Oh, for-fuck's-sake!!!

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Iraq insurgents 'hack into video feeds from US drones'

[klr]

...
The hacking was possible because the remotely flown planes have an unprotected communications link.
...
The unnamed official said the US defence department had addressed the issue by working to encrypt all video feeds provided by drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
...

Why the fuck weren't they encrypted to industrial strength as a matter of course?

Of course, the irony is that the problem came to light because (in all likelihood) the insurgent wasn't up to speed on security protocols himself.

[Pappa]

...
The hacking was possible because the remotely flown planes have an unprotected communications link.
...
The unnamed official said the US defence department had addressed the issue by working to encrypt all video feeds provided by drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
...

Why the fuck weren't they encrypted to industrial strength as a matter of course?

Of course, the irony is that the problem came to light because (in all likelihood) the insurgent wasn't up to speed on security protocols himself.

They probably just assumed illiterate goat herders aren't able to intercept this kind of stuff.

[AshtonBlack]

That'll teach them. On a side note, predator's bandwidth requirements are immense already, not to mention it has to be a lossless stream and have >250ms latency. (That's the time it take for a packet to go from the ground to the sat, and to the drone.) Adding an encryption layer will reduce performance. I think an upgrade will be in order! Kerching for General Atomics!!! (Pretty safe bet that the requirements documents for RQ-1 made no mention of link security, otherwise, GA would be in the shit.)

Link security is "what I duz"