[p2p-research] SUPER EMPOWERMENT: Hack a Predator Drone

[Kevin Carson]

Classic example of Assassin's Mace. Also one of the most heartening
things I've seen in a long time.

Sent to you by Kevin Carson via Google Reader: SUPER EMPOWERMENT: Hack
a Predator Drone via Global Guerrillas by John Robb on 12/17/09

Skygrabber. $25.95 Easy to use software that enables you to hack the
video feeds of US military drones (satellite dish, satellite card, and
desktop computer required). Classification: DIY weapon.

Iraqi and Afghan insurgents are currently using cheap software to hack
the video feeds of Predator (and likely Reaper) drones. Due the
difficulty of adding encryption to a large number of deployed systems,
each with high bandwidth video flows (particularly the "Gorgon's Stare"
with 10 separate feeds), a quick fix is very unlikely.

Skygrabber was developed by a Russian software company to allow people
to snatch the content (media files) that other people were downloading
via their satellite Internet connection (all part of the copyright wars
currently underway). It has the following description:


But you say, well, well, we get the data, but how do we get the files
that other users are downloading? The SkyGrabber can do it. The program
intercepts data of other users, assemble in files and saves files in
your hard drive. SkyGrabber makes your life more exciting and
interesting.
NOTE: I got a flood of e-mails this morning on this story. Thanks much
to the global guerrillas community!!

This event isn't an aberration. It is an inevitable development, one
that will only occur more and more often. Why? Military cycles of
development and deployment take decades due to the dominance of a
lethargic, bureaucratic, and bloated military industrial complex.
Agility isn't in the DNA of the system nor will it ever be (my recent
experience with a breakthrough and inexpensive information warfare
system my team built, is yet another example of how FAIL the military
acquisition system is).

In contrast, vast quantities of cheap/open/easy technologies
(commercial and open source) are undergoing rapid rates of improvement.
Combined with tinkering networks that can repurpose them to a plethora
of unintended needs (like warfare), this development path becomes an
inexorable force. The delta (a deficit from the perspective of the
status quo, an advantage for revisionists) between the formal and the
informal will only increase as early stage networks that focus
specifically on weapons/warfare quickly become larger, richer, etc.
(this will happen as they are combined with the economic systems of
more complex tribal/community "Darknets").

The idea of building a defense acquisition system that accelerates open
source weapons production -- one that outcompetes the military
industrial complex by several orders of magnitude in time, cost,
effectiveness, flexibility, ease of use, etc. -- sounds like blast!

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