DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Predator Drones-Helpful or hurting?

**mv37afnr** · 12-18-2009, 01:33 AM

WASHINGTON -- Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones - WSJ.com

I LOVE this story. It's hard not to root for the little guy, even if the little guy happens to be a vicious, homicidal anti-American terrorist. Of course, it did occur to me that if the U.S. has been aware of this for months, or even years, a savvy IT guy at the CIA could use this knowledge to feed FAKE drone feeds to confuse the bad guys. I would root for that scenario even more.

12-18-2009, 01:33 AM	#32
mv37afnr Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 412 Senior Member	WASHINGTON -- Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations. Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter. Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones - WSJ.com I LOVE this story. It's hard not to root for the little guy, even if the little guy happens to be a vicious, homicidal anti-American terrorist. Of course, it did occur to me that if the U.S. has been aware of this for months, or even years, a savvy IT guy at the CIA could use this knowledge to feed FAKE drone feeds to confuse the bad guys. I would root for that scenario even more.
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