Journal Community


Explore Group

How will the discovery that Iraqi militants intercepted U.S. Predator drone transmissions affect U.S. strategy and security?



Who is responsible for the security hole?  What strategic advantages have the U.S. lost, and how can the U.S. raise its game against militants who continually find holes in U.S. security technology?

(See more polls, discussions and hot topics.)

Recommend a comment by clicking the recommendation icon

    From reading the article, it sounds to me like it was a calculated risk the military took, not an oversight. The benefits of *not* encrypting the video feed provided technical & logistical benefits, and they took a chance that the enemy wouldn't discover it.

    That said, I'm more than a little surprised and disappointed that the technology to somehow make it more difficult to intercept the signals hadn't already been developed, in the event that something like this did happen, and therefore could be implemented quickly and easily.


  • This puts the lives of our troops at risk. It's been reported that the military was aware of this issue in 2004. If that's true, then the leaders of the administration in power qt that time should be tried for treason



    On US Exposing its Drone Feed: Military Writer Basil A. Liddell-Hart stated that None of History's Great Commanders won any great Battles after their 45th Birthday. After the 45th Birthday, arteriosclerosis of the brain sets in; that is when Officers need to retire! The Officers in charge were well past their 45th Birthday!!! Liddell-Hart rewrote the British Infantry Manuel after WWI, and became the leading advocate of Armored Warfare. He was the Petraus of his day, and more. He bucked up General Patton in England before the Normandy Invasion, when Patton became highly doubtful of any future for Armor. Afterwards, Patton went on to his greatest Triumphs, including relieving the 101st Airborne after the German's Malamedy Breakthrough. His book on Strategy is amongst the Greatest, and his two volume study of General William Tecumseh Sherman's battles, for which Liddell-Hart walked all of Sherman's Battlefields, was the definitive work. Sherman is the Third most Indispensable American, after George Washington and John Jay. Today's typical evaluation of John Jay, is due to George III, his worshipful friend, South Carolina Slaver Charles Pinckny and The Fellow Slavers Charles Pinckny lead. George III told Pinckny, never to allow Jay to become President, because Jay put in "Free The Slaves" in his first draft of "The United States Treaty of Independence of Paris of 1783," that Jay single handedly negotiated. George III stated that he had to take the "Free The Slaves" provision out, and that he,
    George III was stamping out Oxford Scholasticism-a tradition of Aristotle study dating back to the 1200s which inspired the American Founding Fathers, and advised Charles Pinckny to do likewise. Inorder to become President, Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party to preserve Slavery. Jefferson was not first to succumb to ambition, and will not be the last. Thus the U.S. Slavers replaced the Professors of Aristotle with the Neo-Platonist Plagiarist Official Philosopher of the Prussian Military Dictatorship, Imperial Germany, and Nazi Germany, Emmanuel Kant. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was plagarized from Emmanuel Swedenborg's "Heavenly Secrets (available online at the Baltimore Swedenborgian Church's Website. Charles Sanders Peirce read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," at age twelve in the Original German, and found it full of Irreconcilable Inconsistencies.


  • i don't think we, the readers, are equipped to come to any conclusion, opinions yes, we always have opinions. i will say, based on results the drones are a success stony, killing many of the bad guys while not putting our guys at risk. i have the greatest respect for our military and, i must say we should be careful with laymen making judgments


  • During Gulf War One, the military had to disable the GPS feature that deliberately made locations slightly incorrect and also had to go to Home Depot-type stores to buy enough GPS devices. Today, the high end retail cameras of Canon are the starting point for video and still imaging. Elsewhere, there is an article about military use of the iPhone. I once heard a presentation by the US pilot shot down in Bosnia who lived in bushes eating berries because his military-issue communications device did not have enough power: on eventually being rescued and returning to the carrier, his CO called his wife on a commercial cell phone, and he said he wished they issued him one of those. In other words, we commercial users may have better gear at retail than our military gets buying through the famous military procurement process. However, so do our opponents. It seems racist to assume that our extremist opponents only use rocks and sticks: seems to me they climb the learning curve at least as fast as we do -- cf the evolution of roadside bombs versus our "hillbilly armor" if you remember that one -- or, the tanks we are now making that are too big for Afghanistan villages and cowpaths.



    This device is the result of typical government contracting designed by a committee of bureaucrats who don't know what they're doing, funded by Congress with pieces and parts farmed out to friends and campaign contributors , influenced by government contractors and paid for by taxpayers. I know. I work for a government contractor. You can buy better technology at Radio Shack.



    Sometimes naively - then at other times: arrogantly - we continue to under-estimate this enemy's resolve!

    To continue to do so - IMHO - shall be at our own risk

    For example: Iran & ITS ALLIES - not all of those being solely in the Middle East - repeatedly demonstrated determination!

    Then whether we - AND OUR ALLIES in the Middle East - are properly planning "worst case scenarios" & options - whether 'diplomatic', economic and/or military!



    Well, why wasn't the feed encrypted? We have the largest government cryptological department in the world, so how did a two-bit militant gang get a laptop to monitor the footage from the world's most powerful air force?

    I can her pink slips being handed out to certain NSA cryptographers right now.


To add a comment please
Create an Account

Your real name is required
for commenting.

  • Clear
  • Post
Your Profile Here…

Set up your profile to connect with members of Journal Community.


Your Groups Here…

