Iraqi insurgents hack US drones with $26 software

Iraqi insurgents hack US drones with $26 software

A report from The Register said that hours of unencrypted surveillance video feeds were intercepted by the Iraqi insurgents.  A laptop containing the video feeds were discovered late 2008, but it’s not clear from the report when those feeds were intercepted.

Why were those video feeds unencrypted?  Granted even the strongest encryption scheme to date isn’t unbreakable, given enough technical know-how, processing power, and time.  My guess is that the contractor or subcontractor supplying the camera or the transceiver forgot to turn encryption on, and no one caught the fatal error.

Here’s the full story.

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