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Live via Satellite: NATO Aerial Surveillance Video 188

Posted by michael from the run-another-T-1 dept.
Factomatic writes "The BBC is reporting 'NATO surveillance flights in the Balkans are beaming their pictures over an insecure satellite link - and anyone can tune in and watch their operations live.' All you need is a satellite dish. John Locker tapped into the NATO aerial surveillance feed over the Balkans from England and has been e-mailing, faxing and calling NATO since November to get them to fix the problem. NATO denies it is a problem at all. I wonder if this would work in Afghanistan, too?" No, the article notes that Afghanistan is taking up all the secure communications bandwidth, and operations in the Balkans are getting kicked over to unencrypted channels. We ran an older story about the military's growing bandwidth crunch.
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Live via Satellite: NATO Aerial Surveillance Video More

Live via Satellite: NATO Aerial Surveillance Video

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  • whahaa (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12, 2002 @11:04PM (#3691386)
    how long until somebody starts a webstream of this stuff? that'll beat webcams any day of the week.
    • fuck yeah... I'd give it about a week... somebody is now setting it up.....

    • Re:whahaa (Score:3, Funny)

      by zh3n ( 584662 )
      Now if they could just stream the audio from the special forces in the caves, we would be set. G.I. Joe - Hello arabs, all your cave are belong to us! Amir - What you say?
      G.I. Joe - Launch zig!

  • So? (Score:3, Funny)

    by NickRob ( 575331 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2002 @11:08PM (#3691412)
    It won't be on for long. It's ratings are horrible.

  • Maybe they don't care... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wadetemp ( 217315 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2002 @11:09PM (#3691415)
    ... because they're bogus feeds designed to throw someone off?

    • Re:Maybe they don't care... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Nah, truth is somebody in the military suddenly had to suddenly find a semi-plausible use for all those X10 spy cams he bought, since they were discovered before he managed to install them in the women's barracks.

      • First the barracks are coed
        second the when I was in the army there wasn't a handful of wome I wanted to see naked (shudder)
        Third In every barracks I ever lived in there was some sort of wierd jamming field in place that made it so that nothing wireless worked unless it was in the same room as the base. no radio, no pagers, no cordless phones, no....(etc)
    • Maybe this is the C-SPAN for the military. 24/7 surveillance footage of Eruope!
    • Maybe they don't care because the video they're showing just doesn't matter. I mean, what can people actually do with the data they get from pirating the video stream? In the Balkans? I mean really, who cares?
      • I mean, what can people actually do with the data they get from pirating the video stream?

        Yeah, really. I can see this now, little balkan 6 year olds telling their mothers "Look mommy I see daddy on top of that hill over there!! I don't think that it matters if whoever we're watching can see it on TV. They probably can see or hear the plane too.

  • Hmm... (Score:2, Redundant)

    by theRhinoceros ( 201323 )
    My question to NATO is: Why are any of the feeds not secure to begin with? Shouldn't all they have implemented all secure transmissions from the get-go?
  • At last, some real competition to Rupert Murdoch's crappy satellite-based PayTV service!

    Now if they can just get a good looking weather-babe the military might be on a winner here!

  • How hard can this be to fix? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2002 @11:20PM (#3691455)
    No, the article notes that Afghanistan is taking up all the secure communications bandwidth, and operations in the Balkans are getting kicked over to unencrypted channels.

    Surely they could buy a $1000 PC at each end and do:
    cat /dev/video_capture | mpeg_encode | unexportable_munition_software <secret-key> | /dev/satellite_modem

    and:
    cat /dev/satellite_modem | unexportable_munition_software <secret-key> | mpeg_decode | /dev/video_out

    • It is not as simple as you think

      The $1000 PC would need to be patched into (for example) the P-3's surveilance and comms circuits. It is quite likely that this would require non-trivial bespoke hardware, not to mention things like special power adapters, rack mounting, vibration and RF hardening and so on.

      For an unmanned drone, it is likely to be that much harder because of tight limits on available space and power.

    • err... Why are you piping to a device file?

      But I second your point. NATO and the US are not idiots and certainly know how to do digital transmission. I suspect this isn't a mere "oops" or lack of bandwidth problem. (They've known since before November. They won't admit to the press but Locker says they confirmed to him.) More likely the people in charge of operations in the Balkans have dropped down a few rungs on the political ladder. So when someone asks to use some of the secure bandwidth (because the US doesn't run it's communications like Pixelon and actually cares about image quality, unlike Real.) the powers that be say, "Oh, sorry. You can't have it. We need it all for Afghanistan et. al." They could share, of course, but they won't. This was the old administration's war. And second because it's not considered part of "the war on terror." Yes, I know, this is all utter bullshit; that's why they call it "politics." Which is too bad when one of these at-large "war criminals" realises that no one is breathing down his back anymore, and recruits a few mercenaries (who, ironically, could likely have been trained by al quaeda) and start causing trouble again.

    • If the military had to shift to commercial satellite space, then they're probably using a commercial uplink provider, transmitting analog or DVB signals. If that's the case than you can't encrypt anything until you spring maybe US$100K on hardware.
  • This story is also being reported in Thursday's Guardian:

    Now showing on satellite TV: secret American spy photos [guardian.co.uk]

  • encryption? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Patrick ( 530 )
    The primary purpose of encryption is to take insecure channels and turn them into secure channels. If the military has spare insecure satellite channels (or is using insecure civilian channels), why not layer an encrypted tunnel?

    Encryption is a munition, remember?

    --Patrick

    • Maybe because it costs money? If you watch the video, they are actually being sent from the Balkans to Virgnia securely, and then back to Europe so it can be watched by NATO people there via civilian satellite. They probably figure that if they were doing anything really important they could simply cut the feed to Europe, and that its not worth the money or time required to set up hardware encryption in BOTH europe and U.S., because they believe it to be a temporary sititution until the Afgan incursion blows over.
  • I taped that BBC interview and they had included the feeds in their little piece. Most of the footage seemed to be from an airplane looking at an acute angle downwards at road traffic like trucks - perhaps it was from a satellite but the camera seemed to move laterally in both directions. I've never seen a satellite feed but the shots seemed to come from a shaky airplane than a satellite in orbit. I have to admit I'm skeptical that these are true feeds. I honestly think it's misinformation. The quality of the footage was much better than the public ever sees in those press conferences, as if they were begging for the "enemy" to use the feeds. In fact, it seemed much better than the footage from helicopters during police chases. On second thought...maybe this is high quality military grade stuff:-)
  • At least they're voluntary. Anything vital is still secure. I mean who wants to watch the decimination of food to poor people? So what they'll show is some simple peacekeeping missions, nothing's in danger really. But really.. with the money we spend on them, they could stand to get some more secure channels.
    • I mean who wants to watch the decimination of food to poor people?

      I want to watch the decimation of food for poor people! "Hey, you look hungry their? Care for this steak dinner?" *BOOM* "Too bad, I made it go boom!" ha ha what a riot. truly this program would dissemenate yuks to the affluent like nothing else would.

  • Could it be... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mhrmnhrm ( 263196 )
    that because the Balkans are relatively "stable" now, that NATO just doesn't care if someone's watching? Milosevic is on trial in the Netherlands, there aren't mass riots against right-wing government candidtates (eg. LePen in France), and while their economy isn't anything near that of mainstream Europe, they're not starving in lines or causing problems, either (Even Quaddafi learned to keep quiet back in '86). Granted, this whole Afghanistan thing has got to be chewing up a lot of satellite space, but I really doubt it's eating *all* of it. Especially when you think about how many satellites are up there (Take the ones we know about, then double or triple to taste to count for the ones we don't)

  • ObMonty Python (Score:5, Funny)

    by Throatwarbler Mangro ( 584565 ) <delisle42 AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday June 12, 2002 @11:27PM (#3691483) Homepage
    Remember the Monty Python sketch with the television program that would show blackmail videos and only stop when the person in question called in and made a payment? Maybe something similar could work with love bomb feeds?

    "Ah, here's an interesting little number... This is a live feed from a 'bunker buster' bomb. If there's a Mr. S.H. of Baghdad listening, call now to pledge $50 million or this little beauty will turn up on the front steps of your presidential palace..."

    dan

    Of course, this could all be avoided if he knew "how not to be seen..."

  • Watch it on our daily news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sh0rtie ( 455432 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2002 @11:28PM (#3691489)

    The BBC is broadcasting the report on BBC News24 [bbc.co.uk]

    Live news stream here [bbc.co.uk]The report is being shown approx every hour

    I think someone is going to be in trouble
  • well doesn't matter if it's broadcast to the world if it's in real video format, i mean c'mon how much info can be gleamed from a 20 pixel by 20pixel box?

    • Well, once you have *regular* access to this imagery you can get the following information: - the type of aircraft being used to spy; - the locations of regular patrols, and the timing of ground surveillance and raids that accompany them - the resolution of the cameras being used, and their capacity for tracking individuals on the ground (in vehicles and on foot) Based on other information sources (like the real location of suspects in the war crimes tribunals), you can figure out how close they are to really arresting wanted criminals, and you might also be able to identify leakers within your own organization who are "queueing" the NATO surveillance and investigative resources. Because the imagery is also tagged by date and time, you are able to correlate surveillanec patterns with public statements by NATO officials about likely arrest targets. This is just a start. If I thought about it, I am sure I could think of some *real* intelligence value in these pictures. Someone should be fired over this snafu. Unbelievable! D
  • It's that old butter versus weapons argument again. Now let's see if the military needs bandwidth or anything else and I have to forgo in order for them to go... then I forgo. The US military didn't purchase their bandwidth from Enron did they?
  • And what did the evil dewers say when they were able to tap into this? All your base are belong to us!
  • That's what they get for using WEP...
  • "Gee, Bob, ever since we started streaming those NATO satellite images over the web, our traffic has increased over 700%!"

    "Hmm, looks like most of the traffic is coming from... Afghanistan, Serbia, Somalia, and Pakistan. In fact, that's where *all* of the traffic is coming from. What do you think it means, Phil?"

    *Phil suddenly turns very pale and starts shaking and sweating*

    "I ..uh... think it means we'd better buy up m..m..mmore bandwidth... and pray the website doesn't go down."

  • We ran an older story about the military's growing bandwidth crunch.

    I guess if you get drafted it gives new meaning to the phrase "Will work for bandwidth?" [thinkgeek.com]

  • The military usually encrypt everything (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kajota ( 70074 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @12:16AM (#3691648) Homepage
    I worked in satellite communications in the army for 8 years. This story is hard to believe. Everything I worked on in the Army was encrypted up to 3 different times before it was transmitted to the satellite. Even GI's phone calls to their wifes were encrypted. There was an bulk encryption stage after the voice to digital encoding/multiplexing. This stream was fed into a data multiplexer and multiplexed with incoming data circuits. The output of that multiplexer was encyrpted again. The other incoming data circuits were probably already encrypted when they got to us. This is all before anything is modulated so it's not like they can't encrypt the data because they are using civilian satellites.

    It's either counter-intelligence stuff or just real stupid.

    • Re:The military usually encrypt everything (Score:4, Informative)

      by Raindeer ( 104129 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @02:12AM (#3691967) Homepage Journal
      I know it is hard to believe if you've worked in the military and know what is possible, but this one is really true. If you look at the .ram-movie it becomes clear that everything is encrypted untill it reaches virginia, then it gets beamed back to the intelligence community in Europe over a public sattelite with no encryption. I saw the tv-program and they had this American officer working for NATO, who kept answering that it since it went over the public broadcasting system it was unclassified and therefore wouldn't be of use to enemies of NATO. This is ofcourse the other way round. If his reasoning was correct we would also be allowed to watch life footage from Afghanistan. Better yet, why go through the trouble of encrypting it when it leaves the plane, if it can be seen within a minute from the sattelite. Another gentleman from the Pentagon was kind enough to say that they were looking into securing this information again. :-)

    • Notice that this is NATO as opposed to the US.

      You're correct, the US military does encrypt virtually all of its communications.

      Video feeds require high speed encryptors becasue of the bandwidth involved. Its likely there were insufficient devices necessary to equip all the forces so they defaulted to an insecure mode. Much of the US crypto gear is US-only and not releaseable even to NATO nations.
    • Everything I worked on in the Army was encrypted up to 3 different times before it was transmitted to the satellite.

      It looks like it was encrypted on the way to the US, but unencrypted when sent back to NATO in Europe. I think the problem is that the recipients in England (or wherever) don't have TEDs that use DES, so rather than try to get them one, someone in the US made the decision to just transmit in the clear.

      Probably a civilian.
    • The key in this application is that the data has to be shared with all the NATO nations participating in the operation (is it still called the "Nato Stabilization Force"??)

      All these nations do not necessarily have interoperable crypto systems. You also only have a limited amount of bandwidth on the NATO/DSCS birds. Add in a very broad interest community of all the rear command centers of involved units and their own national command structures. Now you've got a very interesting problem.

      Very likely the video is coming back from Bosnia over an encrypted military channel to an uplink station in Europe. One of the features of the DBS signals is that everything on one transponder carrier has to be uplinked by the same station.

      One of the best ways to get this data out to all the interested parties is to run it out over an open channel. It requires digital service so its a bit harder to find than most.

      There is another very interesting possibity in the story. During Operation Joint Endeavor they had problems with various groups refusing to admit they had military equipment in certain areas when the US/NATA told them to move it. The US got a much better response when the parties were shown pictures of their equipment through AH-64 Apache gun sight cameras. It seems something about the cross-hair centered on their non-existent (according to them) BMP/BDRM2/SA6/etc convinced them it would be a good idea to leave the area.

      This is a long way of saying the NATO probably wants folks to see it. If they know they are being watched perhaps they won't cause as much trouble.
  • I've got a C-band dish... so where can these feeds be found? W4/24? C7/8?

    • Re:So what satellite? (Score:3, Informative)

      by dcm1101 ( 71726 )
      According to the Guardian article, it's on Telstar 11 - which is a Ku only bird. Check the footprint [loralskynet.com] to see if you are in the beam. Plus, of course, you'll need a Ku LNB.

      • Figures. I think I've finally found a good use for our old satellite dish now that we've got one of those little digital satellite dishes, and I find out T11 is a Ku satellite. I wonder if it's too late to try to talk my dad into getting the Ku band add-on package.


        On a slightly off-topic note, the only thing I miss about our old C-band dish was the wildfeeds back in the day. Fox not airing the game you want to see in your area? No problem. Tune to T6 (or whatever satellite they used) and flip around on the channels until you find the right game. Going out of town next week and going to miss the new episode of ST:TNG (yeah, this was a while ago)? Simply pick up your sat guide and find out where and when the wildfeed will air and watch the new episode as it's beamed out to all the local affiliates. I guess the old C-band satellite dishes did have a few uses.

  • So where's the NATO Wish List?

    I wanna see the good stuff.

  • I think the government should pass a law that good folks who point out security vulnerabilities in the government's stuff get a huge reward... I'm talking something in the seven digit range, not including decimal places. It would be an amount like 3,001,526.72. (Kind of like the $271 fine for running a red light--why 271, as opposed to a round number?) Then, if you suggest how they might fix the problem, you get another 5 million or so (or a lifetime supply of Negra Modelo, at your option), even if they don't take your suggestion. And furthermore, if the vulnerability isn't fixed within 24 hours, you get an additional 10 million or so, and written permission to f*ck with the systems that contain the vulnerability, as a punishment to the government for its negligence.

    Hey, the government punishes people when they do stuff against the government. It should punish itself for doing stuff against the people. That's only fair. This program would be given a short and coherent name like the the Government Computer Systems Security and Vulnerability Repair and Rewards Act.

    Oooooooooooooooh well.

    • Hey, the government punishes people when they do stuff against the government. It should punish itself for doing stuff against the people

      I think you're more than a little confused. It's not possible to punish the government.

      If you try and inflict a fiscal penalty -- the money doesn't come from "the government" it comes from YOU -- the taxpayer!

      Remember, bureaucrats have an incredible ability to accept bouquets whenever they're passing by -- but pass on brickbats to whoever is too slow to avoid them.

      • Your argument that the government can't pay a penalty to the people because the money comes from the people is a valid one.

        In that case, I propose a better solution: This is a way to actually fine the government, for a poor job even though the government gets its money from the people. It's very simple. If the government wrongs you in any way, a really hefty sum of cash money is hand-delivered to you within 24 hours of your request. (In addition to other things, the government would impose published time limits on itself to complete every process it takes upon itself, regardless of what it is, eliminating the all-too-common cases when government tells you, "it'll be done when it'll be done; don't call us, we'll call you." When the government exceeds its time limit, it pays you a pretty hefty sum for each day overdue.)

        Where does this money come from? The amount of money the government loses through the fines it pays will be paid for by the people who caused the problem in the first place: The people of the government, whether they're employees, elected officials, or whatever. The amount spent in fines will be computed so that an equal percentage is deducted from each official's or employee's pay. Suppose the government loses 320,000,000 dollars in fines it pays in one year, and it's computed to be 18.92% of what it pays its employees. (I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass... they aren't real-world values in any sense.) Every government employee and official would subsequently lose 18.92% of their pay. This way, government penalties on itself won't be paid with taxpayer dollars. They'll be paid by the employees who cause the penalties in the first place, and those employees who earn more will lose more from this process.

        If you think this is a bit unfair to the government employees, the same system described above would provide means for folks to donate money to the government when they feel the government has done an exceptionally good job at something. This money would be split according to the same methods and to the same people who lose when the government pays a penalty. (Yeah, I know nobody will actually donate, but the system would be in place.)

        What does this solve? Government employees often treat people with contempt. This system gives government employees and officials a really damn good incentive to do an exceptional job, if only because they'll be punished personally when they screw you over.

  • An acquaintence in NASA once told me all of the satellites he's worked on for NASA (3 of them at the time) were controlled via unencrypted communications. They felt secure with this "security through obscurity" because it's a little harder to actually transmit the commands up to the satellite than it is to simply put up a BUD and start listening to all the data streams out there.
  • Might this not be NATO trying to get into the entertainment industry?

    (after all, how else can new members pay for their new defense expenditures?)

    .
  • My hotel in Bangalore has the "worldwide" CNN and BBCNews, but they both loop after about an hour. I've seen this story about three times now with live footage. The worst part is that the footage also contains the aircraft's location. It's just silly that the live footage isn't encrypted at all. I mean, how hard could it be?

  • Maybe it really is not a problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Adam J. Richter ( 17693 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @01:03AM (#3691800)
    Maybe it is to NATO's advantage that this information is public. NATO countries often disagree on Balkan politicies and try to put different political spins on the reliability of information driving these decisions. Plus, others may believe that the information that they're getting about the Balkans is being filtered in some politically-oriented way. By being public about this relatively innocuous data, it makes NATO come off as presenting "just the facts", avoid creating some other little opportunities for member countries to argue about what the facts are, and eliminates some politics about which photos to release.

    Of course, if it started to look like fighting was imminent, and the short term knowledge of what NATO saw or missed during yesterday's flight becomes dangerous information, then I would expect then I would expect NATO to secure the video feed, or perhaps even at any point when a few more fighting words than usual were emerging from Serbia.

  • What VCD group is encoding and releasing this? What's the quality? It's not on vcdquality.com for some reason.
  • So far I think Bush has done a good job on the American side of things when it comes to this current war on terrorism. He is keeping all live feeds out of the loop and not letting anyone know what is going to happen next which was his fathers mistake during Desert Storm.

    Sun Tzu preached in all his teachings about war, that knowing your enemey and knowing yourself would result in countless victories. Yet these teachings seems to have been disregarded over the course of 2000 years. They are still legitimate.

    If there is the potential of a leak or a security hole, there should be no denial of it but an active investigation on to why it is allowing this to happen. It is the equivalent to having a security hole in your OS yet denying its existence yet it seems to be getting taken advantage of. It is slow death. You can't let the enemy know what you are doing.

    This just seems like a hard story to believe yet if true is beyond silly. Oh well, I am not a military leader, I just base this off common sense and a few books. (i.e. Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Art of War II)

  • A little recipe (Score:2, Informative)

    by animah ( 578561 )
    Satellites broadcast to anyone on their path, so anyone with a small budget and some spare time can toy around with them -but crypto is the hard part.

    A beginner's shopping list:
    - A PC-controlled ICOM PCR-1000 SSB receiver ($300)
    - A turnstile or better, double-helix antenna ($150)
    - Satellite tracking software to know when to listen (eg NovaWin from Northern Lights Software, $60)
    - Frequency lists, grab them on the web.

    Plug the receiver's audio out into your soundcard's audio in, and voila ! save transmissions as .wav for processing.

    http://www.gravitywell.org/ is a good example.

    Have fun!
    Denis the menace
    The Goelette Project [nomad-mail.com]

  • Its a 3rd party contractor from Florida. (Score:5, Informative)

    by sh0rtie ( 455432 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @01:16AM (#3691835)

    The video or though not visible on the streamcast but visible on my TV (BBC) are overlayed with a fine transparent Airscan [airscan.com] text logo which a quick google turned turned up a "Airborne Surveillance Security" company based in Murrell Road, Rockledge, FLorida

    presumably its their equipment/responsibility/fault as they seem to be a 3rd party contractor for the US Army/Security, below is taken from their About page [airscan.com]
    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

    AirScan was created in 1989 to provide airborne surveillance security for US Air Force launch facilities. During seven years of surveillance missions, AirScan supported every mission on time. AirScan has in-depth knowledge of the space launch program and the vital service airborne surveillance provides in supporting this program. Sensor aircraft equipped with infrared, TV, LIDAR, and multispectral and hyperspectral sensors operated by experienced crews using innovative tactics combine to form a responsive, dedicated airborne surveillance operation. The result is proven capability based on operational expertise, thorough planning, and carefully chosen mission objectives.

    Over the years, AirScan has greatly expanded its capabilities to perform a wide range of airborne surveillance missions. We are currently conducting surveillance and remote sensing missions in Africa, Europe, and throughout the US in support of diverse governmental and private projects. We also remain under contract to NASA and the US Air Force in support of the space and missile programs. AirScan is under contract to the National Response Corporation to respond to any major oil spill in US inland or coastal waters. We also conduct maritime surveillance, ground security, wildlife surveys, research and development, and aircraft modifications and systems integration.
    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

    So is this their fault or the Armys or both ?
  • was here [freeserve.co.uk] Google's Cache is still here. [216.239.51.100]
  • "secure communications bandwidth" "getting kicked over to unencrypted channels."
    Since we are talking about communication over the air, it is done at one frequency or another. How can one frequency/channel be more secure than any other? If they have filled up all bandwidth at one frequency with secured comms from Afghanistan, why don't they use another frequency for the Balkan stuff where they also encrypt the communications?
    It makes absolutely no sense to talk about "secure communications bandwidth".

  • Not *strictly* true (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    According to the guy they interviewed last night about this (someone from the US army), the planes send their surveillance to a ground station, which then sends the data to Virginia (?) via an encrypted link. The surveillance footage is analysed in Virginia, and then anything rated unclassified is sent back unencrypted; the implication being that anything rated classified is sent back encrypted.

    Since (I guess) anything rated unclassified is probably available to anyone anyway, this means that this whole story is a storm in a teacup.

  • No suprises there then!
    Previously in the Balkans, the Uk troops couldn't afford encrypted radios. The soultion to this was to employ troops from one on the Welsh regements as radio operators. They chatted away in the Welsh language as a means of "security".

    Thus, the fact that NATO can't set up a secure sattelite link dosn't suprise me in the least!

    • This isn't any different than the Americans using the native Cherokee language during WW2 to throw off the Germans :)
      • It was the Navaho, and they were used in the Pacific theater, not Europe. Their language is particular problematic to translate or learn.

        "The Code Book" by Simon Singh has a good chapter about this.

        I believe the Cherokee were considered but not used. The need in the Pacific theater was primarily for extremely rapid encryption of transmissions by forward air controllers for strikes, and for whatever reason this was not a tactical need in the European theater.

  • It's A Honey Pot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lethyos ( 408045 ) on Thursday June 13, 2002 @07:55AM (#3692698) Journal
    They are letting us see the Balkans so that people are less interested in seeing what's going on in Afghanistan. They've set up a honey pot. Or at the very least, they really want to hide what's going on in Afghanistan. I wonder what they consider the security threat model to be from a bunch of desert nomads with a lot of plastique and too much time on their hands?
  • Yeah, so let's help them out with that bandwidth crunch by /.ing their servers... :)
  • Nato broadcasting this stuff in the clear is proof that military intelligence is a contradiction. Their claim that the footage shows nothing the enemy can use is the kind of arrogance that causes the west to get caught with it's pants down every time terrorists strike.
  • Check this out: http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID =189&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

    This site has stills and videos. Unfortunately I cannot get the videos to work. Looks like they may be some kind of Windows Media Player format :(

    --Jon
  • Think about it. What better way to keep the peace than to prove that you're watching?

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