Those unencrypted drones? Whoops, we meant pretty much the entire US military air fleet.

Not more than 8-10 hours ago we highlighted a developing story concerning the US Military’s use of unencrypted feeds on unmanned drones. Wouldn’t you know it, the situation is a bit hairier and scarier than that. Unfortunately for us, the US has built the satellite technology used in the current crop of unencrypted drones to all corners of the militaries various aircraft. Oh god. And now a quote from Wired after conversation between them and US Military officials:

Since then, nearly every airplane in the American fleet – from F-16 and F/A-18 fighters to A-10 attack planes to Harrier jump jets to B-1B bombers has been outfitted with equipment that lets them transmit to ROVERs. Thousands of ROVER terminals have been distributed to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq…

Hmm, big oversight don’t you think? The fact that our entire fleet of aircraft is now easily circumvented with a satellite dish and some software costing us 1/2 an Xbox 360 game is slightly unsettling. Now I’m curious how they plan on fixing this problem. Will they have to rebuild nearly every aircraft and tool using the flawed technology or is it as simple as a software/protocol change? Let’s hope for the former shall we…

Wired

US Military using unencrypted video feeds on unmanned aircraft?

Unmanned aircraft are one of the greatest tools the US Military currently has in their arsenal. The humanless aircraft are able to go into remote regions and zones that would otherwise be too dangerous or inhospitable for human engagement. The only human interaction with the aircraft comes by way of a guy sitting behind a little TV screen controlling a few buttons and joystiqs. Easy. Safe. Simple.

The data captured by these drones is as one would expect, highly classified as the usual missions for these bodiless wonders often consist of spying with an ultimate focus on be covert. Not being physically seen is good and all, but this is the 21st century. The world is becoming increasingly digital, opening up new doors for all kinds of bad guys and attack methods.

With that said, would it shock or surprise you to know that the US Military is having feeds from unmanned aircraft “hijacked”? According to the WSJ, insurgents abroad are basically pointing their satellites up into the sky and using a widely available $25 piece of software (aka: network snooper) to hone in and download the drone/unmanned aircraft’s video feeds sailing through the wireless airwaves. Naturally, this presents a fundamental national security problem. What good is sneaking up on the enemy with a drone if the enemy can see exactly where it’s going?

The question that comes to my mind first and foremost: Why is the US Military of all people using unencrypted video feeds in such a volatile area? You’d think given the insurgents insatiable appetite to blow us all away would make the US Military a tad more careful with these sorts of things. Any admission of this story whether an actual admission or flat out denial will never mean anything. Regardless, if they are in fact running drones around the world with any link in the system unencrypted, we’ll never know. It will ultimately be labeled a “false rumor” for all eternity as the military will deny deny deny.

Scary stuff.

CrunchGear

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