OT: Iraq hax
Completely off-topic, but it's yet another no-bowl offseason. And I haven't been able to find a stockpile of Wolverine Hotties except for this:
Anyway, this article is pretty alarming/amusing. Thought some of the engineers around here might get a kick out of it.
Insurgents hack US drones with interwebs
Anyway, this article is pretty alarming/amusing. Thought some of the engineers around here might get a kick out of it.
Insurgents hack US drones with interwebsDecember 18th, 2009 at 12:43 AM ^
As someone who has family in harms way in the areas where this is occuring, I'm not sure how the word "amusing" is appropriate with that article or how someone would "get a kick out of it". Maybe it's just me...
December 18th, 2009 at 12:51 AM ^
good luck to your family member over seas, i hope he or she comes back safe and they will forever be a hero in my eyes as is every United States soldier
December 18th, 2009 at 1:15 AM ^
You're not the only one with loved ones overseas. I appreciate the self-righteousness, though.
December 18th, 2009 at 12:01 PM ^
I never said I was the only one with loved ones overseas and I wasn't being self-righteous. I was just pointing out a comment that was either (1) incredibly ignorant and insensitive or (2) not well thought through as to how it would come across.
December 18th, 2009 at 12:17 PM ^
"Maybe it's just me..."
This statement has an implication of exclusivity. Yes, I know it was meant sarcastically -- I used it to further craft a sarcastic statement. See what I did there?
I will not discount your conclusion that I am insensitive, but let's be serious for a second. Your loved one is participating in conquest. Sure, we all are with our tax dollars but... really? I mean, really? Over 100,000 dead in the first three years of the war and you chastise me for being insensitive? I'll take it as a compliment.
December 18th, 2009 at 4:55 PM ^
Well, first, my family members are in Afghanistan. So before you came back with a tin-foil hat comment about "conquests" you might have been better off to at least differentiate between the two conflicts. Second, I find it hard to believe that you, or anyone for that matter, would consider Afghanistan a "conquest". That's literally unbelievable. I'm sure your response is going to be that you were talking about Iraq, but don't bother. This issue affects the drones being used in both Iraq and Afghanistan and it was merely a mistake on your part to not include that in the title of your thread.
December 18th, 2009 at 6:05 PM ^
We are a nation of conquerors and winners. If you don't like it, then you're rooting for the wrong team. And I don't mean Michigan.
Also, the article sez: "Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones..." so there was no mistake in the title.
December 18th, 2009 at 7:16 PM ^
The article also sez: "adversaries have also intercepted drone video feeds in Afghanistan, according to people briefed on the matter."
So yeah, pretty obvious that there was a mistake in the title.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:45 PM ^
seriously...what is wrong with some people?
December 18th, 2009 at 6:25 PM ^
Conquest: 1 : the act or process of conquering
2 a : something conquered; especially : territory appropriated in war b : a person whose favor or hand has been won
Conquer: 1 : to gain or acquire by force of arms
2 : to overcome by force of arms
3 : to gain mastery over or win by overcoming obstacles or opposition
4 : to overcome by mental or moral power
intransitive verb : to be victorious
December 18th, 2009 at 12:47 AM ^
Very inappropriate tone I think.
December 18th, 2009 at 12:56 AM ^
...is mostly the outcome of complete and utter arrogance and stupidity on the part of the contractors who developed this system and the Pentagon acquisitions people who allegedly vetted this system.
Apparently they thought the opposition is so unsophisticated that they would be unable to demodulate and view an unencrypted video link.
The video link in this system should've been running encrypted from day one, and I can tell you that everyone associated with the decision to allow it to run unencrypted is a god damned fool that needed to have their degree revoked yesterday.
The "b-b-b-but that would be HARD!" whines from the corporate droid are complete BS, there are plenty of off-the-shelf encryption systems that could've easily been integrated during the original development process. The added cost whines are crap as well, UAVs are dirt cheap compared to a single F-15 or F-22.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:11 AM ^
What's worse is that this problem is not likely to be corrected for at least 5 years, which is unreal. Apparently the problem is not equipping the Predators (and soon-to be Reapers) with encrypted transmitters, but with the receiving devices on the ground. I don't know the details, or why this is the case, but one of the editors from Wired magazine described this in detail on the Rachel Maddow show tonight.
The good news is that apparently it doesn't stop hellfires from landing on Al Qaeda cranium.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:25 AM ^
that we have no reliable way of knowing whose cranium(s) our hellfires are hitting. Or, perhaps more to the point, we have no way of disproving Taliban claims of civilian casualties. Either way, it's easier to lose a counterinsurgency than to win one.
PS as if it has any bearing on my analysis of the situation, my father is currently in Iraq.
December 18th, 2009 at 8:12 AM ^
It's undeniable that the drone attacks have had unfortunate consequences on civilians. It seems an inexcusable rule of engagement when, as one example, 16 different strikes over 14 months are launched to kill one terrorist. It also provides the enemy fodder, and galvanizes support therefor when large civilian populations are victimized. Interestingly, Obama ordered more of these strikes in his first 9.5 months than Bush did in his last 3 years.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:49 AM ^
This kind of crap is what gets those in harm's way killed. I would think that it is of interest to those who have loved ones overseas. No disrespect meant of course.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:11 AM ^
wearing a Confederate battle flag belt buckle? (Topic of the day -- we just spent 10 years trying to get rid of the battle flag on the Georgia state flag (down here in Atlanta) only to end up, a couple of years ago, with a duplicate of the Stars and Bars instead.)
It's a sad fact about US news coverage that the only way Predator drones can make the news after causing hundreds of noncombatant deaths is for a security malfunction.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:42 AM ^
It's an X. Like... X Men. You're reading way too much into this man.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:13 AM ^
Nevermind.
(But the colors looked so . . . real.)
December 18th, 2009 at 7:59 AM ^
lideral much...hundreds of noncombatant deaths..seriously..and you know casue you have been there...how many hard to reach high value targets have they taken out? I think the predators have more then proven they are a viable option.
December 18th, 2009 at 8:17 AM ^
be an extremist. You can't make a rational value assessment by rejecting reality.
December 18th, 2009 at 9:29 AM ^
really?
December 18th, 2009 at 6:43 PM ^
what is a lideral?
are you a conversative?
December 18th, 2009 at 1:20 AM ^
All right, not my intent to start a political discussion (I know the rules!)... I thought it was funny that multi-billion dollar contracts can't buy a computer program immune to hacking from $30 software available to anyone in the world.
That's it. Not laughing at soldiers or civilians being potentially, indirectly harmed as a result. Why take it there? Why?
December 18th, 2009 at 1:55 AM ^
The control links are encrypted on these drones (so that you can't hack in and steal a Reaper), so it wouldn't be that hard to just install some encryption devices.
The real problem might be the encryption/decryption lag. It's already laggy enough trying to fly a UAV in Afghanistan from Arizona, I'm not sure if secure encryption would cause more lag or not.
Finally, I think the hardware issue is a little overblown. UAVs are great, but they're not magical devices. If you're a terrorist and have hacked a UAV feed, what are you going to see for hours on end? Random roads, mountains, and villages? This isn't like Modern Warfare 2, the enemies aren't outlined with a little red box for you to identify.
What is serious though, is the cover up/update procedure for the UAVs. This should have been corrected as soon as it was discovered.
December 18th, 2009 at 7:35 AM ^
This should have been corrected as soon as it was discovered.Or, you start sending the bad guys false data. But now that they know that we know, now we'll actually have to shut down the hole.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:21 AM ^
it's really annoying to think of all the idiots that were at fault for this - the pathetic defense contractors, and the military personnel who let them get away with this and the people who oversee the overseers and so on.
also annoying is how slowly this problem will get fixed with budgets and bureaucratic BS involved.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:10 AM ^
The infamous "Girls gone slightly against their better judgement" tape.
December 19th, 2009 at 1:54 PM ^
I simultaneously understand this picture entirely and am completely bewildered by it.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:17 AM ^
Since this is treading dangerously close to politics, I'll limit my thoughts to just the technology. Also, if you want to read some pretty interesting articles on the devices themselves, check out this one.
The encryption issue was something they should have addressed up front in development, but my sense is that (a) the proprietary nature of many of these devices makes it difficult to integrate with off-the-shelf software, even if the underlying OS is compatible (my guess is that they run a version of *nix, but I could be wrong), and (b) they probably didn't think that their targets would have the resources/wherewithal to figure out how to intercept the video feeds. Encrypting video is quite a bit more time-intensive and prone to lag than commands from a remote location, and they have had trouble enough even getting the control to function properly. Even a good encryption software like TrueCrypt is going to introduce lag, and flying these devices requires as close to real-time as you can.
As for the designers not expecting to be an issue, that might be military arrogance, but I think most people tend to underestimate the abilities of insurgents because they don't fit into the conventional model for opponents. People expect developed nations to have a sophisticated military and robust security measures; they don't expect largely-decentralized countries with pockets of fighters to understand that a $26 piece of Russian software can be used to intercept video signals from unmanned drones. While the conspiracy nut in me believes that the Afghans and Iraqis might have been tipped about this vulnerability by someone else, the fact remains that this was a design flaw that the manufacturers probably figured would not be exploited.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:01 PM ^
...that your opposition are a bunch of unsophisticated savages is a bush league mistake borne from hubris.
However, our defense establishment appears to make this mistake with alarming regularity.
Apparently, no one learned anything from the Vietnam experience.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:49 PM ^
Again, I'm not saying I believe that line of reasoning or that it was one shared by the military, but I would be surprised if the issue of encrypted video was not brought up at some point in the design process. There is a give-and-take in any development, and maybe the decision was made that the lag due to encryption was too great a detriment compared to the potential for interception by targets. To be fair, these drones have been in development for years, and not too long ago people were struggling to see grainy RealMedia clips on their "high speed" computers. When the drones were first being designed, video transmittal was probably a crapshoot, and adding encryption on top of that would have made the remote control aspect impossible. As technology has improved and wireless/satellite networks have grown more robust, maybe encryption has become a viable option. I'm not an expert enough to presume that this decision to not encrypt was based on hubris, but it definitely makes you wonder about how they decided to handle it.
December 18th, 2009 at 1:41 PM ^
Indeed, you bring up a good point re: how the "riskiness" of the hole factored into the decision, weighed against its imposition of lag-time.
But what a terrible assumption, to think that a decentralized state breeds incompetence. If anything, through increasing scarcity, danger and competition for survival, it will lead to increased resourcefulness and ingenuity in the population --- among those who survive and prosper within such an environment, at least.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:43 PM ^
I'm not saying I agreed with it, but this probably was a conscious decision by the drone manufacturers. And to be fair, what I've read and heard is that the information might not be that essential to the military - sure, some insurgents may be tipped off, but it could also be used to spread false information about flight patterns. I'm sure a fix is on the way, so this might turn out to be a bigger PR hit than a tactical failure.
December 18th, 2009 at 6:21 PM ^
Didn't mean to imply you agreed with the statement ---- I don't think the other poster did, either. Just sayin', yeah, it's a bad assumption. But some people like keeping their head in the sand (no pun intended)
December 19th, 2009 at 9:54 PM ^
it's yet another no-bowl offseason.
Yes, the second in 36 years. Poor us.