Insurgents hack into U.S. Predator Drone feeds!

Revelations that Iraqi Shiite militants use cheap software available online to tap into live video feeds from Predator drones is just the latest indication of insurgents’ tech savvy – and ability to adapt to American military advances.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that militants used a $25.95 program called SkyGrabber – software meant to give users the ability to snatch music and videos that others are downloading – to see what the $4.5 million Predators flying over the region were sending back to US military command.

The insurgents weren’t able to hack into the Predator system or disrupt the video feeds, according to military officials. The Pentagon is now taking steps to encrypt the video recorded by the spy planes.

Drones have become a key tool in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – as well as counterterrorism operations in Pakistan and Somalia – because they can monitor targets for a long period of time and deploy missiles by remote, with pilots sitting in bases as far away as Arizona.

The tapping into the video feeds – which gives Iraqi militants valuable insights into the targets the US military is watching – is not the only reported flaw in the pricey US military fighting system. In a March 16 article, The New York Times reported that the controls in the Predator command centers were “clunky” as the “missile-firing button sits dangerously close to the switch that shuts off the plane’s engine.”

Many Predator drones have crashed in Iraq and Afghanistan and drone strikes in Pakistan that have led to civilian deaths have drawn sharp criticism. Despite this, Predators are part of a first wave of an increasingly-used technology.

But as US military technology advances, its enemies find innovative ways to keep up.

Insurgents in Iraq have long used the Internet in their fight against the Americans – not only to recruit new militants but also to quickly spread and distribute training manuals. Roadside bomb-makers adapted to US military detection methods by employing bigger bombs and deadlier explosively-formed penetrators, or EFPs. When it became difficult for male suicide bombers to get close to key targets, militants started deploying women who were less likely to be searched.

“If anything, I think the enemy, being smaller and less bureaucratic, tends to be more technologically agile than us," writes Thomas Ricks, the former Washington Post military reporter, on his national security blog. He writes of seeing solar collectors in an Al Qaeda command and control bunker in Afghanistan in 2001.

"From the wires I could see it looked to me like they used it to power their communications. Anyway, solar power sure beats carry hauling batteries up the pathways along those 10,000-foot-high razorback ridges,” he added.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal report suggests that military officials knew about the problem for years but "the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it."

In a 2007 USA Today article about the evolution of the improvised explosive device, or IED, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni reflected on the pace at which insurgents adapted in Iraq.

"This is the first war where we've faced an enemy that's adapted better than we have at a tactical and operational level.”


RELATED LINK

Black, silent, stealthy deadly and totally cool.

Here's a great post from military/aviation (and now Navy) historian and researcher Jim Goodall along with some amazing photos from where few outside the military have permission to go - inside a nuclear submarine.

All the following photos are copyright James Goodall and require permission for publication.

To one and all;

Its been a while since I last sent out a series of thumbs to do a "show and tell" to the world. Well this time it is not airplanes, but three of the Navy's four classes of Fast Attack subs. I had the honor and privilege to photograph inside and out on the USS Los Angeles SSN 688 and the named boat for the class. The USS Los Angeles had its very last patrol and is heading to LA for a de-commissioning ceremony and then off to Bremerton to be deactivated. It had only been in port one day when I had a chance to shot it.

The second sub was the USS Santa Fe, SSN 763, it too had just returned from patrol and it is what is referred to and an "I" boat or a 688(I). The "I" is for improved 688 with a number of changes in the inside and the bow planes moved from the "Fair-weather" to the bow of the boat and the addition of twelve vertical launch tubes for sending Tomahawks off to the "Bad Guys".

Finally the newest of the Navy's finest, the third Virginia class fast attack, the USS Hawaii SSN 776. What a boat in deed. About the same hull diameter as the LA class, but worlds apart as how its designed and lay out.

All in all I shot over five hundred images for an upcoming book and I head out to the USS Connecticut, SSN 22, this spring for a ride into its home port of Bremerton. Should be cool.

While in Hawaii, I did shoot the new Pacific Aviation Museum, at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor growing list of aircraft.....more on that later.

As I'm no longer a member of the Museum of Flight, I guess I will concentrate my efforts on subjects more to my liking. There is a remote possibility that I Will be relocating to Honolulu in the next 30 days if my expected job offer comes thru, More on that if it happens.

Cheers!

Jim!

Iran tests another ballistic missile.

Reporting from Tehran - Iranian authorities confronted their domestic and international rivals today, testing a high-speed missile and warning reformist opposition leaders that they had crossed the line.

The defense minister, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, lauded the successful test of an upgraded version of the Sejjil-II missile for "its remarkable speed in entering the atmosphere, its strong impact and its radar-evading covers" and for its quick launch time, state television reported.

Launch of the surface-to-surface missile and the speech by Vahdi were broadcast.

"In the name of Imam Hussein and the martyrs of Karbala, you shall initialize the launch," Vahidi said as the rocket took off, referring to one of Shiite Islam's most revered figures and his entourage. "God is great. God is great, God is great."

The two-stage, solid-fuel, medium-range Sejjil is considered more accurate than the liquid-fueled missiles Iran previously used. Iranian analysts say the upgraded version includes mobile launch platforms that make it difficult to target in airstrikes.

With a 1,200-mile range it can easily reach Iran's regional nemesis Israel. But Vahidi said that the missile, which he boasted had been designed and produced by Iranian military experts at his ministry's Aerospace Organization, was for the sole purpose of defending Iran.

"The missile test we observed today was only a link in our defense chain aimed at boosting our armed forces deterrence," he said. "Iran's missile capability is merely defensive and is to serve peace, stability and calm in the region. It will never be fired against any other country."

The West fears that Iran's push to master missile technology, coupled with its nuclear ambitions, is aimed at ultimately producing atomic weapons, which could further destabilize the Middle East and spur an arms race.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said the missile test today, amid stalled talks over Iran's nuclear program, "send the international community a very bad signal," according to Agence France-Presse.

"A test of this kind can only strengthen the international community's worries at a time that Iran is also developing a nuclear program with no identifiable civil objective, in violation of five United Nations Security Council resolutions," he said.

Boeing's Dreamliner makes maiden flight.

EVERETT, Wash.—Boeing Co.'s long-delayed 787 Dreamliner made its first flight Tuesday morning under cold, cloudy skies, a milestone for the company's marquee commercial-jetliner program, after more than two years of delays.

Boeing had been forced to scrap the first flight several times as it ran into costly design and manufacturing delays. Even on Tuesday, inclement weather and poor visibility had threatened to force another postponement. Each setback has cost the company dearly as it has had to pay penalties to its airline customers for delayed deliveries.

Boeing has staked the future of its commercial-airline business on the Dreamliner, which is considered the most sophisticated passenger plane ever built. Made of 50% carbon-fiber composite material, it is lighter than standard aircraft built of aluminum. Boeing says that will make the Dreamliner more efficient and durable.

The first Dreamliner test aircraft rolled down runway 34 Left at Paine Field at 10:28 a.m. and smoothly lifted off, heading north. Thousands of people, including hundreds of Boeing employees, plane enthusiasts and reporters, gathered at the airfield. The site also houses Boeing's wide-body jet factory, where the Dreamliners are assembled.

Though it was originally slated to fly in September 2007 with first deliveries scheduled for May of last year, Boeing struggled repeatedly to work out the kinks in the plane's cutting-edge design. The company also ran into problems with the Dreamliner's far-flung supply chain. Last fall, Boeing was hit by a two-month labor strike at its factory, adding to delays.

More press for "The Beast of Kandahar" UAV.

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
More information on the RQ-170 Sentinel at Aviation Week.

Creech Air Force Base's 30th Reconnaissance Squadron at the Tonopah Test Range is flying a remotely piloted aircraft, the RQ-170 Sentinel.
Graphic by Mike Johnson.

Its nickname is the "Beast of Kandahar," but the Air Force has officially dubbed it the RQ-170 Sentinel.

Whatever it is called in aviation or military circles, the Pentagon this month confirmed the existence of what experts are calling the latest addition to the Air Force's fleet of remotely piloted spy planes.

Like the much-publicized Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial systems, the Sentinel is home-based in Nevada and was probably tested at classified locations on the Nellis range, including Area 51, one private defense information expert said.

An Air Force spokesman said the Sentinel is being developed by Creech Air Force Base, specifically the base's 30th Reconnaissance Squadron at the Tonopah Test Range, about 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas. He said the squadron is part of the 432nd Wing at Creech, hub for the nation's remotely piloted military aircraft.

Andy Bourland, chief spokesman for the Air Force press desk at the Pentagon, declined to release photographs of the Sentinel or discuss anything beyond a four-sentence statement.

The statement reads in part that the Air Force "is developing a stealthy unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces."

"The RQ-170 Sentinel, a low observable UAS, was built by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs. The fielding of the RQ-170 aligns with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates' request for increased intelligence, surveillance and intelligence support to the Combatant Commanders and Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz's vision for an increased ... reliance on unmanned aircraft," Bourland's statement reads.

A story in the trade publication Aviation Week & Space Technology reported that the Sentinel has been flying classified missions over Afghanistan and was photographed twice in 2007 at Kandahar's airport.

Last April, the stealthy unmanned aircraft was referred to as the "Beast of Kandahar" in a defense technology blog by veteran black projects researcher Bill Sweetman.

Aviation Week's latest article describes the Sentinel as a "tailless flying wing" with a wingspan similar to that of the rear propeller-driven MQ-9 Reaper, which has a wingspan of 66 feet.

The Reaper is the big brother of the MQ-1 Predator, but with the laser-guided missiles that the Predator fires, the Reaper can drop laser-guided bombs.

Both are workhorses in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and are in high demand by battlefield commanders.

They can be controlled by pilots and sensor operators via satellite links from ground stations at Creech and bases elsewhere in the United States.

John Pike, the director of globalsecurity.org, a military information Web site, said the Sentinel appears to be powered by a single jet engine so that it can fly at high altitudes and monitor large areas.

Pike said Pentagon planners probably are taking the next logical step to equip the Sentinel or a plane like it with munitions.

"If there isn't already an armed version of it, you would assume there would be," Pike said in a telephone interview Monday.

Assuming the budget for classified projects is as big as it was during the 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative -- "Star Wars" -- era of the Reagan administration, Pike said, aeronautical engineers are probably busy developing an array of unmanned aircraft at the classified installation not far from Creech on the dry Groom Lake bed known as Area 51.

"I think Area 51 is crawling with them," he said.

The Sentinel appears to be a scaled- down version of the radar-evading B-2 Spirit bomber.

"It does look like the people who designed this have seen the stealth bomber somewhere along the line," Pike said.

As for incorporating a jet engine in the design, he said there's nothing particularly unique about unmanned platforms being jet-powered. Others include the RQ-3 DarkStar and the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

It would make sense, Pike said, to use the Sentinel for persistent surveillance, like a Predator that loiters out of sight, high above its targets, except the Sentinel would cover a wider area.

As such, the Sentinel, like the Reaper and the Predator, would be useful for tracking terrorists in Iraq who need sizable facilities to build roadside bombs that unleash explosive-shaped charges capable of piercing armor.

The Sentinel could serve as a regional surveillance system to cover potential terrorist activities in countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Somalia and Yemen.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.