Hehe - that Fosi guy probably gave it to them. Kind of answers my earlier question about security.
Maybe the DoD purposefully left this surveillance channel open and unencrypted for misleading information and counterintelligence?
You never know what's going on these days.
Maybe the DoD purposefully left this surveillance channel open and unencrypted for misleading information and counterintelligence?
You never know what's going on these days.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2033920
I'm not an American, but I've gotta say, I love topics like the one above, especially in threads like this.
OK, now, to stop any shenanigans/false accusations/anti-america posts.
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Any soldier, Americanor elsewise, will tell you that any war isn't won by firefower, but by which side is LESS incompetent.
At this juncture, I will stop, and this being an American forum, I will let you draw your own conclusions, if you can, about this.
Roll on, America is great, every other nation is retarded, posts.
Point being, in todays modern warfare, as proved more than once, America is dependent on the UK, not only for military, but for political support. If you don't understand that, Good Luck to you in Afghanistqan after the next General Election in the UK next year.
A few Americans will understand this point, the vast majority won't, as is often the case, the uneducated will OF COURSE, sway the view with vitriol.
As an Army Infantryman that has worked with JTACs and UAVs, I think I can shed a little light on this
situation.
First off, let me say that this is not the military's primary airborne surveillance system. An insurgent can't point a little satellite dish at an Apache/A-10/AC-130 and see what that pilot is seeing.
When a pilot or UAV transfers data to one of these ROVER consoles, THAT data is unencrypted. This may seem like a serious security risk, but it really isn't. These consoles are primarily used at the tactical level. That means that my platoon is down the street from some bad guys in a house and we are using this thing to get surveillance on them. Usually what follows is a call for fire to have them destroyed. If an insurgent were watching this feed, he would probably not have enough time to get up and run away before being killed.
I would much rather use an unencrypted video feed of a target for recon than a squad of soldiers. I don't care if everyone with DirecTV can see what I'm seeing. Again, this is a tactical asset. These aren't the same feeds that are being sent to the Pentagon.
Why don't they just encrypt it anyway?
Encryption would add serious weight to these consoles. In Afghanistan, your typical soldier or Marine is probably already humping about 100 pounds of gear.
Encrypting these streams would also cause compatibility issues. Every aircraft and UAV would have to have the same encryption data as the ROVER consoles to be effective. It is hard enough to get a few encrypted radios to talk to each other. I can't imagine how hard it would be to synchronize aircraft with thousands of video consoles.