The Western military has run out of bandwidth on their own spy satellites. That鈥檚 why widely available satellite TV equipment can be used to tune into military broadcasts.
Satellite industry insiders say they are not surprised at the recent well-publicised security breach involving high-definition video feeds from NATO spyplanes flying over Bosnia. The signals were picked up from a commercial television satellite, and as the military sends increasing amounts of electronic traffic, it is being forced to make increasing use of such satellites.
Chris Forrester, editor of industry newsletter Satcoms Insider, warns that there are likely to be many more pictures like the ones from the Balkans being broadcast by commercial satellites. 鈥淭he military has a huge bandwidth shortfall in its own secure military satellites,鈥� he says. 鈥淪erving the military in space is now big business for the satellite operators, whether it鈥檚 for telemedicine, non-sensitive battlefield logistics or multichannel TV to soldiers and sailors.鈥� He says the Pentagon rents about 10 per cent of the global capacity from two major commercial satellite operators, Intelsat and SES GE Americom.
Advertisement
What astonishes the experts is that the military is still failing to use the widely available encryption technologies used to scramble consumer pay-TV channels or cellphone links. Geoff Bains, editor of London-based What Satellite TV magazine, which was the first to reveal the existence of the Bosnia broadcasts in April, says a simple 1-metre dish is enough to pick up the forces鈥� digital signals, so encryption should be essential at all times.