Harris WB operations and UK MoD XMPP over HF: interesting confirmations

Reading the Harris and Isode-Babcock presentations at the recent HFIA Meeting in San Diego, CA (February 14, 2019) I had an interesting feedbacks which could confirm the guess I did about:

1) new wideband HF waveforms tested by Harris (the analysis is posted here)

2) XMPP chat over HF by UK MoD (the analysis is posted here).

1) In the Harris presentation "Summary of Harris on-air testing of WBHF systems 2010-2018" you can read that since 2015 Harris began development of a WBHF Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) waveform for use on HF (WHARQ). It supports 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 kHz. WHARQ is bundled in a new radio mode called 3G Wideband IP (3GWBIP) which has been tested extensively on the bench and over the air. On-air 3GWBIP testing took place on november-december 2018 using NVIS link and 150 Watt power.

As posted here, me and some friend of mine saw 3-24 Khz bandwith waveforms with modulations from PSK-8 to QAM-64 and data rates from 75 to 120,000 bps. Although the characteristics such as BWs, modulations and speeds are the same as those indicated in Appendix D of MIL-STD 188-110D (WBHF), these adaptive waveforms definitely do not belong to that standard. 
Maybe we just hear those WHARQ/3GWBIP waveforms?


2) in the Isode-Babcock presentation "UK Mod XMPP over HF Pilot" you find that UK MoD Funded Babcock to run an XMPP over HF trial using Isode XMPP Software. “Group Chat” provided by XMPP Multi-User Chat (MUC) is the core service Highly desirable to use Real Time Chat for Naval and Airborne communication when HF is the only available bearer. In the paper they presentred the trials run to evaluate viability of providing this service over STANAG 5066 ARQ.

 Well, I'm happy to see that this paper matches the results posted here.

XMPP over HF radio using STANAG-5066

(updated)

Interesting transmissions spotted on 4381.0 KHz and 4833.5 KHz (all usb) consisting of MIL 188-110A Serial HF waveform (fixed 600bps/S) and 6-bit code clear text (6x28) & STANAG-5066 as bearer for XMPP Multi-User Chat (MUC)  messages.

XMPP, the Internet Standard eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, is the open standard for Instant Messaging (IM), Group Chat and Presence services. XMPP is widely used for military deployments, where operation over constrained and degraded networks is often essential, particularly for tactical operation. 

Multi-User Chat (MUC) is a central service for military communication. If data is being provided, it makes sense to share it so that all interested parties can see it. For example, it will enable external strategists or lawyers to observe communication in real time, and provide input as appropriate. It often makes sense to share information in the field, for example a group of ships jointly working out who will target what and how. MUC is an important operational capability. 

In XMPP a client connects locally to its server, and then there are direct server to server connections (S2S) to support communication with clients on other servers. The mapping of XEP-0361 (Zero Handshake Server to Server Protocol) onto STANAG-5066 is standardized in "XEP-0365: Server to Server communication over STANAG-5066 ARQ”. XEP-0365 is mapped onto the S5066 SIS and transferred using RCOP protocol.

The 6-bit text and S5066 bitstream (Fig. 1) is obtained after demodulating the 188-110A Serial waveform:

 

Fig. 1

S5066 peers have the addresses 010.050.066.001 and 010.050.066.003 (odd) in 4381.0 KHz channel; the addresses 010.050.066.002 and 010.050.066.004 (even) are used in the 4833.5 KHz channel. These are probably "exercise" addresses since the block 10.50 is allocated to Uganda. 

These transmissions have been monitored for about one day so I could collect hundreds of messages, only some of them are shown below as examples: you can see groupchat messages, Instant Messaging (private messages) and Presence/IQ messages. My friend and colleague Guido @decodesignals logged same transmissions (and same addresses) on 4613.0 Hz, in his catches the S4539 4800bps is used as the HF waveform.

<message
    from='latency.ground@ground.net/2aad61419fb06287'
    to='latency.p8-one@p8-one.net'>
    <body>
    (a3d5bb51-70c3-4152-9a29-ab7cddbb47a3; 20181207T224101.034169)
    Test Message H - Private Message From GROUND Latency Acct
    </body>
    <securitylabel xmlns="urn:xmpp:sec-label:0">
    <displaymarking bgcolor="green">UNCLASSIFIED</displaymarking>
    <label/></securitylabel>
</message>

<message
    from='mission-one@chat.ground.net/LATENCY_GROUND'
    to='mission-one@chat.p8-one.net'
    type='groupchat' id='fmucinte54838a0b2804718'>
    <fmuc xmlns='http://isode.com/protocol/fmuc'
    from='latency.ground@ground.net/8f9f7ba5ca23d374'
    sync_stamp='2018-12-07T22:44:52Z'/>
    <body>
    (29f06ec4-a4a9-4849-bd46-42c54efa42ea; 20181207T224452.309137)
    Test Message T - MUC From GROUND Latency Acct
    </body>
    <securitylabel xmlns="urn:xmpp:sec-label:0">
    <displaymarking bgcolor="green">UNCLASSIFIED</displaymarking>
    <label/>
    </securitylabel>
</message>

<iq
    from='mission-one@chat.ground.net/LATENCY_GROUND'
    to='mission-one@chat.p8-one.net/Supervisor Air'
    type='get' id='d98686c2-d66f-4bdc-9b4e-ceb9911c834e'>
    <query node='http://swift.im#3ScHZH4hKmksks0e7RG8B4cjaT8='
    xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'/>
</iq>

<presence
    from='mission-one@chat.ground.net/LATENCY_GROUND'
    to='mission-one@chat.p8-one.net/LATENCY_GROUND'
    id='fmucint0e52f98befac3522'>
    <fmuc xmlns='http://isode.com/protocol/fmuc'
    from='latency.ground@ground.net/8f9f7ba5ca23d374'/>
    <x xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/muc'/>
</presence>

<presence
    from='mission-one@chat.p8-one.net/LATENCY_AIR'
    to='mission-one@chat.ground.net/LATENCY_AIR'
    id='fmucint0572337e8aafbad5'>
    <fmuc xmlns='http://isode.com/protocol/fmuc'
    from='latency.p8-one@p8-one.net/f5ac7b83c2cc6951'/>
    <x xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/muc'/>
</presence>

A bit of intelligence gathering can be done by the reading of the messages and from TDoA.

Direction finding  is not easy since the transmissions originate from two different sites, however the results obtained indicate UK as the area of operations (Fig. 2): maybe UK MoD?

Fig. 2 - TDoA result

The namespace attribute fmuc xmlns='http://isode.com/protocol/fmuc can be a clue of the use of the M-Link software developed by Isode for XMPP [1]. By the way, reading some Isode documentation available in the web you can see odd 10.x.y.w S5066 addresses like the ones used in the heard transmissions (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3 - from XMPP5066EVAL.pdf by Isode

Servers names and nodes names as: mission-one@chat.ground.net/LATENCY_GROUND and mission-one@chat.ground.net/LATENCY_AIR, as well as the Test Message format suggest a test phase aimed to measure the latency of air and ground links. Note also that the tests are performed using different HF waveforms: MIL 188-110A Serial 600bps and STANAG-4539 4800bps.

That being said, probaby these are UK MoD test transmissions concerning (Isode) XMPP over HF radio but it's only my guess. Ropey @Topol_MSS27 suggests that "maybe P8 (chat.p8-one.net) is a clue and references new ops for upcoming P-8A's due to join RAF from Nov next year" [2].

12 December update
My friend Martin G8JNJ, owner of the http://southwest.ddns.net:8073/ KiwiSDR, reports he heard synch'ed transmissions on 4381.0 KHz and 5505.0 KHz too, all usb. His TDoA runs point to Inskip (Former RNAS Inskip), a transmitting site of UK DHFCS located in Lancashire, North England: it confirms my TDoA and is a further clue in favor of RAF operations.

https://yadi.sk/d/q152AVjeZIsiPA

https://yadi.sk/d/5w-_wB8SZJnIKg

[1] https://www.isode.com/whitepapers/low-bandwidth-xmpp.html 

(a lot of documentation is publicy available in the web about ISODE XMPP, google is your friend) 
[2] https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircraft/p-8a/