EDIT:
* One possible LNB: http://bit.ly/7AGe7e
* Possible dishes: http://bit.ly/4NfMN1
* One possible receiver (for digital, you'll need a different one for analog): http://bit.ly/4zHyND
* Useful forum: http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/
That setup is enough to pick up signals from satellites (locations: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=satellite+index). If you do this as a hobby you might want to spend the money on a motor to tilt/pan your dish for you. ;-) The article implies that such a setup is pretty much what the insurgents used to intercept video from the drones. The drone bounces its video up to a satellite and the satellite bounces back down to the operator. The insurgents just grab it when it's coming down to the operator from the satellite. I'm pretty sure (or at least I hope) the receiver would have to be modified to decompress/decrypt the drone data properly. It'll do just fine if you're scanning for legit TV signals.
When something is purchased, or a bid is chosen, it is often because of those conections not because a product is inherently better.
The result is a lot of overpriced, under-performing equipment. The amount of waste is just ridiculous, even for a $650 billion market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budg...).
There is a reason the AK47 is so much more reliable than the M16. And it's been out for like 60 years now.
Receiver you linked is set-top box, you need PCI receiver card, such as SkyStar (http://www.technisat.com/index381f.html?nav=PC_products,en,7...)
No, you don't have to modify the receiver, card captures IP traffic just out of the box with right software. There was another free alternative to SkyGrabber that runs on Linux, but I can't recall the name now.
edit: grammar
edit 2: I found it! Homepage http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynet.%3Ar32_index_e...
Screenshot: http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynetr323gh7.jpg
This is probably made up, but I heard that sometimes the well feeds contained worse-case scenario what-if's that news stations would prepare content for in advance. Like meteors hitting, plagues, etc.
The WSJ reporter fell into the same trap: Iraqis and Afghans couldn't have figured out how to tap a video feed on their own; they must have had Iranian help.
What is the meaning of "pirated" here? Are they going to sue militants for copyright infringement?
Folks are using "pirate" to mean "intercept" or "surreptitiously copy", rather than the traditional usage (leaving aside the even older meaning, of course) of simply "distribute copyrighted material".
I will not be at all surprised when insurgent "rc-plane" drones start showing up with cell phones, arduinos, grenades and duct-tape.
[With some kick ass AI doing the find-kill, soldiers shouting "f* NPCs"]
[Note: I know emp guns weight ~50kg]
Why it hasn't been fixed since is shocking!
Where by "better encrypting" they mean "using any encryption at all"
If some Russian software could intercept it, it wasn't that proprietary!
What about the uplink?
Honestly, from a classic military standpoint encrypted video does little for you. If you can intercept the transmission then you know where the drone is. The only advantage is knowing what it is looking at, but a traditional army is large enough knowing something is in the area is enough. It's only gorilla style fighting when it becomes particularly useful.
The thing is, these drones' primary use is against insurgents, AFAIK.
Iran is a pretty well educated country, and while Iraq and Afghanistan doesn't have the same level of education in the tech/science areas, there are many sympathizers who are well educated -- including educated in UK, US, etc.
There's actually a lot of comparisons to be drawn here with startup culture vs big business. Once again the smaller, less resourced are able to bring down the big players by being more nimble and not feeling the need to build everything "in house".
To the "in house" point - the US probably spent high $100ks of mine and other tax payers money building viewing software for these drones vs the insurgents who use $25 Russian shareware. Now, I'm not saying that the government should be running SkyCatcher to view streams - but I bet they didn't include opensource options into their video viewer solution that would have saved $$$ in upfront and ongoing maintenance costs.
Either way now that this is public knowledge it needs to be fixed appropriately.
Sorry, but a different view needs to be represented. To a lot of people the foreign occupation of Iraq is a grave injustice, not just some big game.
WSJ is really going down in journalistic quality, it seems. But seriously, problem known for a decade, "they're dumber than us so they can't use it" attitudes, in a device at that price point, you'd expect they'd think about these things. Reminds me of the Boeing report on Columbia. ( http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0... )
So it is a catch 22 when you have to cater to the politicians you are often enabling your enemy. Not that I think we shouldn't have government or politicians and internal opposition, it is just that I wish politicians would do less grand standing and more actual thinking.
'... it would have added to the Predator's price'
If you're paying $20 million each you'd think another million to ensure your targets don't see you coming would be a no-brainer?
I'm with @tsally on the solution to this kind of problem...
Perhaps two synchronized pseudo-random number generators, driven by synchronized clocks, could be used for variable key generation for a symmetric cipher.
There are a lot of simple, inexpensive measures that could be used to neutralize their advantages.
OTOH, if you know where are the satellites drones use and the frequencies they employ, it would be trivial to just set up a very directional antenna coupled to a high-power noise generator to render the drone's controllers more or less blind and the drones useless.
At least until they evolve into autonomous drones.
How?
I can see how this happened. Say the military guy had two choices of what to buy for video feed products.
Product 1. Fully encrypted video 15 frames per second and a 5 second delay.
Product 2. No encryption video at 30 fps and 1 second delay.
At the demo he says "product 2 is much better lets get that". When product 2 is questioned about security they say something like "we have proprietary codecs". From the miliary guy's point a view a codec is just as good as encryption.
The military is building more and more lethal, radio-controlled robots.
No networked device can be guaranteed to be secure. Computers have been hacked since they existed. The hacking of satellites is endemic. A civilian hacker was supposedly holding a military satellite hostage a while back.
Thus this strategy makes it likely that hackers will get the ability to command a lethal device sooner or later.
The risks of this might be worth the rewards in terms of avoiding casualties, projecting power, etc.
But there hasn't been much public discussion of the choices that are involved here. There should be.
@tsally the DEF CON suggestion is a good point. Because of ITAR, it is unlikely that the actual "toy" will be provided, but a comparable subsystem wouldn't be out of the question. E.g. The DoD regularly operates rapid reaction challenges with a simulated problem from theater - see http://www.kirtland.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123120737 Something similar could be done with DEF CON.
I think it is important to maintain perspective when stories like this come out. Contrary to some of the comments, defense contractors and researchers/engineers at gov't R&D labs do put the priorities of the warfighter first. Consider that many of the engineers/contractors/researchers/etc working on technology development are combat veterans themselves.
The issue is that we face adaptive adversaries.
