Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

[Requia ☣]

DirectTV etc is easy to unscramble because a lot of people have the codes.  With a drone the only people who need the code are the spyplane and the computer that receives the video.

I just don't get why there's paperwork involved, encryption is advanced enough that you can encrypt *everything* on a network and let the computers handle it (my last job did this).  *not* using encryption is what required the paperwork.

For something as sensitive as the military I would have thought they would take the same attitude.

[Jasper]

This is exactly why the military should adopt my idea for an entire new division of military.  Take a mixed bag of specialists in IR, espionage, and technology, a weak ass budget, and tell them to find  out ways to beat us.  It would cost about as much as a Pentagon bathroom, and it might actually work.

[Cain]

They already do that.  It's called "Red Teaming".

They then go on to ignore whatever results are gained from such explorations, and punish (in various ways, whether through bad postings, decreased budgets etc) those on the Red Teams responsible for making the Pentagon look bad.  The War Nerd explains at least one time this has happened.

It's not exactly hard to outthink or outfight the US military, anyway.  Play to the expectations of whatever latest military theory fad is going around, then subvert those expectations quickly and horribly, be prepared to die for your cause and don't fight by the international law version of the rules of warfare and you'll come out with at least a draw.  Against the most heavily funded military organization in the world.  This is because, in part, the US military is wedded to a strange version of "reason" which cares far more for the process by which things are done than whether or not they work, partly because the General Staff are trained to think like businessmen and not strategists and partly because the whole thing is funded by pigs gorging themselves on the blood and treasure of the nation, who don't give a fuck whether America wins or loses a war because America is an "indispensible nation" at the heart of world economic and political power and so probably wont ever feel the effects of failure like other, "lesser" nations do.

Hegemony is just another word for "being so big your own stupidity doesn't quite kill you".

[Requia ☣]

I love the war nerds rants on aircraft carriers

[Triple Zero]

for those interested,

Bruche Schneier's take on the story, be sure to check out the many insightful comments, some of the replies seem to really know what they talk about [though they could also be just bullshitting]
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/intercepting_pr.html

and another link from those comments:
http://mobile.darkreading.com/9319/show/8efa5242f193f42fd65217e426b90198&t=a1e8b07e0d2ca5fe814294aa6c46e994

[Cain]

All of the metadata on the Predators was unencrypted too, I just recently read.  Meaning it was in fact useful to insurgents.

You know what aid agencies should do?  They should hand out laptops with all the kit needed to hack predators in remote regions of Pakistan.  Maybe that way the blasted drones wouldn't have a 95%+ civilian casualty rate.  Because they do.  And that sucks.  Even the English cricket team has a better batting average than that.

[Storebrand]

They already do that.  It's called "Red Teaming".

They then go on to ignore whatever results are gained from such explorations, and punish (in various ways, whether through bad postings, decreased budgets etc) those on the Red Teams responsible for making the Pentagon look bad.  The War Nerd explains at least one time this has happened.

It's not exactly hard to outthink or outfight the US military, anyway.  Play to the expectations of whatever latest military theory fad is going around, then subvert those expectations quickly and horribly, be prepared to die for your cause and don't fight by the international law version of the rules of warfare and you'll come out with at least a draw.  Against the most heavily funded military organization in the world.  This is because, in part, the US military is wedded to a strange version of "reason" which cares far more for the process by which things are done than whether or not they work, partly because the General Staff are trained to think like businessmen and not strategists and partly because the whole thing is funded by pigs gorging themselves on the blood and treasure of the nation, who don't give a fuck whether America wins or loses a war because America is an "indispensible nation" at the heart of world economic and political power and so probably wont ever feel the effects of failure like other, "lesser" nations do.

Hegemony is just another word for "being so big your own stupidity doesn't quite kill you".

The portion in bold is why I spend half of my time at work banging my head against my desk and cry at least once a week.

[Cain]

Managerialism in general and McNamara in particular have a lot to answer for.  Of course the man who nearly caused a nuclear crisis in Europe and got the Third World addicted to cheap loans probably should have never been a model for military planning and organization, which only makes me think perhaps things were even worse before he showed up. 

[Jasper]

Jesus wept.  How do I fix this horrible mess? 

Fighting them plays into their hands.
Ignoring them plays into their hands.
Talking about it doesn't seem to work.
Discrete acts of sabotage on a massive scale would work.  This is exactly what humans are bad at.

Where is my damned army of political subversion androids?

[Triple Zero]

Ah right, that's what I was building. Thx for reminding me.

[Cain]

Where is my damned army of political subversion androids?

I believe they're running the Pentagon currently.

[Golden Applesauce]

UPDATE:

I talked with an Air Force Institute of Technology guy who was around recruiting at our school, and he said the reason the video channels weren't encrypted was just deadlines and stuff.  The possibility of intercepting the drones' video was determined to be too low-risk to be worth delaying the deployment of the drones; and besides, that sort of vulnerability could always be fixed later.  And then, in the typical security paradigm, vulnerabilities are never high enough priority to fix until after they've already been taken advantage of.

[the last yatto]

If I was the military, II'd broadcast loads of faked up footage

actually not a bad idea, create such a hugh static that to search the channels for the real feed,
except that would tip them off a missile was inbound. but for long term engagements
and  would be easier then putting a part of a ciper on the missle

[Triple Zero]

not COST MORE, but "becuz of deadlines and stuff". it's worse, it's not even cost-effective, just generally incompetent.

[Cain]

I'm sure deadlines was part of it.

Along with the impression that Al-Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents were a bunch of Arab morons who barely had the technical skill to pull a trigger on an AK-47, instead of being fairly sophisticated and strategic thinkers who were used to exploiting the weaknesses of technologically more sophisticated rivals.

Latent racism and/or disdain for ones enemies tends to cause people to be sloppy about such things.  And there was plenty of both circulating post 9/11.