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Playstation Predator

By John Batchelor on December 18, 2009 at 5:30 PM in Current Affairs


Jihad Geeks.  

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Spoke Thursday 17 on my syndicated radio show with August Cole, WSJ, re the bizarre fact that the USAF UAVs that are resoundingly successful over the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan are not equipped with an encoding software in their video broadcast units.

Using a Russian-built pirating software that costs $25.95 called SkyGrabber, Jihadist geeks are able to receive and record the video (and nightvision?) transmissions from the video cam(s) of the Predators and the new guy on the battlespace, the Reaper.

Each UAV is a flying radio/tv broadcast station. The DoD and the manufacturer have known for many years, since Bosnia, that the video images were not secure.

The explanation for not encrypting was cost. Predators costs $5m each, and the Reapers about $12m. The information is that the Air Force will devote 36% of its 2010 budget to drones.

No one is now happy that the UAVs are vulnerable to Peeping Tareq’s.

Also, it is not certain the the UAVs cannot be taken over and flown away from the USAF controllers.

Ask Cole who owns the rights to the video, and he replies that this is not yet part of the dispute.

Expect to see real kill images on the Youtube and in Beyond Playstation games soon enough. Sale angle: Match wits side by side simulation with the USAF as you go searching for Bin Laden’s cadre.

Mexico Needs Everything.

Also Speaking to David Luhnow, WSJ, the bureau chief in Mexico City, re the spectacular operation by the Mexican Navy in the last news cycle that targeted and KIA the notorious druglord Beltra Leyva at a Cuernevaca apartment complex after a four hour gunfight.

President Felipe Calderon’s three-year-long war with the drug cartels now has a major head to show; however the attitude of the Mexican population that that this is whack-a-mole.

David Luhnow compares the Calderon launched war against the druglords as similar to George Bush’s war against Saddam and Iraq.

A war of choice. David Luhnow says that the Mexican military needs guidance and help from the US side of the borer. The drug cartels are major corporations in Mexico, upwards of $20 billion per year, and the war cannot be won in the street.

Also, David Luhnow says that half the profits are smuggling marijuana to the US. Lealizing marijuana (a trite weed with only the usual carcinogenic downside to the user) would strip out the money the cartels used to may their mercenaries.

…………………………………

From the blog for my syndicated radio show.

  • Hot Librarian

    Perhaps one could fly over Wall St & take out a few undesirables there also.

    That I’ gotta see.

  • Docelder

    Honestly, if people know enough about these flights to intercept the video feeds from them, then the videos themselves are the least of our worries. Somebody is probably working on being able to take over the control of the flight itself. Is it encrypted? Is the control of the drone at least carried over private and secured networks if the video feed is not? The idiocy of this in the world we live in with $5M and $12M dollar units and they cant protect them with secure tsl? For crying out loud, you can’t buy something from Amazon without the transaction being encrypted. This drug war thing… obviously we aren’t serious about it for whatever the reason. The problem isn’t Mexico’s it is ours, we are the market. O.K. in the end it’s just a plants flower. Not at all worth people’s lives. We have bigger fish to fry it sounds like.

  • I’m a Linda too

    Amazing, isn’t it? “This is not yet part of the dispute? WTF….Oh…but when they discover it, it will be?

    oy vey!

    I know I feel secure (sarascm-just in case)

  • http://www.sonicninjakitty.wordpress.com Sonic Ninja Kitty

    Your tax dollars at work. Think of all the schools and bridges the money could have built in that area (or here).

    Isn’t it obvious that war is about enriching the military industrial complex and not about “freedom”, as they so try to brainwash us into thinking?

    The explanation for not encrypting was cost.

    Are they kidding?

    • I’m a Linda too

      You didn’t know they were comedians? Nahhhh, you jest.

      Yes, I mean really, what is the cost of encrypting the links. And, relative no doubt to the f@cking cost of the drones…wait, excuse me, we paid 5 million a piece…now 12 million and they can’t offer a secure link? Hellooo? That should be part of the deal and if they can’t do it, they shouldn’t be making them!

      Who do we have building these things, Diebold?

  • Smart-Jazz-Just Me

    Please even if encrypted the UAV is still vulnerable. There is a built in fail safe for these types of concerns….

    The story is not all truth…..

    • Docelder

      If people are intercepting the video with $25 programs then the video feed isn’t encrypted at all. Yes, encrypted feeds can be cracked, but probably never within the time frame of one of these flights. I would think, encrypt the feed and rotate the encryption keys. Damn, now that I think of it more… You probably need the video feed to fly the thing. To bring it down, you just need to flood that feed with packet injections. You don’t need actual control over the drone to block the control of it so long as the video is needed to fly it. If the feed can’t be protected, then neither can the network traffic for the feed. Thinking more on it, I find it hard to believe that the video and flight controls are separate networks… given the designers of this thing thought encryption was too expensive. Gimme a break. Goodness, I think I could figure several better ways to do this myself right off the top. This is dangerous and these need to be grounded now and this feed encrypted.

      • TeakWoodKite

        so long as the video is needed to fly it.

        It isn’t. Off the shelf FlightSim with a GoogleEarth GPS nav make for a great autopilot flight plan. Especially in the case of loosing coms.

        What gets me is if the AV comms on Air Force One are encrypted/scrambled, you’d think the parts are already available, like yesterday.

        What this demonstrates if that if multi million dollar milsat comms are hackable for 29.95, the “intergrated platform” concept has a long way to go in keeping the element of surprise as an edge.

      • andrew

        Digitalized data streams are encrypted in real time whenever I make an Amazon purchase. Maybe al Qaeda should consider ordering some Monty Python DVDs. (Wink wink, nudge nudge)

  • Elizabeth

    Without a doubt the militant mindset is to think of themselves as braver and more willing to sacrifice than the Western invaders, so perhaps it is inevitable we are always one step behind taking advantage of every asset to exploit the enemy. Still, hopefully the military wouldn’t allow any feeds of importance to run unsecure and as long as the insurgents can’t control the drones coming and don’t know where they are it doesn’t sounds like a huge risk factor. There could be a campaign of misinformation involved at several levels as well.

    • andrew

      Yep. Someone in military intelligence may have winced when this story hit the news, but not for the reasons we might first assume.