Thread: My cellphone has better encryption than US military video drones

Eavesdropping software bought over the Internet for $26 has enabled insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan to pick off live video feeds from U.S. Predator drone aircraft flying missions over the two countries.

SkyGrabber, described on its Web site as "satellite Internet downloader" software, was used to regularly download the live video in Iraq, and to do so on at least one occasion in Afghanistan, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The video can provide insurgents with data about what targets are being considered and give them the chance to react before an actual attack.

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009...pted-militants

The reason the U.S. military didn’t encrypt video streams from drone aircraft flying over war zones is that soldiers without security clearances needed access to the video, and if it were encrypted, anyone using it would require security clearance, a military security expert says

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009...-despite-risks

Ah yes, great idea... provide no security on strategic informations being sent from unmanned drones because of what is, in the context of a live battlefield situation, a rather bureaucratic distinction.

These brilliant people came up with a crazy idea: a drone-to-controller security protocol that didn't require special clearance! Who'd have thunk up a crazy idea like that?

Originally Posted by Rick Scarf

Apparently your cellphone encryption ain't that grand either, there have been several reports recently that cellphone conversations over the standard encryptions providers use has now been found to be hackable. (or phreakable is probably the more correct term)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/te...hack.html?_r=2

http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabi...leID=222100242

still

it's better than what the military was using

which was no encryption whatsoever

Originally Posted by Mach 5

Just a thought, what are these drones spending most of their time looking at? Insurgents.

Does it really matter if the insurgents can see themselves on camera?

(I know its not quite as simple as that, but its well worth noting)

Yes, yes it does. It means they know what we know, where we are looking, etc.

Originally Posted by Mach 5

Yes but surely they would notice the thing flying overhead, so they would already know that they are being watched, dont get me wrong I know its completely stupid but on the other hand you have to argue that sorting out encryption for every soldier who needs access to the feed would be pretty difficult to maintain and keep secure.

Also if you think back to when these were first deployed, chances are the insurgents didnt have the know-how or the technology to hack into the feed.

Aside from the fact that Predator drones are designed to be hard to detect (or they'd be, I don't know... shot down or avoided? Dur?), the "technological means and know-how" consists of a laptop with a piece of off-the-shelf software, such as SkyGrabber, that is meant to legally retrieve freely aired TV shows, movies, and music via satellite feeds. Such programs cost around $25.00.

The Pentagon knew this problem existed since the Bosnian war in the '90s, but they didn't think the enemy would know how to figure it out.

Now I don't know what stereotypes you and the Pentagon harbor against Iraqis and Afghanis, but it might surprise you to learn that they're actually not all a bunch of stupid sand-niggers.

It also shows just how incompitent, lazy, and stupid our bloated Defense Department can be.