Via Danger Room:
Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach
The 5GWish money quote:
If you think militants are going to be content to just observe spy drone feeds, it’s time to reconsider. “Folks are not merely going to listen/watch what we do when they intercept the feeds, but also start to conduct ‘battles of persuasion’; that is, hacking with the intent to disrupt or change the content, or even ‘persuade’ the system to do their own bidding,” Peter Singer, author of Wired for War, tells Danger Room.
This has long been the nightmare scenario within Pentagon cybersecurity circles: a hacker not looking to take down the military grid, but to exploit it for his own purposes. How does a soldier trust an order, if he doesn’t know who else is listening - or who gave the order, in the first place? “For a sophisticated adversary, it’s to his advantage to keep your network up and running. He can learn what you know. He can cause confusion, delay your response times - and shape your actions,” says one Defense Department cybersecurity official tells Danger Room.
These are just the sort of systemic vulnerabilities that 5GW actors seek to exploit.
My rough conception of 5GW (from readings on this site and elsewhere in the milieu) had me immediately thinking that the manipulation here is with the feeds. E.g. system administrators intentionally establishing what would (eventually) be perceived as a vulnerability, and then publicly dismissing the degree/severity of the information "breach". Implying that it's not a big deal and won't need to be systemically addressed any time soon is one way to encourage the feed captures. Questions: if the "actual" encrypted feeds to exist, to the opponents already know this or not? what advantage(s) do the sys admins gain from having the feeds intercepted in the clear?
I'm just conceptually vamping here ("go meta" on the perceived vulnerability-exploit lifecycle); I actually know nothing about SATCOM etc, and know only a little about software systems.
Moon,
It would seem there are at least two 5GW-worthy aspects being considered.
I think you are contemplating the possibility of "fake feeds" being fed to AQ/Taliban or others who think they have hacked into the feed?
But then there is Arherring's pointing out the Danger Room quote. There, general doubt about the reliability of ANY communications via satellite, etc., might make for problems on the battlefield but only if those on the battlefield have such doubts; if they do not, they could believe whatever they are seeing is actual when it's not. (This incidentally is related to the general human tendency toward naive realism.)
So does it become a cat-and-mouse game: Who's fooling whom?
And of course, a 3rd 5GW-worthy aspect that should be considered in this case: Russia is the source of the program used to intercept those feeds, and it's being sold to whoever wants it.
Wasn't thinking of outright fake feeds, but just throwaway / filler feeds of some fashion (lesser resolutions, incomplete timeframe captures, etc.) Once that channel is established as a believable vulnerability, it's used for incremental misdirection.
Regarding reliability of SATCOM, I really couldn't say (not even close to my field). Am only speculating that additional media of transmission may be how the real data are pushed. The assumption here is also that UAV comm systems are closed-source and secure, which isn't an airtight assumption, of course.
Yes, who's the cat, and who's the mouse? Nested Boyd Cycles.
Riveting notion to digest re: Russian Skygrabber source code.
Very easy here to get into wheels-within-wheels thinking.
According to the article, the feeds from the drones are not, and were never intended to be, encrypted. True, this might in itself be misinformation and for whatever reason we have been tipping our hand to our enemy for a long time now but Mr. Occam (that 5GWers ally and accomplice) says that this is probably exactly what it seems to be and we will at some point be encrypting the feeds.
The key point is this: Your OODA cycle is only as good as the information that you gather to feed into it. At the point where that information has the potential to be manipulated in order to affect the target is the point where 5GW enters into the equation.
Has this type of manipulation been around forever? Sure. Has it been systematically explored to its fullest potential? Of course not. That's why 5GW and the systematic study of 5GW theory as a tool for conflict bridges the gap between war and politics.
Arherring,
I was, in general, using this as a metaphor and potential example rather than referring to this actual set of circumstances. OTOH, there I go assuming that this "actual set of circumstances" is actually what it appears on the surface....
I think that 5GW, for the 5GWer, always enters into the equation. At the very least,
Moon,
I do suppose that "incremental misdirection" is more likely to be the case. If the misdirection is extreme, then the target is going to realize this very quickly; the 5GWer will be outed, or at least lose the mechanism via which he would manipulate his target.
Ah yes this is a type of system that would be exploited. Weather threw manipulation or taking over control for a piece, in a larger act being played out. The military had unsecure feeds and multiple sources intercepted them. The real question is, Is their a 3rd party manipulating different groups with similar interests, or under a umbrella topic/ideology? Who told or let those groups go to the right signal/net spot at the right time? Or where those groups just manipulated from yet another 3rd party?
Though I liked the idea of intercepting and rebroadcasting on the fly live digital video manipulation and using the bot drones for other offensive or psychological mind molding techniques. A deception and confusion, before the war storm front hits. That is if it was a state run type opp.. If it was a smaller body it might go for a psychological approach of molding a longer larger picture. I would also state that most country military computer systems are riddled with holes, and any system with less than 56K encryption keys can be cracked in less than 24 Hours, thanks to some cool D-wave math. That's about 20+ pages of txt. for a key, or as I put it to others so they can realize how easy a 56k key is to remember. Think of a book that you know by heart so to say. I give the example of the first 20+ pages of Alice in wonder land and instead of spaces, use pi equation instead of spaces, Or use lyrics to a favorite album or 2. As you see 56k entry keys can easily be done and remembered for a greater security. The other part to it would be multi layered security/barrier levels, or encryption protocols. Also using encryption protocol that roll, or change within cretin variants or deviant value. Oh and yes security is a cat and mouse game. The military and some other security systems need more mouse traps and false data and video feeds, but even that stuff can be filtered out and circumvented.
This is so scary. These kind of confidential matters should be very secretly and securly keept. The authorities should mane sure that no one is tampering with the data.