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Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

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Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#101

Post by mbreese »

andr wrote: post #65

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…

I am assuming that there already exists an encrypted communications channel between the ground and the UAV (command and control). So, it would be trivial to include a command to switch encryption keys at specific intervals.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#102

Post by rapind »

simonw wrote: post #22
pmorici wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article said that people knew the potential existed since the mid 90's so the problem was't ignorance it was arrogance and apathy.

Awesome quote: "Fixing the security gap would have caused delays, according to current and former military officials. It would have added to the Predator’s price. Some officials worried that adding encryption would make it harder to quickly share time-sensitive data within the U.S. military, and with allies."

Sounds almost like typical client demands.

"Seriously man, you're going to want to encrypt this. I know it's an extra 10k, but you've already spent 50 million. And I really think we should stick with Blue on the wings."

"Nah, ditch the encryption. We're already over budget. But please do change the wings to green... wait red... now let's see your blue again?"

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#103

Post by johnwatson11218 »

Is anyone talking about the potential to not just grab video but to send control signals? What if the enemy could actually take control of one of these drones? Is that channel encrypted? How about sending back false video to not allow the true operators to know what is really going on or to generate false positives.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#104

Post by vidarh »

jedc wrote: post #84
KWD wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. My first thought when reading the article was "WTF? No encryption?". Would be interested in learning more about the company that makes these, and how something so obvious was not done.

If they were first deployed in the 1990's, the technology was developed in the 1980's. Easily deployable software to grab the signals out of the air was probably outside the realm of what seemed possible then. Why it hasn't been fixed since is shocking!

Consumer satellite TV was around from the early 80's, and the struggle to scramble the signal in ways that people wouldn't get around to get free TV started promptly... They really had no excuse - while they might not expect some random guy with a little dish and a laptop, they should have been expecting hostile governments from easily having the capability.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#105

Post by rapind »

atamyrat wrote: post #24
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…

I played with sky grabbing few years back. Receiver you linked is set-top box, you need PCI receiver card, such as SkyStar ( http://www.technisat.com/index381f.html?nav=PC_products,en,7... ) No, you don't have to modify the receiver, card captures IP traffic just out of the box with right software. There was another free alternative to SkyGrabber that runs on Linux, but I can't recall the name now. edit: grammar edit…

I remember hearing about people intercepting well feeds that the networks would send (east coast to west coast etc.). They would use the big old dishes for it.

This is probably made up, but I heard that sometimes the well feeds contained worse-case scenario what-if's that news stations would prepare content for in advance. Like meteors hitting, plagues, etc.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#106

Post by vidarh »

stcredzero wrote: post #95
eli wrote: post #87

"The military [is] trying to solve the problems by better encrypting the drones' feeds." Where by "better encrypting" they mean "using any encryption at all"

Predator drones are built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego. Some of its communications technology is proprietary, so widely used encryption systems aren't readily compatible, said people familiar with the matter. If some Russian software could intercept it, it wasn't that proprietary!

They mean the hardware/software for the drones, not the protocol / format used for transmission.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#107

Post by atamyrat »

rapind wrote: post #105
atamyrat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played with sky grabbing few years back. Receiver you linked is set-top box, you need PCI receiver card, such as SkyStar ( http://www.technisat.com/index381f.html?nav=PC_products,en,7... ) No, you don't have to modify the receiver, card captures IP traffic just out of the box with right software. There was another free alternative to SkyGrabber that runs on Linux, but I can't recall the name now. edit: grammar edit…

I remember hearing about people intercepting well feeds that the networks would send (east coast to west coast etc.). They would use the big old dishes for it. This is probably made up, but I heard that sometimes the well feeds contained worse-case scenario what-if's that news stations would prepare content for in advance. Like meteors hitting, plagues, etc.

Maybe. I've seen some unencrypted emails (html page from web-based emails) hit my box. But it was usually junk when I run it for half an hour last time.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#108

Post by rapind »

Do you think obsfucation and spam could solve this problem? Could they setup cheap broadcasters all over the place that constantly send out fake videos and develeop a sophisticated filter they can use themselves that the insurgents wouldn't have access to? Then they wouldn't have to rework the drones themselves, and they could constantly rework the spam and the filter to stay ahead of them.

Re: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

#109

Post by sunny_s »

stcredzero wrote: post #100
jedc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were first deployed in the 1990's, the technology was developed in the 1980's. Easily deployable software to grab the signals out of the air was probably outside the realm of what seemed possible then. Why it hasn't been fixed since is shocking!

Reminds me of Brian Singer's documentary "Spin," which is no longer available on YouTube. It was made of raw Satellite feed going down to local news stations.

some of it is here http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/43.html
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