Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones • Hacker News Board

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#61

Post by astine » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:19 PM UTC

johnyzee wrote: post #45

ars wrote: post #20

I hope instead of shutting it down, the military feeds them false information. If done right, it could make a good trap.

I hope, instead of merely listening in, the insurgents start to jam and crash the drones. Sorry, but a different view needs to be represented. To a lot of people the foreign occupation of Iraq is a grave injustice, not just some big game.

While I want the US to pull out of Iraq as much as anybody, I think that you have to dead in the skull to root for the insurgents. Most of the problems in Iraq right now are primarily due to religious extremists terrorizing the locals and fighting with Americans to push their agendas. No matter how bad Iraq is now, it will be worse off if these people take over.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#62

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:22 PM UTC

likpok wrote: post #23

vaksel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm sure lack of reliability is part of their business plan. You make the perfect humvee, and suddenly the army stops buying as many. There is a reason the AK47 is so much more reliable than the M16. And it's been out for like 60 years now.

The AK is more reliable because it is less accurate. The tolerances on the various mechanical parts are higher, but as a result they are looser.

That's part of the design. Judging by the use and adoption of AK-47 I'd say it is a better weapon in general than M16.

Usually an inacurate weapon is better than a stuck weapon when the soldier is facing an enemy.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#63

Post by profgubler » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:26 PM UTC

Kliment wrote: post #9

"said people familiar with the matter" WSJ is really going down in journalistic quality, it seems. But seriously, problem known for a decade, "they're dumber than us so they can't use it" attitudes, in a device at that price point, you'd expect they'd think about these things. Reminds me of the Boeing report on Columbia. ( http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0... )

This is a grave oversight, but often it isn't the military that needs convincing of the intelligence of the enemy it is the politicians. These politicians and often news pundits have often said things such as why are we spending so much money on this war when we are fighting people who use sticks and stones.

So it is a catch 22 when you have to cater to the politicians you are often enabling your enemy. Not that I think we shouldn't have government or politicians and internal opposition, it is just that I wish politicians would do less grand standing and more actual thinking.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#64

Post by marltod » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:29 PM UTC

The problem is that the people in charge of deciding what to approve/buy for the Military are not qualified. They get the position of authority by being successful in the military not by proving they understand the technology of the things they are buying.

I can see how this happened. Say the military guy had two choices of what to buy for video feed products.

Product 1. Fully encrypted video 15 frames per second and a 5 second delay.

Product 2. No encryption video at 30 fps and 1 second delay.

At the demo he says "product 2 is much better lets get that". When product 2 is questioned about security they say something like "we have proprietary codecs". From the miliary guy's point a view a codec is just as good as encryption.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#65

Post by andr » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:30 PM UTC

That poses an interesting technical question - how do you achieve military-grade encryption over a communications line with heavy packet loss (assuming the drone->satellite connection is like that)? Most self-synchronizing ciphers would have too much of a lag for real time operation.

Perhaps two synchronized pseudo-random number generators, driven by synchronized clocks, could be used for variable key generation for a symmetric cipher.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#66

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:34 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #10

tsally wrote: post #6

I have a thought. How about next time the military just flies one of these things down to Defcon and lets people have a go. The hackers get a cool toy to play with a for a day and the military gets a free fairly sophisticated penetration test. I'm sure the flaw would have been found; instructions on how to intercept satellite data with about $100 worth of hardware have been floating around for years. I'll edit this p…

The question is, what do our defence contractors care more about: making their weapons actually work? Or merely selling them?

The later is true. There is a large, high througput, revolving door between DoD and large contractors. Yesterday's generals are today's board members and C*Os of large defense contractors.

When something is purchased, or a bid is chosen, it is often because of those conections not because a product is inherently better.

The result is a lot of overpriced, under-performing equipment. The amount of waste is just ridiculous, even for a $650 billion market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budg...).

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#67

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:39 PM UTC

kmcgivney wrote: post #57

gaius wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the mistake that allowed the Serbs to shoot down a Stealth bomber; aircrews communicating on open channels. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-10-26-serb-stealth_x... "At times, they acted like amateurs," Dani said, listing some ways the Serbs managed to breach NATO communications security, including eavesdropping on pilots' conversations with AWACS surveillance planes.

A bit of a nitpick, but no stealth bomber has ever been shot down. That was a stealth fighter.

OK, so they shot a smaller, faster moving target. The original point still stands.

It was an F-117. Yes, most "F" aircraft are air-to-air fighter aircraft. However F-117 is mostly used to attack ground targets, so it's "F" should be more like an "A" (If you want to nitpick that is ;-) )

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#68

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 1:48 PM UTC

blueben wrote: post #43

pmorici wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well by that reasoning the reporter should think the Iranian's are idiots as well so what you're saying makes no sense.

Iran has nuclear technology now, so they're no longer idiots, just evil dobaddies. Nobody claimed this was logical or reasonable...

> Iran has nuclear technology now, so they're no longer idiots, just evil dobaddies.

As opposed to other "smart" countries that have nuclear technology but are noble dogoodies?

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#69

Post by vtrac » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 2:16 PM UTC

conanite wrote: post #42

the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops What is the meaning of "pirated" here? Are they going to sue militants for copyright infringement?

They're labeling them "pirates" so that the MPAA and the RIAA will get on the case. Those guys are relentless.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#70

Post by shpxnvz » Thu, Dec 17, 2009, 2:25 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #67

kmcgivney wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a nitpick, but no stealth bomber has ever been shot down. That was a stealth fighter.

OK, so they shot a smaller, faster moving target. The original point still stands. It was an F-117. Yes, most "F" aircraft are air-to-air fighter aircraft. However F-117 is mostly used to attack ground targets, so it's "F" should be more like an "A" (If you want to nitpick that is ;-) )

Actually, they are both subsonic aircraft and have a very similar top speed. The F117, however, has a larger radar cross signature, which makes it appear as a larger aircraft than the B2 in a radar return.