Quote:
Originally Posted by mg1942
From what little I know about the Predators... The RAW video was broadcast out from the aircraft as an open source feed. It was a downlink ONLY, meaning a person can only receive the signal. 0% chance of sending anything back on that feed into the aircraft. All flight control feeds are sent and received via either satellite link, or UHF radio link, and those are secured by a 256bit data encryption algorithm in addition to the specialized crypto equipment that the 256bit algorithm is loaded into. The crypto gear takes that 256bit algorithm and further scrabbles it.
Now before anyone says, "Well they could get their hands on the equipment and codes." military crypto gear and codes are a controlled items that are required to be inventoried at a minimum once every 24 hours. Also those codes require 2 people to be present when removed from the safe to load into the crypto, and both people have to sign off on the inventory sheet as having removed those codes and returning them. The physical security for those types of things is pretty damn high for the obvious reason.
That being said, the terrorists and rouge states can get all the equipment they want to try and hack into those data links but unless they have the specific crypto gear used on the aircraft programed to the same specifications plus the 256bit code key, they've got nothing but a pile of high end electronic hardware. Even if they had just one piece of the puzzle, it gets them nowhere, and those codes change all the time so even if they were able to break the 256 bit code, by the time they figured it out, the code is no longer being used.
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Still when there is a really strong jammer it will not be controlable, hence there usually is a predefined return route - but in that special case SaintessHeart was talking about it did not return. Safety is only as safe as its weakest link in a chain of security meassures. Now I could imagine there was a major error in the software or hardware, however its nothing the enemy could have taken advantage of then.
I think in an evironment with asymetric warfare (and vast amounts of space and possible hideout places), the unmanned (little) drones are the most useful tools when it comes to recon and covered target engagement (assassination operations).