Iraqi insurgents hack U.S. drone video feeds
It would seem that if you have $26 you can watch all the live video footage from Iraq that you would like.
Iraqi insurgents have somehow discovered that if you used a $26 off-the-shelf program named SkyGrabber, made by a Russian company, they could intercept and monitor video feeds from the United States Predator drones.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the insurgents were able to use the program to intercept the unencrypted feeds from the drones, removing any element of surprise the U.S. military had on certain missions. While there is no evidence that the insurgents were able to tamper with the operation of the drones in any way, the ability to access the video feed would have made it easy for the enemy combatants to see which roads and camps were being watched and move any crucial assets away before an attack could take place.
At the time of this posting the SkyGrabber Web site is unreachable, presumably due to heavier than normal Internet traffic. But a cached version of the page from Google tells the story:
SkyGrabber is offline satellite internet downloader. It intercepts satellite data (movie, music, pictures ) that downloadind by other users and saves information in your hard disk. So, you’ll get new movie, best music and funny pictures for free.
You don’t have to keep an online internet connection. Just customize your satellite dish to selected satellite provider and start grabbing. SkyGrabber has simple and attractive GUI, powerful filter system and flexible settings. If you want to have the newest software for free, SkyGrabber is your choice.
Apparently the United States Pentagon has been aware of this issue with the Predator drones since some time int he mid-1990′s, but it was never viewed as a significant issue until this year when evidence was discovered that the video feeds had been tampered with and shared with multiple groups. An encryption system is being worked on currently to prevent this from happening in the future.
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December 17th, 2009
The overtly sensationalistic article title is ridiculous. NOBODY “hacked” anything. Cut the garbage Sean.
November 12th, 2011
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