December 18, 2009

Easy download of video from US warplanes and drones

As the Pentagon is busy trying to control lightning, Wired notes that it's easy to download video from US warplanes and drones using a $26 app; see Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes and Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach.

Wired also posted this 2002 video from CBS, showing an intercept in the act:



Update: there was a segment on The Rachel Maddow Show too, just the night before,



Update 2: According to the NY Times the Military Is Awash in Data From Drones. Newer drones are expected to record 10 directions at once, and many more in the near future, which should encourage research into storage, metadata, and organization.

5 comments:

Josh Townsend's Gainesville Ripper News Blog said...

So your point is that the government is stupid so maybe trusting them to run our health care isn't a good idea?

The private sector has encryption on products.....

Or maybe we should spent another million a drone (of our money) to encrypt it?

Besides say that a terrorist is pointing his dish 24-7 around hoping to pick a drone's signal. By the time he realizes a plane is in his neighborhood (by looking at local landmarks)he might have 30 seconds to tell his buddies before he gets blasted.

Also drones are mainly used for surveillance they have no idea if an a drone is gonna attack our just doing there 24/7 look-around.

Reading this I was hoping to get some good footage for AE from a drone?

I love this site but this stuff is so off topic.

Rich said...

I would like to imitate or play with some of this footage, so please let me know if you find some.

On health care, now that is off topic, I'm not sure if the government bureaucracy would be better than corporate greed. Government doesn't seem to be doing well at finance, military or health policy now, but I would mind them trying another approach if it's fair.

Rich said...

Oh, and on health, it appears that the US is not a world leader in many aspects except perhaps in cost.

Josh Townsend's Gainesville Ripper News Blog said...

"I'm not sure if the government bureaucracy would be better than corporate greed. Government doesn't seem to be doing well at finance, military or health policy now, but I would mind them trying another approach if it's fair."

Life isn't fair brother. Maybe the government should force Autodesk ('corporate greed') to make sell Smoke for cheap not 15 grand.

I'd go for that. Or better yet subsidized Flame systems for all us sub-contractors to offset health care costs ;)

Just playing around man....it's cool. We need to find some Iran/Iraq/Afgan insurgent AE user to get us some cool drone footage to comp. Maybe get some some depth maps and alpha layers...

Rich said...

A level playing field is fair, even if imperfect.