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?