Eavesdropping - REC-0005

Adversaries seek to capture mission communications across terrestrial networks and RF/optical links to reconstruct protocols, extract telemetry, and derive operational rhythms. Collection is most often passive, but may be semi-passive or actively elicited, where the adversary transmits probes or crafted exchanges to provoke identifiable responses from the target rather than waiting to observe them. On networks, packet captures, logs, and flow data from ground stations, mission control, and cloud backends can expose service boundaries, authentication patterns, and automation. In the RF domain, wideband recordings, spectrograms, and demodulation of TT&C and payload links, spanning VHF/UHF through S/L/X/Ka and, increasingly, optical, enable identification of modulation/coding, framing, and beacon structures. Even when links are encrypted, metadata such as carrier plans, symbol rates, polarization, and cadence can support traffic analysis, timing attacks, or selective interference. Community capture networks and open repositories amplify the reach of a modest adversary.