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Don't mistake what I mean here, General Atomics should be embarassed about this whole entire ordeal... But. Is it really necessary that they encrypt the video

by blhack 17y ago

Don't mistake what I mean here, General Atomics should be embarassed about this whole entire ordeal... But. Is it really necessary that they encrypt the video streams? The people these aircraft are surveiling, for the most part, know of the plane's presence. Are they really gaining THAT much of an advantage of being able to see their own position? Beyond that--not to go into full tinfoil-hat mode, but maybe this non-encryption is intentional? Letting the surveilled see SOME of the footage, then playing LOTS AND LOTS more would only serve to confuse/frighten them.

mahmud 17y ago
You are assuming everyone on the ground is Taliban. In Afghanistan, besides the Taliban, Afghan government, regional warlords and drug traffickers, there are at least tens of intelligence agencies watching America wage war, and they're taking notes. A dedicated foreign-intelligence adversary can at a minimum wikileak pirate footage of American drones they have setup to bomb funerals and weddings. The propaganda value of that is huge. Al-Qaeda themselves might be interested in this footage. They would want to see how the Americans wage remote-controlled Aerial warfare, and the footage helps them look for clues on how to best fight the drones in their other/future encounters with the U.S. in other theaters. In Afghanistan we have other intelligence agencies helping us; British, Saudi, Israeli, Egyptian, Pakistani, neighboring ex-Soviet Republics, etc. While our interests overlap for now, you can bet that every one of them has their own national interests in mind and they're all eager to swipe some knowledge from us while we're "friends". The biggest US/Soviet intelligence swap and counter-influence actually happened during their alliance against Germany. And you can bet that we ourselves spy on our friends as well, and constantly monitor and anticipate their capabilities (sometimes even volunteer to build these capabilities, because arming someone yourself and training them goes along way towards keeping them under your surveillance; why spy when you can just read your own export-lists?)
texel 17y ago
Usually if you're conducting surveillance, you don't want other people to know that you know their position. Something tells me that getting access to this type of information would... lessen.. its strategic use. But hey, this means I can start sending user logins in cleartext and add in the product page that we have "military-grade security."
- btilly 17y ago
  But would you be honest and claim military grade unencryption?

by blhack 17y ago

mahmud 17y ago

You are assuming everyone on the ground is Taliban. In Afghanistan, besides the Taliban, Afghan government, regional warlords and drug traffickers, there are at least tens of intelligence agencies watching America wage war, and they're taking notes. A dedicated foreign-intelligence adversary can at a minimum wikileak pirate footage of American drones they have setup to bomb funerals and weddings. The propaganda value of that is huge. Al-Qaeda themselves might be interested in this footage. They would want to see how the Americans wage remote-controlled Aerial warfare, and the footage helps them look for clues on how to best fight the drones in their other/future encounters with the U.S. in other theaters. In Afghanistan we have other intelligence agencies helping us; British, Saudi, Israeli, Egyptian, Pakistani, neighboring ex-Soviet Republics, etc. While our interests overlap for now, you can bet that every one of them has their own national interests in mind and they're all eager to swipe some knowledge from us while we're "friends". The biggest US/Soviet intelligence swap and counter-influence actually happened during their alliance against Germany. And you can bet that we ourselves spy on our friends as well, and constantly monitor and anticipate their capabilities (sometimes even volunteer to build these capabilities, because arming someone yourself and training them goes along way towards keeping them under your surveillance; why spy when you can just read your own export-lists?)

texel 17y ago

Usually if you're conducting surveillance, you don't want other people to know that you know their position. Something tells me that getting access to this type of information would... lessen.. its strategic use. But hey, this means I can start sending user logins in cleartext and add in the product page that we have "military-grade security."

btilly 17y ago
But would you be honest and claim military grade unencryption?