William "Chops" Westfield wrote:

>>> But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to
>>> exploit it, the officials said." 
>>> 
>>> Unbelievable.
> 
> I dunno. 
> 
> First, the article I read said that all the insurgents had done was
> access the broadcast video, which is a pretty long way from "hacking"
> in my dictionary. 
> 
> Second, it implied that the software/equipment to do this was
> something you could buy "off the shelf" these days, which was assumed
> to be what had been done.

Exactly... I can't speak for Vitaliy, but what I find unbelievable is
that the Pentagon assumed that "local adversaries" (i.e. people outside
the USA) are generally to dumb to do this, and that they were surprised
to find that they weren't.

Such unbelievable miscalculations apparently don't happen only with
unencrypted drone video feeds.

> Buying a police scanner doesn't translate to knowing how to exploit  
> and hack the police radio system...

Of course not. But what would you think of a police officer who thought
that listening to (unencrypted) police radio was too high-tech for
criminals and that normal police radio was safe? "Unbelievable?" :)

Gerhard
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist