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Australia Cracked US Combat Aircraft Codes
SpamSlapper writes "Former defense minister Kim Beazley has told how Australia cracked top-secret American combat aircraft codes in the 1980s to enable the shooting down of enemy aircraft. The radar on Australia's US-made Hornets could not identify most potentially hostile aircraft in the region — they were set up for European threats — but despite many requests, the codes were not provided, so 'In the end we spied on them and we extracted the codes ourselves.' The Americans knew what the Australians were doing and were intrigued by the progress they made."
"Austria" is a friendly OPEC member.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Whoever arranged the procurement of those aircraft in the first place wasn't terribly smart. Who would spend Millions of AU$'s on something that in effect doesn't work, and not just some feature is missing, but the primary use of the thing is impaired, oh and the supplier wont help. As for cracking the codes, when can we expect the Australians to release the cracks? I hate the fact I cant use the F18 I bought on Ebay to shoot down Asia Pacific Rim based Aircraft..
Former defense minister. It's easy to be forgotten if you're too quiet.
Back on topic, this is what you got for not using open source aircrafts.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The Americans kept saying they'd provide the codes, but never did. Pictures tall kid dangling candy over another kids head. "Here you go" kid jumps... "Sucker..." "Here you go!" kid jumps again... "Sucker..."
Infiltrated dot Net
does the DMCA apply retroactively? If so, then Australia can never step foot in the US again.
Well, keep in mind that there was a huge Aussie fad in America in the mid-late 80's. We were ALL surprised at how much progress they made at the time. If it hadn't been for the unfortunate "Yahoo Serious" setback in 1988, who knows what they could have ultimately done.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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So did they managed to crack the codes or did they spy on the US and somehow obtain the codes? I read TFA and still can't figure out which.
I expect it was they cracked the codes as seeing as "Americans knew what the Australians were doing and were intrigued by the progress they made.". I don't imagine the seppos would feel "intrigued" about being spied on.
'In the end we spied on them and we extracted the codes ourselves.'
This is a massive violation of human rights. The US DOD has many Australians in it, who may have therefore been spied on by the Australian government without a warrant. Therefore Australia is a police state.
"Oh look at them, they're trying to crack our codes..."
"Oh look, they're actually succeeding. How intriguing!"
"Hey, wait a sec, they're pointing those missiles at use. I continue to be intrigued!"
The timing is not important - the story was told in Parliament as part of his farewell speech.
Kim Beazley, former opposition leader (crude US translation - Minority Leader combined with non-incumbent party presidential candidate) is retiring from politics, and with an election due soon, today was the last day parliament would be sitting before the election. This made today the last time he'll set foot in the parliament as a member of the House of Reps (hence farewell speeches containing a lot of retrospectives). During his time, he was Defense Minister when Labor was last in power (the party / coalition with the most seats in the House of Reps).
because at the time, all Australian aircraft fuel was under seige by Lord Humongous in the desert, and Crocodile Dundee was MIA on a walkabout
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This reminds me of news reports about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It's meant to replace the F-16 and also be available for export to allied nations starting with the UK. Unfortunately for the potential buyers, the US government wasn't offering to share all the technical details and source code that our allies would need to fully operate and maintain the aircraft. With a quick Google search I just found this article from last year saying the US and UK came to an agreement, don't know what's happened since then. I vaguely remember the Royal Air Force and Navy threatened to cancel their orders and just buy Eurofighter Typhoons instead.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f35-jsf-program-us-uk-reach-technology-transfer-agreement-02495/Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
I actually RTFA and there is not information on how the Australians cracked the codes, how they spied on the Americans or how the Americans knew about this and why it was so intriguing.
It was to answer those questions that I actually read TFA, so tell me, what use is TFA without the answer to those questions?
Though this information has only been released 20 years later, you can bet that any country buying export aircraft from another is going to have their people make adjustments to both the airframe and electronics (including software) to suit their pupose. No one is going to pay a barrel of money for aircraft and not adapt them for their needs. They are also not going to say what they did (for a long while) as that info will no doubt be classified. Ditto the originating country's aircraft will have features that are not exported for the same reasons.
whoooooooooooooooooooosh! did i just see something pass overhead?
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
no, I don't think this is a type. Search for somone and u will see that somone is often requested to fix things in numberable fields. Somone is quite smart, so I would be satisfied outsmarting somone. 138,000 search results on google and I am only now hearing of somone. Unbelievable!
When all else fails, try.
I think the post meant to say "Impotence" - the inability to shoot when desired.
Car analogies break down.
I'd say you owe us at least a couple slabs of VBs!
(Floating around the net :^)
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.