Jamming of LuaLua TV from within Bahrain from its first hours on air (July 2011)
What happened
LuaLua TV, a London-based Bahraini opposition satellite channel created by fifteen members of the Bahraini opposition and named after the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, launched in July 2011 and was jammed within hours. The International Press Institute puts the interval at four hours from the start of operations; The Next Web reports that the broadcast did not last more than five hours. Reporters Without Borders records that the station was jammed from the day of its launch onwards despite changing frequency regularly, and that according to Eutelsat the jamming was being orchestrated from Bahrain. The International Press Institute reports Eutelsat's further assessment that the jamming technology required was costly enough to be affordable only by specialised agencies. The station's manager, Yasser Alsayegh, said it was not possible to know for certain that the government of Bahrain was responsible, though it was likely. Unable to hold a satellite carrier, the station moved to online streaming via Livestation; the stream and mobile application were then blocked for viewers inside Bahrain.
The clearest instance in the batch of a jammer tracking a target across frequency changes, which is what distinguishes it from an incidental interference case. Attribution rests on Eutelsat's localisation as reported by two press-freedom organisations; no primary statement from the operator was retrieved and the station manager himself declines to assert state responsibility, which is why confidence is moderate. The two sources disagree on whether the first broadcast lasted four or five hours; both figures are recorded rather than reconciled.
Attack vector
Interfering transmission against the satellite carrier of a newly launched channel, beginning within hours of first transmission and re-acquiring the target each time it changed frequency.
Operational impact
The channel was unable to sustain any satellite broadcast and abandoned satellite distribution for online streaming, which was then blocked inside the target country.
Affected segments
link, space, user
Disclosed
2011-08-14
SPARTA techniques evidenced
Each row is a technique this record evidences, with the reasoning and the source that attests to it.
What relationship, confidence, and evidence mean on the rows below
- Relationship
What kind of link this is between the technique and the target.
Mitigates: the target actively prevents, detects, or recovers from the technique.
Addresses: the target governs the technique or is relevant to it, without interdicting it. Most governance and policy obligations sit here.
Triggers obligation: the technique occurring is what triggers the duty the target imposes.
Relates to: related to the technique, but the target neither interdicts nor governs it. Used sparingly.
- Confidence
How strongly the source supports this mapping, not how severe the technique is.
High: the source supports the mapping squarely.
Moderate: supported, with a qualification such as a cross-tactic reading that stays operationally sound.
Low: the source reaches the technique only in part.
- Evidence
How close to the source text the mapping was made.
Direct: a verbatim excerpt of the cited source was read against the technique, and the rationale argues from that excerpt.
Derived: the mapping follows from the source's scope or structure, with no on-point excerpt addressing the technique.
Inferred: reached by composition through another framework, or by domain reasoning the source does not support on its face.
Three independent organisations report that the channel's satellite signal was jammed, and two of them carry the satellite operator's finding that the source lay in a named country. SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident at EX-0016.02.
Two facts point to the uplink side. The channel could not hold any satellite carrier at all and abandoned satellite distribution entirely, which is a loss of the carrier rather than of local reception. And Eutelsat localised the emitter, which its geolocation methods do for carriers entering its spacecraft. Derived because no source names the uplink and because the target's audience was inside the same country as the emitter, which means a downlink-side explanation cannot be excluded on geography alone.
Eutelsat's assessment that the jamming technology was costly enough to be affordable only by specialised agencies describes a purpose-built transmitting facility outside the authorised ground architecture, which is IA-0008.01's setup. Derived: no site was identified, and the tactic is denial rather than initial access. SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident at IA-0008.01.
The station's director states that it had been jammed and could no longer broadcast via satellite, and it moved to an entirely different distribution medium as a result. Complete elimination of access to the service on its intended path.
Reporters Without Borders states the pursuit directly: the station was jammed from launch onwards despite changing frequency regularly. Re-acquiring a target's carrier each time it moves is the enumeration and characterisation of a mission-specific channel that REC-0003.03 describes. Direct on the described behaviour; moderate confidence because the source states the outcome of the scanning rather than observing the scanning.
Considered and not mapped
These techniques were considered for this record because a source, a related record or SPARTA's own catalogue pointed at them. Each was read against what the sources say and not mapped. The reason is given in full.
Cited by SPARTA at this incident. No source describes co-tenant effects or the interfering waveform.
SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident here, and unlike most of the batch it cannot be ruled out on geography, since the emitter and the audience were in the same small country. It is rejected because the reported effect is that the channel could not hold a carrier at all and gave up satellite distribution, which is carrier loss rather than area-bounded reception loss, and because Eutelsat localised the source, which is an uplink-side observation. Flagged as the batch's least certain EX-0016.02 rejection.
Cited by SPARTA at this incident. The sources describe the service being lost outright rather than impaired, which under this batch's rule is IMP-0003 alone.
Sources
The published accounts this record rests on. The tier is SafeMode Space's own assessment of the source, and the reason for it is given beside it. What the tiers mean and how they are assigned: the source tiers.
A source is listed when a mapped technique rests on it, or when it disputes the account. One the curators read but neither cited nor recorded as disputing the record is not listed, so an absence here means neither is true rather than that nobody looked.
Tier 2: Press-freedom monitoring organisation independent of the broadcaster, reporting the satellite operator's finding.
Tier 2: Press-freedom monitoring organisation, quoting the station manager on the record.
Tier 3: Technology trade press interviewing the station's director; the source SPARTA's own bibliography carries for this incident.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.