At least for this website it isn't your data but it is their data.
They are backing up their curated photos (which seems to pretty much be the whole business as they say in the article).
It appears they are using Akamai services to server their images so hopefully their is some extra redundancy there already.
Other than that it seems like it would be a steal to use s3 as a backup system at this point because from this article it looks like they need to hire another employee to tell them why this backup solution seems a bit silly (I mean having trouble setting up the hardware).
You can never know what the company executives or managers might be getting up to, so -- as basic risk management -- you should prepare for catastrophic events.
For amazon cloudfront at the most expensive tier it buys close to 42 GB but then there would be no profit in sending the file 34 times (someone said it was a 1.2 GB file).
It makes sense to me why he is only allowing a few downloads otherwise a few extreme users could take up all his money just by streaming.
Which was strictly the video feed from the first generation predator drones. If you look into the linked USAF docs, you'll see the actual telemetry and control channels are encrypted.
Wired is about as reliable about security reporting as Fox News is about the DNC. They know their audience, and want to sell eyeballs.
I am not sure how exactly I would do it, but my first approach would probably be almost purely mechanic.
Lets assume the drone is more or less blind to whatever happens above it as most of its sensors are pointed down and being stealth reduces its need to be aware of other planes (and forbids active radar). It should be feasible to approach it without being noticed and somehow entangling it (a net?) on its return flight, slowing it down (a parachute) until it runs out of fuel, and do it while jamming its communications so its owners won't have a clue of what's going on.
I think the worst problem is detecting it in the first place.
I'd expect it to be easier with a jet engine than propellers? Just use a steel cable net. Speaking of which, maybe if you use a close-mesh metallic net (maybe in addition to a coarse one for trapping), you'd break its uplink without any need for active electronic warfare?
All you'd have to do is to damage the propeller. A jet engine would probably run until there is no more fuel. I don't know how they did it, but, with the right incentive, any reasonably clever engineer would manage to do it.
It's a very unfortunate mistake to underestimate your opponents enough to give them your secret stealth drone.
The WP is a much more responsible and accurate article than Wired's sensational summary -- the salient points there are "Video is unencrypted", "Pentagon has tolerated this for years" and "Predator."
Getting back to the actual focus of my comment -- the original article leaps to "obviously, the Iranians have broken our encrypted controls" from an Iranian press release, without bothering to give even speculative support. I consider it far more plausible that something simpler has happened, such as dumb old software failure, or GPS spoofing.
It is immature it is dumb but I can tell you this there are plenty of college kids that would live for games like this.
Drinking is immensely popular in many colleges and drinking games are one of the most common forms of college drinking (see beer pong and others).
The real problem is that their really isn't a shop that wants to carry a game like this I would think if there were a novelty shop it might be the best bet (maybe spencer's gifts style) it is just there are so few of these kind of shops that the market reach for this kind of game is limited.
