European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Drones are not the only brainless things at the Pentagon

by Migeru
Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 09:31:05 AM EST

Colman points the following story from the Wall Street Journal: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected

It is so much concern trolling to be blaming Iran for the "funding and training" needed to equip insurgents with laptops and $26 (yeah, no zeros missing) off-the shelf software, but the article is littered with references to Iran. The story is this:

Gen. Deptula, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said there were inherent risks to using drones since they are remotely controlled and need to send and receive video and other data over great distances. "Those kinds of things are subject to listening and exploitation," he said, adding the military was trying to solve the problems by better encrypting the drones' feeds.
The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, the officials said.
...
Predator drones are built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego. Some of its communications technology is proprietary, so widely used encryption systems aren't readily compatible, said people familiar with the matter.

When the article claims U.S. adversaries continue to find simple ways of counteracting sophisticated American military technologies they might as well say that the US continues to find ways to shoot itself in the foot with its sophisticated military technologies (though an unencrypted downlink is hardly sophiticated).

The real issue here is the assumption that the locals are too stupid and too unsophisticated to exploit this sort of weakness: when you think that way about your enemy your are unlikely to be able to deal with them effectively. As we've seen.

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Drones are not the only brainless things at the Pentagon | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Drones are not the only brainless things at th (none / 1)

This doesn't look like a hard problem to solve, especially - it's the sort of thing for which there are standard solutions in the textbooks. It's also the sort of thing techs in the field are likely to rant about - it wouldn't take much for two techs complaining about how stupid it was that the downlink was unencrypted to be over heard by local staff and the information passed on.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 09:46:51 AM EST

Re: Drones are not the only brainless things at th (none / 1)

Judging from various update and repair contracts that have surrounded vehicles, and have prevented vehicles being up-armoured or even painted by anyone other than contractors, and so resulted in equipment being shipped out of theatre for necessary changes. Why would we even begin to think that these updates would be allowed to be performed in-theatre?

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 11:20:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Drones are not the only brainless things at th (none / 1)

Sure, but there are going to be USAF (I guess) personnel involved with them in the field. Or contractors. And they'll be techies. And they'll bitch.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 11:24:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Drones are not the only brainless things at th (none / 1)

Reading Skygrabber's capabilities, it's possible they've been broadcasting them, live, to whole regions via satellite internet. Anyone with a moderately sophisticated military intelligence operation in the general region could have been watching from their comfy chairs.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 10:06:43 AM EST

Re: Drones (none / 1)

Sometimes I wonder how the idiots at the Pentagon manage to breathe without being reminded.

But when it comes time to cut those budget, we all know who gets to rest easy.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 11:21:26 AM EST

Re: Drones are not the only brainless things... (4.00 / 2)

It is so much concern trolling to be blaming Iran for the "funding and training" needed to equip insurgents with laptops and $26 (yeah, no zeros missing) off-the shelf software, but the article is littered with references to Iran.

This reminds me of how Iraqi insurgents were supposedly incapable of making shaped charges without help from Iran, even though before the invasion Iraq had built missiles, tanks, chemical weapons and, indeed, drones.

by Gag Halfrunt on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 01:13:18 PM EST

Re: Drones are not the only brainless things... (none / 0)

To be fair, there is no evidence that they had made chemical weapons on any serious scale themselves.

They mostly imported them from the US and Britain.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 04:44:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Drones are not the only brainless things... (none / 1)

well they obviously must still be sending those videos from Osamas Cave on 3" video tape, perhaps The Iranians will update his production suite in the cave for something more portable soon.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 04:50:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Gibson/Stephenson/Sterling oppo (4.00 / 3)

Reading early articles about those damn drones gave me an idea for a short story -- in the classic cyberpunk tradition with spy-thriller overtones -- think Gibson's Spook Country. Synopsis: in a basement in an undisclosed location sits a Yank "virtual warrior" playing a multi-$B video game live on-screen, piloting a drone in some 'stan somewhere far, far away. Blowing up houses and vehicles. Feeling the god-like power. And somewhere in an undisclosed location in that remote 'stan, running in desperate ingenuity off car batteries and faith, a crew of brilliant teenage hackers have managed to fake the signal from the drone, feeding it false video footage and bad telemetry; it's really on the ground, or flying around in pointless circles. The virtual warrior really is just playing a video game. Everyone's happy: the Yanks think they're killing people, but no one's actually getting killed.

I thought it was rather a neat little story idea -- not wholly realistic perhaps, but could be made convincing enough for short fiction -- but a friend of mine scoffed and said credulity would be strained, surely there would be heavy encryption on the drone chatter...

ahem...

PS no I'm not dead, nor lost in the wilds of northern BC (though I'm working on the latter project). just busy living.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 03:52:02 AM EST

Drones are not the only brainless things at the Pentagon | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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