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Most US Drones Still Beam Video Unencrypted

Posted by timothy on from the hey-it-beats-satellite-piracy dept.

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."

3 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Link is spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The real Wired article is here.
    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/

  2. Achmed, check this out, we're on TV! by Freddybear · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait, are those cross-hairs? Oh shit...

  3. You misunderstand by backslashdot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.