The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Breaking News => Topic started by: TheSarge on December 17, 2009, 09:30:15 AM
-
(http://www.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/Politics/120409_drone_doomsday_604x341.jpg)
WASHINGTON -- Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.
The drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Obama administration has come to rely heavily on the unmanned drones because they allow the U.S. to safely monitor and stalk insurgent targets in areas where sending American troops would be either politically untenable or too risky.
The stolen video feeds also indicate that U.S. adversaries continue to find simple ways of counteracting sophisticated American military technologies.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/17/insurgents-hack-drones/
-
I cannot begin to count the number of ways this is NOT GOOD. Be sure to keep your head down over there, Tx.
-
Why is the signal not encrypted? WTF???
You can get the software, Skygrabber free, (albeit illegally), off torrent sites. I checked three and all three have it .
-
Why is the signal not encrypted? WTF???
You can get the software, Skygrabber free, (albeit illegally), off torrent sites. I checked three and all three have it .
Yeah, but how many of 'em speak arabic/farsi? :thatsright:
-
Yeah, but how many of 'em speak arabic/farsi? :thatsright:
You would be surprised how foreigners use torrent sites. Many of them are based in other countries that have far less stringent laws regarding piracy.
-
You would be surprised how foreigners use torrent sites. Many of them are based in other countries that have far less stringent laws regarding piracy.
No I wouldn't. I supposed I should have found a 'Tongue In Cheek' smiley when I posted that.
-
The only thing I can hope...is that this story is being put out now because whatever breach there was has been fixed...so it's ok to talk about it now.
-
The only thing I can hope...is that this story is being put out now because whatever breach there was has been fixed...so it's ok to talk about it now.
It appears that the military knew about this last year. Lt Gen McInierny (sp?) is on Fox talking about it.
-
Why is the signal not encrypted? WTF???
You can get the software, Skygrabber free, (albeit illegally), off torrent sites. I checked three and all three have it .
IPSec should be everywhere and is, IIRC, required by the DOD.
So much for Obama's CTO-Czar, eh? :rotf: :rotf:
-
Rather than let this cat out of the bag, I would have preferred to have seen them use this bit of counterintelligence creatively, like shifting a satellite feed of downtown Tehran onto the unencrypted channel and then watch the Iranian AF go nuts hauling balls for their capital and cutting up the sky above it like maniacs for a couple of days. As it is, we not only had the original self-inflicted compromise, but have not made any capital on our detection of it.
ETA: Oh, yeah, almost forgot: It's all BOOOOSH'S fault!!!111!!!
-
Rather than let this cat out of the bag, I would have preferred to have seen them use this bit of counterintelligence creatively, like shifting a satellite feed of downtown Tehran onto the unencrypted channel and then watch the Iranian AF go nuts hauling balls for their capital and cutting up the sky above it like maniacs for a couple of days. As it is, we not only had the original self-inflicted compromise, but have not made any capital on our detection of it.
ETA: Oh, yeah, almost forgot: It's all BOOOOSH'S fault!!!111!!!
Absolutely!
Another thought occurs, though - if Iran (and probably Russia, too) has hackers trying to hack the drones, how soon before they actually manage to hack the command-and-control comm links (which, I will assume, are already encrypted) and start sending armed drones back after unsuspecting US troops?
-
Absolutely!
Another thought occurs, though - if Iran (and probably Russia, too) has hackers trying to hack the drones, how soon before they actually manage to hack the command-and-control comm links (which, I will assume, are already encrypted) and start sending armed drones back after unsuspecting US troops?
(A) Encryption comes into it at that point, and real-time decryption that would be required for that doesn't exist, short of having an inside man with direct decrypt access, and (B) the launches have a man in the loop, the Hellfires run down to the target under live guidance.
Where signal vulnerability would be an issue with weapons would be for an opponent to somehow be able to send false GPS signals, which would screw up cruise missiles, but we aren't using them in this kind of war. Now, spoofing GPS is against all kinds of international agreements (Like that matters) but the biggest problem aside from the basic technical challenge would be to limit the spoofing to the missiles, because otherwise everyone in the entire theater on land, sea, or in the air would know the GPS signal was totally hosed up from the moment you started spoofing. It is not totally impossible, but it would require an extensive and powerful capability (Most likely space-based) with masterful tracking and tight-beam transmissions on up to a couple of hundred moving target simultaneously.
-
Any bets that this Administration will use something like this as a reason/excuse to pull the troops out?
"How can we hope to defeat an enemy that can hack into our most sophisticated technology?" [/Obama]
-
Remember, these ragheads now have muslim brothers at the highest level of the U.S. government.
-
Control of the drones was never at risk, from what they are saying. The terrorists could only tap into the video feed and see what we were looking at. Bad enough, though.
-
Control of the drones was never at risk, from what they are saying. The terrorists could only tap into the video feed and see what we were looking at. Bad enough, though.
They see enough of the video feeds they can not only begin to see a pattern of the areas we search and when...they can also see how well their cover and concealment practices are working and adjust them accordingly.
-
They see enough of the video feeds they can not only begin to see a pattern of the areas we search and when...they can also see how well their cover and concealment practices are working and adjust them accordingly.
True enough. Rather than sending them a feed of downtown Tehran, maybe the drones could be programmed for dual feeds. One live going to the controllers, and one faked that can be tapped into. Kind of like we see criminals do in movies with security cameras that guards are watching.
-
(A) Encryption comes into it at that point, and real-time decryption that would be required for that doesn't exist, short of having an inside man with direct decrypt access, and (B) the launches have a man in the loop, the Hellfires run down to the target under live guidance.
Where signal vulnerability would be an issue with weapons would be for an opponent to somehow be able to send false GPS signals, which would screw up cruise missiles, but we aren't using them in this kind of war. Now, spoofing GPS is against all kinds of international agreements (Like that matters) but the biggest problem aside from the basic technical challenge would be to limit the spoofing to the missiles, because otherwise everyone in the entire theater on land, sea, or in the air would know the GPS signal was totally hosed up from the moment you started spoofing. It is not totally impossible, but it would require an extensive and powerful capability (Most likely space-based) with masterful tracking and tight-beam transmissions on up to a couple of hundred moving target simultaneously.
I wouldn't be too sanguine about the ability or inability of the Russian-controlled botnets to have the computational firepower necessary to break that encryption.
-
I wouldn't be too sanguine about the ability or inability of the Russian-controlled botnets to have the computational firepower necessary to break that encryption.
I'm not going into any details, but it is a shitload more complicated than the already-monumental problem of breaking into one encrypted datastream, and then somehow avoiding the introduction of any additional time delay in implementing control inputs. The less said beyond that, the better.
-
I'm not going into any details, but it is a shitload more complicated than the already-monumental problem of breaking into one encrypted datastream, and then somehow avoiding the introduction of any additional time delay in implementing control inputs. The less said beyond that, the better.
Granted; I'm not assuming that it's as easy as hacking someone's WEP-protected wireless router.
-
I agree with a previous poster. Feed a false video stream from the predator, probably something pre-recorded, and watch the ragheads scatter. Maybe even feed 3 or 4 different feeds at the same time.
The ragheads would be running themselves ragged trying to figure out where the bird really is, and would have little time for suicide bombings....
Psy-opps are worth their weight in gold, just for the their sheer fun of it....