Dropsafe

by Alec Muffett

TIL Encryption systems are (or were) *heavy* – really heavy. Must have been all those One-Time Pads.

…and that’s why terrorists could snoop Predator video feeds:

There were reasons for this. The original Predator, just 27 feet long, was little more than a scaled-up model plane with an 85-horsepower engine. It had a payload of just half a ton for all its fuel, cameras and radios. And encryption systems can be heavy. (Big crypto boxes are a major reason the Army’s futuristic universal radio ended up being too bulky for combat, for example.) With the early Predator models, the Air Force made the conscious decision to leave off the crypto.

via Most U.S. Drones Openly Broadcast Secret Video Feeds | Danger Room | Wired.com.

⊞

Comments

2 responses to “TIL Encryption systems are (or were) *heavy* – really heavy. Must have been all those One-Time Pads.”

  1. Dave Walker

    …or all that potting compound ;-).

    The mini-CATAPAN’s nice and small, although I haven’t hefted one – but it only got its approval last year, so it wouldn’t have been on the menu for the original Predator. Other units (on the civilian market, at least) don’t seem designed with portability particularly in mind, although if you don’t need to go above CONFIDENTIAL, you could squeeze an X-Kryptor Lite into one of many likely spaces in a car…

    Reply
    1. alecm

      That’s one of those compliance-and-arse-covering things though; if you’re less worried about other peoples’ approval it’s astonishing what you can put into an operating system nowadays.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts