Iraqi militants used $26 software to intercept and record live video feeds from American predator drones conducting surveillance in Iraq. Apparently, the U.S. military officials have known since the 1990s campaign in Bosnia that video surveillance from UAVs is sent unencrypted from the aircraft to ground control, but assumed that local adversaries would not know how to exploit this weakness and monitor the video feeds. (Wall Street Journal, 12/17/09)
Seriously? SERIOUSLY!? With the accelerating rise in cyber warfare over the past three years, much of it conducted not necessarily by central governments but by rogue citizens who feel antipathy toward a foreign state, how could the Pentagon assume such a high level of naiveté about the trained and organized Iraqi insurgency? It appears the U.S.military command still needs to reassess some of its assumptions about military tactics in the asymmetrical warfare increasingly common today.
Michael Hines
