11 ms·

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

by tsally 17y ago

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 post in a minute with details for anyone that's interested. EDIT: * One possible LNB: http://bit.ly/7AGe7e http://bit.ly/7AGe7e * Possible dishes: http://bit.ly/4NfMN1 http://bit.ly/4NfMN1 * One possible receiver (for digital, you'll need a different one for analog): http://bit.ly/4zHyND http://bit.ly/4zHyND * Useful forum: http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/ http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/ That setup is enough to pick up signals from satellites (locations: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=satellite+index http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=satellite+index). If you do this as a hobby you might want to spend the money on a motor to tilt/pan your dish for you. ;-) The article implies that such a setup is pretty much what the insurgents used to intercept video from the drones. The drone bounces its video up to a satellite and the satellite bounces back down to the operator. The insurgents just grab it when it's coming down to the operator from the satellite. I'm pretty sure (or at least I hope) the receiver would have to be modified to decompress/decrypt the drone data properly. It'll do just fine if you're scanning for legit TV signals.

potatolicious 17y ago
The question is, what do our defence contractors care more about: making their weapons actually work? Or merely selling them?
- vaksel 17y ago
  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.
  - likpok 17y ago
    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.
    - malkia 17y ago
      AK is the Perl of the weapons. I had to use AK-47 for year (serving in the Bulgarian army). It was easy to clean, assemble, disassemble, but every weapon was a bit-off due to the production (or heavy usage, don't know). So to get good results you have to learn where your weapon strays.
      - roundsquare 17y ago
        How much does that affect a user? I mean, if you take the time to learn how much it strays, are you at that point just as accurate as someone with a more accurate weapon? I've never used a gun so I'm curious.
        gaius 17y ago
        All rifles do this a bit; snipers/designated marksmen get very accustomed to their personal weapons, and need to take time to re-acclimatize with any other rifle. For a regular line infantryman in a modern army who is mainly using his rifle for suppressive fire it doesn't significantly reduce his effectiveness.
        apgwoz 17y ago
        I'm guessing this is why the Riflemen's Creed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman%27s_Creed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman%27s_Creed) is so important?
        eru 17y ago
        I'd say indoctrination plays a part as well.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- rdtsc 17y ago
  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_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budg...).
  - rarrrrrr 17y ago
    This is also an apt description of the relationship between the FDA and large pharmaceutical companies. Also, the USDA and large food companies. There are likely many more examples. It's a systemic problem of our structure of government.
    - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
      it's not necessarily our structure of government. regulation (using the law to prevent certain economic activity rather than economic incentives) is always prone to falling under the influence of those it is trying to regulate. I believe it was taleb who compared financial regulation to a chess game between regulators and the regulated.
    - roc 17y ago
      The trick is: who better to run a military contractor than former military men? Who better to run a food company than someone who has worked in the USDA? These are natural career paths for those individuals that make perfect, natural sense and --in and of themselves-- aren't a real issue. The real issue is that our government can too easily reward individual companies or industry groups with hand-outs. If a single general couldn't essentially hand a contract to a supplier on his say-so, that supplier gains nothing by bribing them with a future board position. What we really need, is for it to be more difficult for individuals to drive contract selection and for the standards for passing a bailout, tariff or corporate welfare program to be much higher. Perhaps by requiring such legislation to be stand-alone bills, and requiring an oversight office to evaluate contract selection.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  Improper use of encryption has been a military problem forever. (I seem to recall problems even in Classical warfare.) It just gets bigger with more communication technology.
makmanalp 17y ago
Or someone could find a flaw, not tell about it, sell it.
garply 17y ago
I'm interested in the details.
pmorici 17y ago
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.
- simonw 17y ago
  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."
  - rapind 17y ago
    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?"
- kbob 17y ago
  Oldest mistake in the book: since the adversaries dress differently, speak a different language, and are a different race, assume they must be idiots. The WSJ reporter fell into the same trap: Iraqis and Afghans couldn't have figured out how to tap a video feed on their own; they must have had Iranian help.
  - pmorici 17y ago
    Well by that reasoning the reporter should think the Iranian's are idiots as well so what you're saying makes no sense.
    - blueben 17y ago
      Iran has nuclear technology now, so they're no longer idiots, just evil dobaddies. Nobody claimed this was logical or reasonable...
atamyrat 17y ago
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,76-174 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 2: I found it! Homepage http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynet.%3Ar32_index_en http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynet.%3Ar32_index_e... Screenshot: http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynetr323gh7.jpg http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynetr323gh7.jpg
- tsally 17y ago
  Well I was assuming the user was using a TV, but yeah, obviously you need a PCI receiver card if you want to interface with a computer. But thank you for the much needed technical details. I haven't played with it in a year or two and was basically just going off of memory.
- rapind 17y ago
  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.
  - atamyrat 17y ago
    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.
- pvandehaar 17y ago
  If the Media found out that insurgents used Linux to hack military drones...

by tsally 17y ago

potatolicious 17y ago

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

vaksel 17y ago
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.
- likpok 17y ago
  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.
  - malkia 17y ago
    AK is the Perl of the weapons. I had to use AK-47 for year (serving in the Bulgarian army). It was easy to clean, assemble, disassemble, but every weapon was a bit-off due to the production (or heavy usage, don't know). So to get good results you have to learn where your weapon strays.
    - roundsquare 17y ago
      How much does that affect a user? I mean, if you take the time to learn how much it strays, are you at that point just as accurate as someone with a more accurate weapon? I've never used a gun so I'm curious.
      - gaius 17y ago
        All rifles do this a bit; snipers/designated marksmen get very accustomed to their personal weapons, and need to take time to re-acclimatize with any other rifle. For a regular line infantryman in a modern army who is mainly using his rifle for suppressive fire it doesn't significantly reduce his effectiveness.
        apgwoz 17y ago
        I'm guessing this is why the Riflemen's Creed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman%27s_Creed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman%27s_Creed) is so important?
        eru 17y ago
        I'd say indoctrination plays a part as well.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
rdtsc 17y ago
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_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budg...).
- rarrrrrr 17y ago
  This is also an apt description of the relationship between the FDA and large pharmaceutical companies. Also, the USDA and large food companies. There are likely many more examples. It's a systemic problem of our structure of government.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    it's not necessarily our structure of government. regulation (using the law to prevent certain economic activity rather than economic incentives) is always prone to falling under the influence of those it is trying to regulate. I believe it was taleb who compared financial regulation to a chess game between regulators and the regulated.
  - roc 17y ago
    The trick is: who better to run a military contractor than former military men? Who better to run a food company than someone who has worked in the USDA? These are natural career paths for those individuals that make perfect, natural sense and --in and of themselves-- aren't a real issue. The real issue is that our government can too easily reward individual companies or industry groups with hand-outs. If a single general couldn't essentially hand a contract to a supplier on his say-so, that supplier gains nothing by bribing them with a future board position. What we really need, is for it to be more difficult for individuals to drive contract selection and for the standards for passing a bailout, tariff or corporate welfare program to be much higher. Perhaps by requiring such legislation to be stand-alone bills, and requiring an oversight office to evaluate contract selection.
stcredzero 17y ago
Improper use of encryption has been a military problem forever. (I seem to recall problems even in Classical warfare.) It just gets bigger with more communication technology.

makmanalp 17y ago

Or someone could find a flaw, not tell about it, sell it.

garply 17y ago

I'm interested in the details.

pmorici 17y ago

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.

simonw 17y ago
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."
- rapind 17y ago
  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?"
kbob 17y ago
Oldest mistake in the book: since the adversaries dress differently, speak a different language, and are a different race, assume they must be idiots. The WSJ reporter fell into the same trap: Iraqis and Afghans couldn't have figured out how to tap a video feed on their own; they must have had Iranian help.
- pmorici 17y ago
  Well by that reasoning the reporter should think the Iranian's are idiots as well so what you're saying makes no sense.
  - blueben 17y ago
    Iran has nuclear technology now, so they're no longer idiots, just evil dobaddies. Nobody claimed this was logical or reasonable...

atamyrat 17y ago

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,76-174 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 2: I found it! Homepage http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynet.%3Ar32_index_en http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynet.%3Ar32_index_e... Screenshot: http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynetr323gh7.jpg http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynetr323gh7.jpg

tsally 17y ago
Well I was assuming the user was using a TV, but yeah, obviously you need a PCI receiver card if you want to interface with a computer. But thank you for the much needed technical details. I haven't played with it in a year or two and was basically just going off of memory.
rapind 17y ago
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.
- atamyrat 17y ago
  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.
pvandehaar 17y ago
If the Media found out that insurgents used Linux to hack military drones...