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OT: US military drones use no encryption

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Martin S Taylor

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Dec 19, 2009, 7:18:02 AM12/19/09
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Jaw open in amazement:

<http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/predator-drones-use-less-
encryption-than-your-tv.ars>

Martin S Taylor

J.J. O'Shea

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Dec 19, 2009, 8:07:10 AM12/19/09
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On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:18:02 -0500, Martin S Taylor wrote
(in article <0001HW.C75274FA...@text.news.virginmedia.com>):

it's much worse than that. According to sources quoted in
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/17/us_drones_hacked/> _every single
combat aircraft in theater, crewed or not_ uses the same totally unsecured
system.

Of course, being able to see the pretty pix coming off the gun cameras
doesn't help much when you can't actually control the strike platform.
Especially when the pretty pix are of _your_ position and are being relayed
in from an inbound Maverick.

Besides, Tom Clancy had his boys do this back in _The Bear and The Dragon_.
Only they did it _deliberately_.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

jonny

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Dec 19, 2009, 8:29:26 AM12/19/09
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Worse than that, they probably use Windoze!

Richard Tobin

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Dec 19, 2009, 10:36:35 AM12/19/09
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In article <hgikfm$ktp$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,

jonny <jo...@no-email.org> wrote:
>Worse than that, they probably use Windoze!

Perhaps by suitably painting your military installations, you could
cause a buffer overflow in the image-handling code.

-- Richard
--
Please remember to mention me / in tapes you leave behind.

Bruce Horrocks

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Dec 19, 2009, 1:30:17 PM12/19/09
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On 19/12/2009 12:18, Martin S Taylor wrote:
> Jaw open in amazement:
>
> <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/predator-drones-use-less-
> encryption-than-your-tv.ars>

This came up before during the Kosovo conflict. The explanation was
something to do with a lack of military satellite bandwidth so
commercial satellites were used instead where encryption wasn't allowed
or couldn't be supported.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey
England
(bruce at scorecrow dot com)

Martin S Taylor

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Dec 19, 2009, 5:01:52 PM12/19/09
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Bruce Horrocks wrote

> commercial satellites were used instead where encryption wasn't allowed
> or couldn't be supported.

Isn't that because encryption is regarded as 'military equipment' and
therefore denied to the commercial world?

MST

Jaimie Vandenbergh

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Dec 20, 2009, 6:01:11 AM12/20/09
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The commercial equipment would be passing the (encrypted) bitstream
through, not decrypting/encrypting it as it flows, so no. This is just
a standard military clusterfuck.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"It's only work when somebody makes you do it." - Calvin

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