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Live via Satellite: NATO Aerial Surveillance Video

Posted by michael on from the run-another-T-1 dept.

Factomatic writes "The BBC is reporting 'NATO surveillance flights in the Balkans are beaming their pictures over an insecure satellite link - and anyone can tune in and watch their operations live.' All you need is a satellite dish. John Locker tapped into the NATO aerial surveillance feed over the Balkans from England and has been e-mailing, faxing and calling NATO since November to get them to fix the problem. NATO denies it is a problem at all. I wonder if this would work in Afghanistan, too?" No, the article notes that Afghanistan is taking up all the secure communications bandwidth, and operations in the Balkans are getting kicked over to unencrypted channels. We ran an older story about the military's growing bandwidth crunch.

4 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. How hard can this be to fix? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 3, Interesting
    No, the article notes that Afghanistan is taking up all the secure communications bandwidth, and operations in the Balkans are getting kicked over to unencrypted channels.

    Surely they could buy a $1000 PC at each end and do:
    cat /dev/video_capture | mpeg_encode | unexportable_munition_software <secret-key> | /dev/satellite_modem

    and:
    cat /dev/satellite_modem | unexportable_munition_software <secret-key> | mpeg_decode | /dev/video_out

    1. Re:How hard can this be to fix? by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It is not as simple as you think

      The $1000 PC would need to be patched into (for example) the P-3's surveilance and comms circuits. It is quite likely that this would require non-trivial bespoke hardware, not to mention things like special power adapters, rack mounting, vibration and RF hardening and so on.

      For an unmanned drone, it is likely to be that much harder because of tight limits on available space and power.

  2. encryption? by Patrick · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The primary purpose of encryption is to take insecure channels and turn them into secure channels. If the military has spare insecure satellite channels (or is using insecure civilian channels), why not layer an encrypted tunnel?

    Encryption is a munition, remember?

    --Patrick

  3. I have the footage on my computer by systemapex · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I taped that BBC interview and they had included the feeds in their little piece. Most of the footage seemed to be from an airplane looking at an acute angle downwards at road traffic like trucks - perhaps it was from a satellite but the camera seemed to move laterally in both directions. I've never seen a satellite feed but the shots seemed to come from a shaky airplane than a satellite in orbit. I have to admit I'm skeptical that these are true feeds. I honestly think it's misinformation. The quality of the footage was much better than the public ever sees in those press conferences, as if they were begging for the "enemy" to use the feeds. In fact, it seemed much better than the footage from helicopters during police chases. On second thought...maybe this is high quality military grade stuff:-)