Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.
The enemy can see what we see and where we're looking? Great.
And this is against a fairly primitive enemy. Imagine what a sophisticated enemy might do? We think precision firepower has essentially eliminated friendly fire. What happens when we fight an enemy able to manipulate our drones and precision munitions (bombs, rockets, missiles, and even shells) in the air and direct them at our own troops?
UPDATE: Admiral Mullen states that the enemy was not able to exploit the hole in our security. But a conventional foe would likely find ways to exploit that--and any other holes they can find--more than the Iranian stooges could. Also, Strategypage reminds us all that we took a calculated risk by putting the system in place with the security gap. We gained infinitely more than the enemy ever could have with the vulnerable data links. Waiting for secure downlinks before fileding the system would have made perfect the enemy of good. Time, however, can make good become bad. So now it is time to make sure the links are perfect.
