Insurgents found hacking into feed from Predator drones

[Viking]

Looks like somebody screwed up if they were capable of getting the info with an off-the-shelf product for $26.95 .
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html?mod=yhoofront

[Leatherneck]

Meh. I'm having a problem seeing this as a significant problem. Picture this:

The scene: A mud hut inside which Jamal the T is working feverishly on his Toshiba laptop intercepting intermittent signals from a Predator downlink.

The laptop: shows grainy video of a small village, centered on the very hut in which Jamal works.

Jamal: Achmed! ACHMED! Come here quickly! See this!

Achmed:  What is it, Jamal? Why have you interrupted my loading of a new IED in the pickup?

Jamal: I have done it! I succeeded in intercepting the video from the accursed drone. See? It shows this very hut in which we speak!

Achmed: Is there no sound?

Jamal: The sound is faint; listen closely.

Laptop: "scrch...bxxt...c..rd to launch..."

Achmed: Who is it? What does it mean "...to launch?"

ALL: KABOOM!

No more hut, no more laptop, no more Achmed, no more Jamal.

 

TC

[mtnbkr]

I'm surprised the feed wasn't encrypted myself.  I've been a govt contractor for nearly a decade and they encrypt EVERYTHING, even stuff that doesn't qualify as SBU.  I would think the vid feed would at least be SBU if for no reason than it has some short term tactical value and possible long term value (sigint maybe?).

Chris

[Harold Tuttle]

I think they should transmit a Tub Girl loop, on an open channel

[mtnbkr]

Harold FTW!

Chris

[MicroBalrog]

I think they should transmit a Tub Girl loop, on an open channel

Tub Girl is a photograph, not a video. [/pedant.]

Now a 2girls1cup loop... with that HORRIBLE music...

[CAnnoneer]

Isn't it ironic that if it weren't for the Polite Society, I likely would have never known what a tub girl is?

[Firethorn]

Isn't it ironic that if it weren't for the Polite Society, I likely would have never known what a tub girl is?

If this had been 4chan, you'd have gotten pictures of tubgirl.  On another forum, they'd have posted a link.

Here?  It's mentioned, if you want to scar your mind, it's up to you to go looking for it.

[Ben]

Tub girl. I'm afraid to look. At least not without anonymizing and using a virtual machine.

I've not been on a military UAV mission, but on civilian agency unclassified and FOUO ones, we always, at a minimum, superimpose Zulu time, lat, long, speed, heading, and altitude in the video, so I woulda thunk the .mil would encrypt the feed on classified missions just as normal OPSEC?

[Tallpine]

Well, I just feel safer knowing that the government is protecting us.   

[Harold Tuttle]

I sure we have the technology to Shock and Awe anyone watching the feeds

[makattak]

I sure we have the technology to Shock and Awe anyone watching the feeds

And Harold wins the thread TWICE.

[RevDisk]

I've not been on a military UAV mission, but on civilian agency unclassified and FOUO ones, we always, at a minimum, superimpose Zulu time, lat, long, speed, heading, and altitude in the video, so I woulda thunk the .mil would encrypt the feed on classified missions just as normal OPSEC?

Just an FYI for folks.  I try to tell folks, FOUO isn't a real classification.   It's handling instructions.  ie, don't toss in the trash, don't hand out to random folks, etc.  The original purpose was to mark documents exempt from FOIA requests, but it's so overused, it's worthless for its original and official purpose.


And yes, the military does encrypt feeds.  Unless someone forgets to load the crypt or does not do so because "it's annoying to change it all the time."   I used to generate hopsets and crypto loads.  I can't tell you the number of times I've told people to "switch your selector from PT to CT."

[Harold Tuttle]

There are a couple of threads around that seem to indicate that the unencrypted feeds are purposely configured for misdirection.
"Oh look, they are flying about 60 miles from here, look there is the bridge at the river."
"What's that sound?"

I think a flying bad movie platform would be quite the psyops oppression device.
"Oh look, its Zardoz on all 87 channels, The APS blimp must be in range."

[CAnnoneer]

I sure we have the technology to Shock and Awe anyone watching the feeds

Is being made watch that stuff Clockwork-Orange-style more or less tolerable for an islamic fundamentalist terrorist than waterboarding? Would it constitute "extraordinary measures" or "advanced interrogation techniques"? What would Obama's legal staff think about it?

[Ben]

Just an FYI for folks.  I try to tell folks, FOUO isn't a real classification

I know it's not real classification, but we do some scientific research stuff that we will actually live feed to the public (like school  classrooms) and other LE sensitive stuff that is not classified, but only for official use and access. That has always been designated LE Sensitive or FOUO by all Federal LE entities I've worked with. I have always been taught FOUO is unclassified, but sensitive data.

[RevDisk]

I know it's not real classification, but we do some scientific research stuff that we will actually live feed to the public (like school  classrooms) and other LE sensitive stuff that is not classified, but only for official use and access. That has always been designated LE Sensitive or FOUO by all Federal LE entities I've worked with. I have always been taught FOUO is unclassified, but sensitive data.

I gathered you knew that.   

I was just letting other folks know.  Heck, a lot of mil/LE/etc folks don't know it and think it's an actual level of classification.  "Confidential" is what they should be using as an actual classification, more often than FOUO. 

[Ben]

Ah, gotchya. Sorry -- misinterpreted your post. :)

[Scout26]

I think a flying bad movie platform would be quite the psyops oppression device.
"Oh look, its Zardoz on all 87 channels, The APS blimp must be in range."

And HT wins the thread for a third time !!!

[InfidelSerf]

Stormbringer has a good perspective on the so called "hacking"
Source

Saturday, December 19, 2009
INSURGENTS DID NOT "HACK" ANYTHING
MQ-9 Reaper armed with GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided munitions and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles


The headlines read:

Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones
$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected



When I heard this story on Thursday I thought right away, 'this isn't such a big deal.' If for no other reason that live video isn't encrypted.

Text and voice signal can be encrypted, but video is such a LARGE bundle of one's and zero's that it's hard to send live in the first place. Trying to encrypt and send live video - well, I won't say it's impossible, but it'd be damn hard to achieve.

Live video eats up so much signal and bandwidth on the electromagnetic spectrum, that it's hard for ground pounders to even get a frequency to use vid, never mind the power source necessary to send the stuff.

But I'm just a lowly knuckledragging Neanderthal, what do I know? SO . . . I ran it past the team techie - our "Q" - and he confirmed what I already suspected: video can't be encrypted (as far as he knows, and he knows a LOT). Ergo this is NOT hacking, this is eavesdropping:


This from the AP:

Dale Meyerrose, former chief information officer for the U.S. intelligence community, compared the problem to street criminals listening to police scanners.

"This was just one of the signals, a broadcast signal, and there was no hacking. It is the interception of a broadcast signal," said Meyerrose, who worked to field the unmanned systems in the 1990s, when he was a senior Air Force officer.

The problem, he said, is that when the drones were first being developed they were using commercial equipment, which as time goes on could become vulnerable to intercepts.


There is a tendency to de-humanize your enemies, and to underestimate them - especially if they are Asians or Africans.



The Taliban have displayed some ingenuity here, granted, but this does not put them in the same category as the SpyKids.

[KD5NRH]

Text and voice signal can be encrypted, but video is such a LARGE bundle of one's and zero's that it's hard to send live in the first place. Trying to encrypt and send live video - well, I won't say it's impossible, but it'd be damn hard to achieve.

Y'know, it may not be 4096 bit DES, but maybe we could get a cable scrambler on it so it's at least not just handed to them on a platter.

[mtnbkr]

Y'know, it may not be 4096 bit DES, but maybe we could get a cable scrambler on it so it's at least not just handed to them on a platter.

I've done 3DES encrypted VOIP over satellite data links before.  I suspect they could encrypt video if the motivation was there.

Chris