Thursday, December 17, 2009

Intercepted Data

Not Just Drones: Militants Can
Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes

  Updating this morning's Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones (WTF?)

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

From Wired:

The problem is in the process of being addressed. But for now, an enormous security breach is even larger than previously thought.

So the same security breach that allowed insurgent to use satellite dishes and $26 software to intercept drone feeds can be used the tap into the video transmissions of any plane.

Since the top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, issued strict new guidelines on the use of airstrikes, the United States has turned nearly every plane in its inventory into an eye in the sky. Sending video down to those ROVER terminals has become job No. 1 for most American air crews flying today.

And U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have come to depend on the feeds. “For sure,” Lt. Col. Greg Harbin told the Los Angeles Times, “I would be dead without this technology.”

Still, some Air Force officers downplayed the significance of the ROVER’s security hole. “If you’re an insurgent, you need to know when and where [aircraft] are flying and then be within the line-of-sight footprint of the feed for any chance of successfully using the information real-time,” one officer writes. “This is much to do about nothing. You have bigger fish to fry.”

4 comments:

Alear said...

You do have the pictures Rodg, amazing. If the topic were, say, "UAS debates fishing rights with Chile", I don't know the correct answer, but you'd have the photo to save me the 1000 words.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

First money and now this ... wow! Thanks.

Anonymous said...

So, to paraphrase,

There is nothing to see here... move along now.

THor~
III

Anonymous said...

Thor, I was thinking more along the lines of, "These are not the droids you're looking for. Move along, move along." =0D
GrinfilledCelt

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