maybe I could finally get the dee-jay to play some Zappa for me...
  • When will people learn to always think a "feature" through completely?

    Any feature, on any system, can be used and abused. You have to think of the possible aspects of a feature before you design it.

    Example: Macros in MS Office having so much power.
    Reason: you can do some pretty amazing stuff with the right programming in a macro.
    Actual usage (abusage?): Macro Viruses

    This is just another example of someone not thinking ahead.

    ---
  • I agree with your sentiments but not your conclusions. Radio Spectrum is a scarce resource - at least it is at the end of the frequentcy range suitable for Broadcasting to consumers. This may not be a huge problem in countries like the the USA (although I suspect I'm wrong in some of your Urban Areas).

    But here in the UK we're densely packed - and if we want to have usable broadcasting this means that use of frequencies simply must be coordinated somehow - or the result would be a truly appaling service for everyone.

    Our broadcasting system is full of compromises as it is. A significant chunk cannot receieve the fifth of our national TV channels ( larhely on the South coast because signal here would interferece with the French. On the other hand Radio 4 ( The BBC's national speech program) uses up about six channels on vhf AND is also broadcast on Long Wave 198M ) because other wise a significant number of people can't get it on VHF.

    (And every summer when England is being thrashed in some Cricket test match somewhere they grab R4 LW to broadcast a commentary for the duration of the match (3 or 4 days). And then all the people who wanted to hear Radio 4 not the test match moan on and one about it, write letters to the papers etc etc for weeks and weeks afterwards

    Anyway - when Pirates broadcast it usually means they're stopping someone, somewhere from receiving a legitimate station.
  • If I had a radio which forced a station on me, I'd probably rip it out and put an old-fashioned radio in its place.

    I don't think there are many radios which forces you to use this system. On all the radios with RDS that I've seen, you can disable the RDS-system.

  • The problem here is that it does not seem to be optional. (correct me if I am wrong, as I said, my knowledge level on this is VERY limited.)

    Limited, indeed. The BBC News article linked to by the Slashdot article said:

    Because the pirate continually transmits the phoney flag, the radio stays tuned in until the car goes out of range
    or the driver switches off the RDS feature.

    (emphasis mine). Read carefully first, and only then opine; yes, a radio that can always be forced to listen to station X rather than station Y would be bad, but that's not what RDS radios are.

  • First off, if your elected government grants licences for radio stations, then they are by extension giving your, or rather the population's, approval.

    Second, there are only a finite # of frequencies with which you can put together a coherent national broacast system. Without licencing there would be chaos - what if your pirate station picked the police frequency? Ambulance? Fire? It doesn't bear thinking about.
  • Word.

    The government of my country works for the corporations therein. How about yours?

    -jwb

  • 1. RDS and RDS EON (Extended Other Network) is a great system for it's time. ie about 1981. That's why there is no security built-in - it just wasn't a design consideration (should of been, maybe?).

    2. Very limited info is delivered to the user, including:

    Station name
    Station music type (Blues/Jazz etc)
    Station Freq's
    Traffic Flag

    3. 'TP' (Traffic Programme) is OPTIONAL. You just hit the TP button to turn it on or off - it's not totalitarian! We're not that bad!

    The Traffic signal is broadcast by any station delivering traffic info. The radio detects these signals and switches to that station, if you have selected TP 'ON'. The signal is not broadcast by the station you are listening to.



  • I have a Blaupunkt Nevada reciever in my car, and it has RDS capability. I live in the Boston area, and between that and Providene there's probably about 4-6 stations that use it. Usually they encode their call letters, or popular name of the station. It can also decode the type of broadcaset (talk/rock/country/jazz/news/etc...)


    It's not really useful yet, but hopefully as more stations start using it it will be possible to quickly scan the radio stations for a specific type of programming.

  • I'd rather have something I can still build a reciever for without excessive numbers of chips. I *really* hope that the up-and-coming digital radio doesnt push the old analogue FM & AM stations.

    You can make an AM reciever from some wire, some sheets of tin foil, a plastic bag and a lump of coal. Of course, you need headphones and a verra big antenna.
  • Um, aren't aviation bands on the AM side? I believe they are because I can set the radio in the cessna to a local station on 850khz. and sure, many other frequencies are being used - most locations have differing frequencies for obvious reasons. but I do believe they're mostly on AM

  • Addendum (Score:2)

    by ryder ( 111 )
    I also wanted to mention that this feature can easily be turned on and off by one of the buttons on the radio. This would be helpful in avoiding situations like those mentioned in the article.

    I also noticed a bunch of typos in the first message :) Oh well.....
  • I read the article. It said nothing about motorists being able to disable this "feature." It did, however, make the pirates out to be the ones in the wrong (and try to make us sympathetic to a pathetic "standard" of security). Dunk your chain.
    ---
  • The RDS TP (Traffic Programme) CAN be turned off. My home tuner has this feature, my car deck and my DTS reciever also has it. It's very standard in Norway. Whenever this feature is turned on, it says TP in the display.

    Also, there's a restriction here, a radio station cannot use this feature, unless it really involves a critical traffic situation.

    There are several other interesting features to RDS, here's an example of what the Norwegian Broadcasting company (NRK) programme 2 contains: FM modulated sound (Duh!), GPS ground beacon time correction signal (For the naval traffic, it's used to adjust the signal from the satelites.), RDS (With RDS Text for displaying what the channel contains, RDS time, RDS PTY Programme Type (It can be Pop, Opera, Talk etc.), Channel ID and other digital control signals for special pagers etc..

    Quite a lot, that is. I'm actually amazed that USA still use AM radio. ...and NTSC for that matter. ;)
  • It seems to me the designers just thought it would be too tough or impractical to make it secure, or they just didn't think about security at all.

    The bandwidth for RDS is 37.5 bits per second - so keys and digital certificates are out. Maybe in the days of digital radio, but not for RDS.
  • Actually, it was in limited use here in the states. A station here in Tampa used it some years back to broadcast news and weather blurbs. A very few televisions were built with teletext receivers in them (I think Zenith built one). But you'll never see it again here. The vertical blanking lines that were used by teletext are now allocated to Closed Captioning.
  • They appear to have used the published RDS standards to make devices that constantly transmit the signal to switch, thereby grabbing listeners.

    Not very closed then, eh? So your step one is kinda off.

    Because the pirate continually transmits the phoney flag, the radio stays tuned in until the car goes out of range or the driver switches off the RDS feature.

    So there is an "ignore traffic broadcast" button, huh? Guess that means your step two is off, too.

    *sigh* Try reading the article.

  • Geez. Whats with you people? This "feature" is optional. It has a frickin off button.

    You don't have to turn it on if you don't want to.

    If you're afraid of being sucked into a pirate station, or even a legit station, *you can turn it off*.

    Please return to your normal comment posting.

  • man m'i ever glad there's state-run radio here (Score:3)

    by cdlu ( 65838 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @05:05PM (#1393142) Homepage
    I'm so happy we have state-run radio in Canada as well as the commercial stations...
    They keep eachother more-or-less honest (ok so both commercial and government radio are inherently biased) and the government radio (CBC) has no advertising. None. No crappy programming to grab listeners (stern) and some of the best people in the radio business (shelagh rogers and peter gzowski)

    the us public stations are public, not state-run, and have those obnoxious we-want-money-from-our-listeners things.
    #include <signal.h> \ #include <stdlib.h> \ int main(void){signal(ABRT,SIGIGN);while(1){abort(-1); }return(0);}
  • It's an interesting concept - however I have a feeling this will simply give them a challenge. I could see a distributed.net-like project in the works to crack the encryption.

    While it may be not possible now to successfully crack it quickly, the techonological advancements of computers will make it possible to crack it easily. Standards like RDS would take a long time to fade out - they just can't decide one day "oh - the public key is cracked, time to make a new standard, let everyone buy a new radio".

    I'm waiting for more appliances, car radios in particular to offer flash ROM upgrades, making things like new encryption algorithums and standards prevent obsoletion of the equipment.
    It is absolutely essential - imagine, if the y2k bug could have been patched on devices with embedded, irreplacable chips using a simply flash rom upgrade.

    While this probably isn't the best example, the potential bugs and exploits will only be uncovered with a matter of time, and unlike software where it's a matter of downloading and patching, hardware is definitely a matter of concern.

    - Detritus

    "I never really liked computers, but then the server went down on me"
  • First off, DrewMIT, who would hijack a classic rock station to broadcast nsync? :)

    Anyhow, back when I was incarcerated in high school (jonkatz fodder) a friend of mine rigged up a little transmitter that overrided the signal of FM radio. It cost a whopping $20 to build, it ran off the car battery and was about the size of an 8mm tape, not counting the little antenna he attached to it. We would amuse ourselves by driving on the interstate and scaring little teenyboppers in their VWs listening to (back then) nirvana or butt err pearl jam. The look on their faces when that would cut off for "Hey, you! You in the black VW!..." or something cool like underworld. Though the signal was mono and had a dynamic range worth shit, we mainly kept it to vocal hijinks. Now that you mention it, even "legit" FM has a horrible sound both from a technical and a musical standpoint. Hijacking a signal like this RDS thing isn't all that new, RDS just makes it easier :)


  • Re:When will get RDS in the US? (Score:3)

    by Windigo The Feral (N ( 6107 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @07:41PM (#1393159)

    M.o. dun said:

    I'm not exactly sure what teletext is, but I do know that all (or almost all) TVs in the US have "CC" - closed caption. How's that different?

    Well, if memory serves, teletext in Europe has a lot more services besides closed captioning--for example, complete program listings, newspaper/news reporting feeds, online shopping on some systems, etc. (Comparing closed captioning in the US to teletext services is a lot like comparing, say, computerised news services to a full-featured BBS system or multimedia-enabled web site. Europe uses it FAR more extensively than we do.)

    This is not to say that teletext-type systems are COMPLETELY unknown in the US (I'll give an example of one in a bit), but part of it is that Europe has dedicated the bandwidth for it for some time. In the US, if memory serves, text services including closed captioning are carried on the 21st or 24th line of the 525-line NTSC signal, which is not a hell of a lot of room to stick stuff.

    SOME teletext-type stuff besides closed captioning does exist in some areas, though. ABC stations carry program schedules sometimes on the text mode of a closed-caption signal (yes, with closed captioning there are two different modes and anywhere from two to four channels in each mode--regular closed caption mode and "text" mode which is essentially stripped-down teletext--yes, Slashdot readers (at least in the US) can test this on any TV made after 1993 or so with a 13" screen or larger--federal law mandates now that all TVs 13" screen or more have closed-captioning built in, and all of 'em have the text mode, even the cheap-arse models :). Some other stations will do this too, and on the other channels of text or regular CC mode may have captioning in other languages (I'd expect most stations in Miami to offer closed-captioning in Spanish too).

    Possibly the neatest use I've seen for "text mode" in US-style closed captioning is how The Kentucky Network [ket.org] or KET, our statewide PBS network, does an agricultural teletext service called AGTEXT in cooperation with the University of Kentucky's agricultural school...basically has weather info, stockyards reports, agricultural hints, agricultural-related weather, etc. In the Louisville area it can be picked up on WKMJ-68 (KET 1; channel 13 on Louisville-area Insight Cable) on channel-1 text mode; I'm pretty darn sure the other KET affiliates statewide (with the exception of KET-2 (WKPC-15) in Louisville, which was formerly an independent PBS affiliate till they were bought out by KET--yes, we actually have TWO public broadcasting channels in Louisville, with different scheduling and double the Britcoms :) also carry the AGTEXT teletext feeds.

    I'm not aware if anyone else is doing the AGTEXT thing or similar feeds like how is done in Kentucky, but it'd be very interesting to find out just what CAN be found on other channels/text mode across the US and Canada...maybe a list ought to be done. :)

  • RDS isn't meant for normal stations to *force* you to listen to their music format - Top40, whatever - but just to zoom you in when they're broadcasting TRAFFIC reports. I doubt any station would get away with constantly broadcasting the RDS signal along with their normal one 24 hours a day, trying to hijack listeners. People would revolt. Transmitters would be torn down, DJs lynched.

    Hmm... there's a thought... :)

    I can't disagree with you on the "left of the dial" comment, though. But consider that many of those stations, who broadcast traffic, will probably also spit out an RDS signal... though I can't think of any stations of that sort in my area that DO broadcast traffic... *shrug*

  • The Original Bobski dun said:

    A very few televisions were built with teletext receivers in them (I think Zenith built one). But you'll never see it again here. The vertical blanking lines that were used by teletext are now allocated to Closed Captioning.

    Actually, if US-based teletext is the same thing as "text mode" on modern closed-captioning equipped TVs (all TVs with diagonal screen measurements of 13 inches or larger built since 1993 must have built-in CC by law; every CC-equipped TV I've ever seen has the "text mode" in CC along with regular mode, and usually two to four channels of both regular and text mode per TV channel at that) then not only is it not dead but has sort of been blended in with CC in general.

    The largest use in most areas for "text mode"/US teletext seems to be in program listings for the hearing impaired (I know ABC occasionally lists these in text mode); in Kentucky, the public broadcast system works with University of Kentucky ag-school and county extension offices in running AGTEXT which is a full system for providing agricultural info (everything from weather to stockyards prices to insect infestation alerts to farming tips) on KET stations. (I discovered it accidentially on Louisville's main KET affiliate when I got a TV with CC [when they were first requiring them by law] and was playing about with the different modes--and was quite suprised to see the teletext in text mode on WKMJ-68 :)

    I don't know if anyone else is doing anything similar to AGTEXT anymore, but I'd imagine so in states which are still largely rural and also have statewide public broadcast networks and/or big ag-schools like UK has. I think AGTEXT is neat as hell, anyways :)

  • RDS vs. DAB (Score:3)

    by obi ( 118631 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @08:52PM (#1393171)
    I see a lot of people saying something to the effect of "When will RDS be available in the states" (I thought they had it already a long time but hey).

    RDS is pretty cool because you get extra digital info. But wait! DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) is already around the corner. DAB is already broadcasting in pilot projects in Europe (and probably in other places too) and has interference free "CD quality" (mpeg layer 2 200kbit/s) audio. Of course, there will be a host of other goodies (and not so goodies) like the ability to incorporate "pay-radio" etc.

    The fun part is this: (taken from the dab faq)

    What are 'additional services'?
    DAB was developed with the aim of improving radio reception. This is why audio transmission was at the forefront of the development process. But DAB, as a digital transmission system, can transmit other data as well as audio. In principle any type of information can be transmitted by DAB, provided simply that it is available in digital form and does not exceed the maximum available DAB data rate (approx. 1.7 Mbit/s). Examples of such additional services are still pictures accompanying radio programmes, digitalised traffic messages (Traffic Message Channel), electronic newspapers, software updates and even animated video. This process leads to 'multimedia broadcasting' in which all forms of information can be conveyed via the common transmission medium DAB. In this context DAB could be described as the 'cordless information highway'. In contrast to multimedia applications via TV/cable, DAB additional services can also be received in-car and with portable equipment.


    I wonder how long it will take for pirates to tap into this flexible resource, full of possibilities :)

    look at http://www.worlddab.org for more
  • That's not a problem on public radio. Go, public radio!
  • Yay. The Empeg. Let's discuss this...
    NOw, a year and a half ago, I think it was around then.. I thought it was pretty cool, and the price was okay.

    They said by March 1999 they would be in full production.
    It's almost March 2000 and they still aren't in full production. They have shipped beta units.. whee. ANd the price is too much.

    Go look at the price of SBC's, and the price of drives, etc.... it's *NOT* that expensive.
    A chip containing a full stereo mp3 decoder I can pick up for $5. Now, I'm not saying it's cheap, or can be done in 2 days.... but if I can build the exact same thing in my shop for arond $300-$400 bucks, there is no reason for a mass-produced version to cost over a thousand.

  • RDS and Australia (Score:3)

    by Cef ( 28324 ) on Friday January 07, 2000 @11:41PM (#1393179)

    There are a few stations that already support RDS in Australia (eg: TripleJ [triplej.net.au]), and systems are available here that support the RDS standard. It's been running here quite a while, it's just that not many radio stations have picked it up. I have already accidently tuned into one radio station here that was transmitting someone elses RDS signal. It didn't last long though, they vanished pretty quick.

    RDS is a very old technology, and it's a real wonder this hasn't happened before. RDS is carried on a "subchannel" on the FM signal, and digital data such as the station name, time signal, etc, is transmitted. My car syncronises the inbuilt clock with that of the radio station every 2-3 minutes. (It did take TripleJ about a month to adjust to daylight savings however).

    But it's not hard to fake another stations RDS signature. If a station transmits someone elses RDS signature, and your radio is set to tune to the strongest station with the same RDS sig, well.. you can guess the result I think. The original idea is to allow for movement between different locations/states that have the same station broadcasting on a different frequency, and having your car radio follow the signal automatically and seamlessly. It's just an abuse of the system that no one bothered to cater for, and even if they did, it'd be hard to implement, as the data is all one way. You could capture the data and simply re-send it, or even receive their signal and then re-transmit it. It may have even been considered, and deemed simply not worth the trouble of worrying about it.

    If anything, this will lead to more publicity for pirate stations, but that also means that the people designated for tracking down pirate radio stations might hear about it a lot sooner than normal. And if they have a list of authorised frequencies that a particular RDS signal is transmitted on, then it's just a matter of singling out the ones that have a valid RDS signal but the wrong frequency. For the pirates, I'd count this as a two-edged sword.

  • I have had every new Pioneer Unit that they have come out with since '93 (ex-dealer perks), and they were the first in the US to use IDlogic and RDS. Too bad here in NY it really isn't used for what it was designed for, the stations just display call letters and tag lines.

    Pioneer Car Stereo w/ RDS @ pioneerelectronics.com [pioneerelectronics.com]
    BTW: They do have on/off settings

  • During ww2 people in german prison camps built these and listened to the BBC's very powerful shortwave broadcasts.
  • Even before I read this article I was thinking of finding out under what terms radio broadcasters are licensed for the use of RDS in the UK and who I could complain to.

    Traffic news is good but there is an increasing amount of advertising and promotion of their other shows creaping into the traffic announcements and I would hope their licenses prohibit this.

  • HA! It was bound to happen. Already some stations in the Netherlands use the car radio displays to not only display the station name, but also the weather and ads. These ads even have phone numbers in them! Imagine driving at 100Kph, steering with your knees, eyes fixed firmly on the car radio display and taking down a phone number. Talk about road safety...

    Half a year ago I heard about a related application of RDS: the Dutch police are dicking around with automated speed cameras that can read your license plate. They wanted to combine this with RDS to warn speeders: "Hello RB-VH-97, you were just caught doing 140KPh in a 100Kph zone. The Hfl 450,- fine is in the mail. Have a nice day". Kinda cool isn't it?
  • This news article bears a great resemblance to the current DVD crypto debacle. They're both examples of engineers assuming that no one will figure out their proprietary scheme because they're proprietary, instead of using a good design with strong crypto.

    But if you think that the RDS situation is bad, wait until someone figures out the EAS system. This is the emergency warning system in the US that replaced the old EBS system. Having worked in college radio, I've had a small amount of experience with it. From what I understand of it, the network is basically a big tree structure with the FCC on top. They have a super secret code that can transmit across the network that will allow the President to interrupt all TV and Radio broadcasts and transmit what he wanted. I'm just waiting for a modern-day "Captain Midnight" to figure this out and hijack every single broadcast across the nation. Heh.

    For more info on the EAS check out:

    http://www.fcc.gov/cib/easfact.html
  • I did read the article. I admit, I did not do an serious as read as several nitpickers have pointed out.

    However, this does nothing to alay the no authentication or common sense "auto-ignore if > N requests per time period are made" features. Why aren't those present? Your comment adds nothing to my point, it merely detracts.

    It'd be nice if you nitpickers would read other's nitpicking posts before nitpicking yourselves. It's really annoyed to see 4 replies that amount to, "I saw one thing you did wrong which is mentioned in the article. You are stupid, I am not. Read the article next time, stupid head."
    ---
  • co-ordinated by whom?
  • Anyway, don't take it personaly. The critics are helping you improve your post. It's the opensource way, right? ;)

    Arg, don't defuse my anger :-P Oh well, too late.

    If you're talking about IE integration, I'd like to not have x * 100mb (where X is >= 1) of IE code on the HD. Oh wait, I use Linux..

    The autoignore feature would be nice, as well as more user controls. IE: control the autoignore level, etc. PGP-style authentication could work, with each user getting a public key from a company they want bullitens from, putting the smart card in their radio, and only gettings bullitens from that company. Just an idea.
    ---
  • I use it to listen to Metro FM without any problems

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