Some SIGINT and COMSEC during the Nuclear Security Summit

On March 24 and 25, the third Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) is held in The Hague, the seat of the government of the Netherlands. As 58 world leaders will be present, including US president Obama, the summit takes place under severe security measures.

Here we will take a look at some noticable things on the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Communications Security (COMSEC) front. When some new details or pictures come up, they will be added.



US presidential motorcade

On the morning of Monday, March 24, president Obama flew in aboard Air Force One, accompanied by all the famous vehicles like the helicopters which become Marine One when he is aboard, and the cars of the presidential motorcade. As can be seen in this video, there are actually 4 identical and heavily armored presidential limousines, so two motorcades with each two identical limousines can be formed - so no one knows which one is carrying the president.

One of the last cars in the motorcade is the WHCA Roadrunner which is recognizable by a small antenna dome on its roof. Also known as the Mobile Command and Control Vehicle (MC2V), it serves as the communications hub for the motorcade by beaming up encrypted duplex radio and streaming video to a military satellite, which in turn beams that data back down to a ground entry point and through to the switchboard of the White House Communication Agency (WHCA).




US communications aircraft

Also present is an aircraft most people don't know of and will rarely see. But it was noticed by air traffic spotters: a small US Army Beechcraft RC-12P Huron with tail number 92-13123 entered Dutch airspace around the same time as Air Force One.




The Beechcraft C-12 Huron is a small twin-turboprop aircraft, which is used for many years by the US Army under its Guardrail/Common Sensor System program. In many different versions, the Beechcraft planes are widely used in war zones like Afghanistan, mainly for collecting Signals Intelligence. For that purpose they have highly specialized equipment on board, like for example DRT devices, which can be used to intercept and monitor short range radio and cell phone communications.

When following the president, the Beechcraft is probably also used as an additional communications hub between for example the presidential motorcade and the White House Communication Agency (WHCA) as this aircraft can also serve as a relay for satellite communications. The mission equipment of the RC-12P version includes datalink capability, and has fibre optic cabling and smaller and lighter wing pods.



World leaders' telephones

For secure phone calls, president Obama can use his highly secured BlackBerry, which connects to a secure base station that follows him where ever he goes.

Besides that, the WHCA also installs secure wireline phones at every place the president stays. Nowadays that includes a vIPer'Universal Secure Phone' which can connect through analog, digital or VoIP networks, and a Cisco IP phone that connects to the highly secured Executive Voice over Secure IP-network through dedicated and encrypted satellite links.

Other world leaders will also have brought their own equipment for secure communications with their capitals, including landline and mobile telephones that are able to perform end-to-end encryption of the calls.

For example, German chancellor Angela Merkel can use her secured BlackBerry 10 smartphone or a landline secured by the Elcrodat 6-2 encryption device. The French president Hollande has a Teorem secure cell phone and can also place secure calls through a wireline DCS 500 telephone set.



Russian spy ships?

There was some speculation about two Russian crab fishing trawlers lying in the harbour of Scheveningen, which is a small port next to The Hague. People noticed that these ships had so many antennas, and thought they could be Russian spy ships, trying to intercept communications from the world leaders attending the Nuclear Security Summit.



However, it stated out that both ships, from Petropavlovsk-Kamtsjatski in the far eastern part of Russia, came in three weeks ago having problems with their engines. This was solved rather quickly, but then problems with some neccessary certificates appeared, and both ships had to stay until that issue has been cleared.

Regarding the antennas, some people say that they are quite ordinary VHF antennas, which were used by ships before maritime satellite communication was introduced.

Known Russian spy ships are much larger, with high capacity equipment so they don't have to go into the territorial waters of a country they want to monitor, but can operate safely from international waters. An example is the Viktor Leonov SSV-175 from the Vishnya class in the picture below, but a ship like this one has not been seen near the Netherlands.