As an Evil Defense Contractor, I'll be the first to say that whomever made the decision to leave the video feeds on drone systems unencrypted is probably going to be .... SO FIIRRREEDDDDDD:
WASHINGTON -- 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.
No, nobody will get fired, unfortunately.The DoD contracting officer approved the original specification that directed the contractor to deliver an unencrypted system.
What will likely happen is that DoD will turn around and pay the SAME contractor, MILLIONS more, for a simple upgrade to an encrypted system. What may even be worse, DoD will buy a whole new drone to replace the "obsolete" drones.
Our citizens should be asking why we are even there, since Congress has never declared war. We now have the precedent set so that any future President can merely shout through a bull-horn that, "We are at war" and Congress and the sheeple will go along with the travesty.
I believe that this flaw was known since the Bosnian conflict in the 90's but it was assumed that those backwards insurgents wouldn't know how to exploit it.
busted.