Or flack vests that sink, drowning our soldiers who fall into water
(ask the parents of a soldier in the Middle East how much they had to
spend on a vest that stopped both bullets and drowning).
But, these misguided efforts pale in comparison to a recent news item.
With $26, a satellite dish, a personal computer, some cables and a few
other bits, you, just like our military leaders in the White House
situation room, can receive and display any feed from any U.S. drone
flying around anywhere in the world.
You don't need military clearance nor one of those DirecTV magic
decoder boxes to un-jam the signal. You see, our military is
broadcasting this fascinating video up to a satellite and down to the
earth without any encryption.
How do you make this work? Skygrabber.com. Think I'm kidding? Consider these headlines:
<The Christian Science Monitor: SkyGrabber: hack of U.S. drones shows how quickly insurgents adapt.
The Guardian: SkyGrabber: the $26 software used by insurgents to hack into U.S. drones.
Discovery News: Predator Drones Tracked by Insurgents.
New York Times: Officials Say Iraq Fighters Intercepted Drone Video.
Washington Post: Pentagon: Insurgents intercepted drone spy videos
Now, I don't know about you, but this seems to be pretty stupid -- a
classic example of the oxymoron "Military Intelligence." In the vast
orgy of spending by the U.S. military, where any resistance is
heretical, we have enabled this level of incompetence, a level of
incompetence that is killing our children.
There are times when I am confronted with something so preposterous
that I am dumbfounded, having no idea what to do. So, all I can offer
is this registration of my personal outrage. Perhaps someone can figure
out how to fix this.
Crosby lives in Fayston.
