Article

2009-12-17 Terror Networks

Insurgents Intercepting Drone Video Feeds

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Posted by crosspatch 2009-12-17 01:17|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 So if we unencrypt just the right parts they could get to watch themselves explode?

Posted by Glenmore 2009-12-17 07:33|| 2009-12-17 07:33|| Front Page Top

#2 Why are they not encrypted?

Posted by 3dc 2009-12-17 08:59|| 2009-12-17 08:59|| Front Page Top

#3 Why are they not encrypted?

Because we are making the mistake of underestimating our enemy, and holding them in contempt. Again.

Posted by gorb 2009-12-17 09:38|| 2009-12-17 09:38|| Front Page Top

#4 Commands had better be encrypted, but video takes more bandwidth. More delay time. You're bouncing stuff from across the world to a controller somewhere not in the region and it already delays fractionally in transmission even at the speed of light.

So, they get to see themselves just before the big surprise is delivered. Maybe they'll hold up a sign [in English] 'Innocent Women and Children' or 'Baby Ducks, Puppies and Unicorns'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-12-17 10:54|| 2009-12-17 10:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Encrypting real time video takes a LOT of CPU power. More electronics means more weight, less range, less loiter time.

Posted by crosspatch 2009-12-17 11:12|| 2009-12-17 11:12|| Front Page Top

#6 oughtta post some Apacheclips showing fellow Jihadis tasting chaingun and hellfire love, might make them wonder what the hell they got themselves into and where that drone was...

good for morale ...not

Posted by Frank G 2009-12-17 11:17|| 2009-12-17 11:17|| Front Page Top

#7 Another reason why our military channels on the Internet should have been secured properly before gore released the whole thing to the general public.

Posted by newc 2009-12-17 11:18|| 2009-12-17 11:18|| Front Page Top

#8 It is, umhh, also possible that these jihad-geeks are seeing what we want them to see and not what the drone is really seeing.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2009-12-17 11:27|| 2009-12-17 11:27|| Front Page Top

#9 Um, yes.

Posted by Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division 2009-12-17 11:32|| 2009-12-17 11:32|| Front Page Top

#10 Exactly - it's not like no reporter, ever, like, MADE SHIT UP. Let's see a video of this alleged pwnage in progress, or file it with gerbil warmening...

Posted by M. Murcek 2009-12-17 11:47|| 2009-12-17 11:47|| Front Page Top

#11 a relatively simple subroutine would provide the 'lurking interested viewer' with a dummy video

maybe they've already done this

Posted by lord garth 2009-12-17 12:16|| 2009-12-17 12:16|| Front Page Top

#12 The Skygrabber technology seems to intercept the video feeds directly. Unless the drone is transmitting one signal down for bad-guy consumption, and another up to a satellite for good-guy consumption, it seems almost certain that they are intercepting the actual video feed, not something else. In order to accomplish the "something else", it would take more computing horsepower than to simply encrypt the data, which should take no more than a few milliseconds delay, at a power of no more than a few watts, which is less than peanuts compared to the power those things have to expend to keep themselves in the air. As much as we would all like to believe we have out-psyched them, I doubt it is real.

Encrypt the data and be done with it. One missed target would make this cost-cutting measure not worth it.

And the bad guys could use this information not only to benefit themselves, but to harm US efforts by managing to get civilians into the line of fire perhaps, or some other clever way they think of.

Posted by gorb 2009-12-17 13:21|| 2009-12-17 13:21|| Front Page Top

#13 You don't need to encrypt if you go directional up to the sat, and don't splash your signal all over the landscape.

Posted by mojo 2009-12-17 13:41|| 2009-12-17 13:41|| Front Page Top

#14 The CIA/USAF Predator and the bigger Global Hawk drones send their video and sensor data back to their controllers via a satellite link. I'd wager the Skygrabber is intercepting video from some of the smaller drones the Army and USMC are using that are controlled locally. Those would broadcast video non-directionally with the control commands encrypted.

Posted by Steve 2009-12-17 14:05|| 2009-12-17 14:05|| Front Page Top

#15 The SkyGrabber description says it is a satellite downlink Internet Protocol filter. So if it sees any drone video, it would be from the large Predator type feeds. I remember in Bosnia Predator feeds were not encrypted but thought that was corrected long ago.

Actually, there is no excuse that Predator drones, often running very sensitive missions, are not strongly encrypted. It's just an IP data stream (as SkyGrabber intercept implies). You can buy a any of a number of chips to do that.

In the small UAVs, it may be a power and weight issue, but not in the large drones.

Posted by ed 2009-12-17 14:47|| 2009-12-17 14:47|| Front Page Top

#16 Simple solution - just intermix the Drone's standard feed with the feed from the Playboy channel. It keeps the boys back home awake and causes the muzzie's heads [both major and minor] to explode.

Posted by CrazyFool 2009-12-17 16:13|| 2009-12-17 16:13|| Front Page Top

#17 I don't know what this Skygrabber thingy is, but it seems like it is only a baseband protocol processor. An address filter to pull out a particular channel? You would still need a Ku band receiver with spread spectrum modem, FEC decoder, de-interleaver, etc. to get you to the MPEG streams. A lot of that can be done in a software radio, but software radios cost more than $25. And you would have to reverse engineer the Predator modem to program the software radio.

Posted by Number 673927 2009-12-17 18:10|| 2009-12-17 18:10|| Front Page Top

#18 From the WSJournal

The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, the officials said.

Last December, U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered copies of Predator drone feeds on a laptop belonging to a Shiite militant, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

"There was evidence this was not a one-time deal," this person said. The U.S. accuses Iran of providing weapons, money and training to Shiite fighters in Iraq, a charge that Tehran has long denied.--

Posted by Willy 2009-12-17 19:45|| 2009-12-17 19:45|| Front Page Top

#19 Other articles mention that the US has known of this for over a year and encryption has been used in recent months in combat zones, updates to all are proceeding. Who knows about spoofing. Thankfully this wasn't broken at the time, there has been time to address the problem quietly.

Posted by tipover 2009-12-17 20:56|| 2009-12-17 20:56|| Front Page Top

#20 remember the blue screen of death?.

Posted by notascrename 2009-12-17 21:38|| 2009-12-17 21:38|| Front Page Top

#21 The US military has fixed a problem that allowed Iraqi militants to use cheap software to intercept the video feeds of US-operated drones, a defense official said on Thursday. "This is an old issue that's been addressed," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters. The problem has been "taken care of," he said.

Posted by ed 2009-12-17 23:32|| 2009-12-17 23:32|| Front Page Top

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