The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have figured out a way to “hack” the live video feeds of Predator drones.

In fact, there was nothing to hack.

Apparently, whomever created the Predator drones and wrote their software assumed the insurgents wouldn’t check the communications networks. Because they decided not to encrypt video feeds, leaving their entire intelligence gathering open to anyone with a satellite dish.

In this information age, encryption is becoming more and more important. Everything of any sensitivity needs to be encrypted. As we’ve seen with the Predator drones, millions of dollars on intelligence are wasted, if any schmuck with a satellite dish and a receiver can pick it up.

This software, which allows insurgents to download streams of Predator drones, was originally written to download music illegally. Skygrabber was written to hijack other people’s internet connections over satellite. And so, any unencrypted communication over satellite is downloadable, and more importantly, undetectable.

As private citizens, we need to become more encryption savvy. It’s up to us to know what’s encrypted, and what’s not. Because we now live in an age where the bad comment can come back to bite us thirty years down the road. Everything is being recorded online, somewhere. And it will be analyzed, if it is not encrypted.

More photos and insight available at JDHodges.