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Most US Drones Still Beam Video Unencrypted
An anonymous reader writes "Four years after discovering that militants were tapping into drone video feeds, the U.S. military still hasn't secured the transmissions of more than half of its fleet of Predator and Reaper drones, Danger Room has learned. The majority of the aircraft still broadcast their classified video streams 'in the clear' — without encryption. With a minimal amount of equipment and know-how, militants can see what America's drones see."
The real Wired article is here.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/
I can picture the Taliban watching the back of their heads on a screen, like in the Mel Brooks film. "Prepare to fast forward!" http://tinyurl.com/cqbwm5y
Gently reply
Direct link to the article http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/
Wait, are those cross-hairs? Oh shit...
If the drones aren't encrypted, can't they be jammed?
God spoke to me
This was the first story I down voted on the recent submissions page when I looked in there today. It really wasn't that hard to click on the link and see the spam site and that this was spam. I even chose the binspam option on the down vote. Whoever is the editor today is slacking. I know I'm not the only voting on those but you'd think anything with a vote of binspam should get an automatic closer look. The second story I down voted was the Glenn Beck trash story. At least for that one I had to highlight the "theblaze" site name and right click on search google to get to the wikipedia link (third or fourth site down the google search) to see that it was bullshit.
Is this lameness the result of the new ownership? Or is it because it's Friday night and they're network gaming and only spending a few minutes here and there posting stories so they look like they're working?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Encryption, real time, and noisy signals don't mix well. This isn't a youtube video in which the client can request that the server resend a packet that contained an error. Unencrypted video streams are fairly error tolerant as an error will only manifest itself as a slight artifact for a few short frames. Strong encryption schemes are not error tolerant, a non-correctable error would result in one or more blocks of data being entirely unusable.
A stream cipher could be used instead of a block cipher but a stream cipher presents added difficulties in that not only would the bitwise/bytewise encrypted transmission (as opposed to blockwise) have to be tracked, but it would have to be tracked in sync with a key. If the key repeats, it can be determined with a little bit of work in the same fashion that an RC4 key can be determined to break into WEP protected networks.
I was deployed in Afghanistan in 2010, had a bunch of prototype "advanced" receiver equipment that I was volentold to test. When I asked how I'm supposed to load keys into the decoder, "Oh you don't need that" Confused, I looked in the unit to see the keyfiles empty. Somehow the unit still worked. After playing with the equipment, even in-theater, our drones were broadcasting completely in the clear on UHF. Whenever there was one overhead, I could simply fire up this heavy POS attached to my kit, and watch us on the ground walk around, (Or whatever female medic on one of the local FOBs the UAV operator was stalking)
Actually most of the time, the UAV was watching the chicks on the big FOB.. Yeah.
I've been saying for a while that there should be something like version control on the summaries. Maybe just show a "diff" link underneath and last edited hh:mm.
Then there is the point that if the hunted knows that he's discovered then it may be enough for them to call off an attack. So unencrypted may actually serve a purpose.
And when you run encryption there's always one more factor that can go wrong. No picture at all is completely useless.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Almost as bad as if they had revealed the number of Americans they spied on.
You misunderstand. Pinhedd is saying that with an unencrypted signal .. unlike a digital encrypted signal .. if the signal is weak and lossy you can still see usable information.. it may have image noise .. but you'll be able to make out rough outlines. But if the signal is encrypted .. with most forms of encryption you either get a perfect imagery or nothing. Either you will see a clear image or random total image noise. If you make the signal more resilient to noise, the weaker the encryption quality. This also means you lose out on range too since you need a clear strong signal.
We need better ways to encrypt.
What is this some Michael Bay "the signal that hacked your network" shit? How could they detect a passive receiver?
Because the receiver ain't quite as "passive" as you think. Google for "local oscillator" for an example.
Digital systems tend to generate noise on predictable frequencies as well - if a device has a chip that's clocked at a given frequency, then somewhere in that device is an oscillator used to generate that clock (though it may or may not be working at that particular frequency).
The only truly passive receiver is one that is completely shielded to prevent it from radiating any of this noise. But you *have* to have a gap in the shielding in order for the incoming signal to be received. So building an undetectable receiver is not quite as easy as you might think.
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest Washington, DC 20500
Unencrpyted and barely legal! LOL
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
I heard rumours they also tried cheaper Hollywood-style encryption, but they had to many casualties because the drone wasn't operational fast enough.
They had to watch too many FBI warnings before they could start it up.
Thinking about it more, key negotiation shouldn't even be necessary.
You need a pre-determined set of sufficiently-large encryption keys on a removable module of sorts, like a USB key. Produce the key-set USB-key in pairs, for transmitter & receiver. Encryption cycles through the key-set at a predetermined schedule. Timing is managed with an internal clock. Imprecision of timing at change-over intervals is handled by simple dual-decryption attempts, and determination of correct sequence by CRC or some such block header data. This is basic smut. Why am I even bothering..
The real trick is that the gov can track video receiving equipment (by the frequencies they use to decode the video) What is this some Michael Bay "the signal that hacked your network" shit? How could they detect a passive receiver?
I don't know about applying this to video but this is definitely real and is how LEOs detect radar detectors in states that ban them. This wikipedia article has a description of how it works. The short form is that radar detectors use superheterodyne receivers to detect the radar signal. These receivers are a lot more cost effective than trying to process the actual radar signal. Superheterodyne receivers need a local oscillator. This oscillator is not shielded so it leaks signal and that signal can be detected. Here is a good block diagram of the receiver. The local oscillator at the bottom is what leaks detectable signal.
The other question is whether this would be detectable in reality. We are talking about a very low power signal if it even exists. This is not something you could build an "anti signal" missile around. At best you might be able to have boots on the ground with a portable detector to figure out if someone in a particular location was actively watching a video signal. Or they could just be watching a youtube video.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables