$26 of Software Defeats American Military

reporter writes "A computer program that can be easily purchased for $25.95 off the Internet can read and store the data transmitted on an unsecured channel by an unmanned drone. Drones are crucial to American military operations, for these aerial vehicles enable Washington to conduct war with a reduced number of soldiers. '... the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under US surveillance.'"

Comments

This is bullshit, guys.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

We need an OSS option stat. Nobody should have to give up their software freedom just to make a mockery of America's finest tech toys.

The only question is, would this make more sense as an added option in wireshark, or GNU Radio?

Re:but what are the hardware costs?

[AlexiaDeath]

Reading the information in the article and deducting from the software used, all you need is satellite internet card, satellite dish and the SkyGrabber, a bit of software that records anything video like it finds in satellite data stream. Pretty much off the shelf hardware for a place with limited infrastructure.

Re:but what are the hardware costs?

[ArcherB]

No, demodulating a signal is not news. But not encrypting it in the first place ought to be.

(And TFA had a red herring in its focus on the software used to record the signal--the software is probably the easy part, once you've captured the signal).

We were using SINCGARS in the early 90's. SINCGARS is a frequency hopping, encrypted method of voice communication. We were just starting to use it to network military vehicles and personnel with HQ and each other. If SINCGARS could have been cracked, it would have put a beacon on every vehicle and soldier on and off the battlefield, not to mention eavesdropping. However, the inventor of SINCGARS could not decrypt the signal without the software and hardware keys. The software keys were changed at will. Usually weekly, but could easily be done daily. I am shocked that this signal does not use better encryption and/or frequency hopping. This type of communication is critical to tomorrow's battlefield.