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."

Comments

Fortunately for America...

[Dystopian Rebel]

"Austria" is a friendly OPEC member.

Re:Fortunately for America...

[Ajehals]

I just read your post (after posting my own) and had a sudden heart stopping moment that I had read Austria as Australia, as a Brit I assume that would be unforgivable, after all everyone knows that those Australians in their leather pants and kiwi accents are totally different from the BBQ obsessed, Cricket incompetent Austrians.

Re:Fortunately for America...

[Scrameustache]

as a Brit [...] Cricket incompetent Austrians. To be fair, cricket is a made up sport without any real rules that the British and their colonies play in order to confuse outsiders.

We're on to you...

Re:Fortunately for America...

[phoenixwade]

Australian's have ozzie accents :) After thinking long and hard on this, I realized that none of the Aussie's i've met sounded like they were in the middle of a two week drug binge.

Re:Fortunately for America...

[kalirion]

To be fair, cricket is a made up sport without any real rules that the British and their colonies play in order to confuse outsiders.

If only you knew the true horrors of the origins of cricket..... That's one reason the rest of the universe looks down on humans. To make a game based on the Krikkit Wars.....

Re:Fortunately for America...

[IngramJames]

You're half right.

Actually, cricket is an excuse to lie in the sun all day drinking beer while watching other people do gentle excerise. The rules are there so that anyone who questions what you're doing will eventually give up and go away by the time you're explaining the rule for Leg Before Wicket - if not sooner. Anyone who has taken the time to learn the rules enjoys lazing in the sunshine, so you're safe from them.

The only flaw in this otherwise superb idea is that Britain doesn't actually get any sunshine.

Procurement

[Ajehals]

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..

Re:Procurement

[gardyloo]

It's OK --- DVD John will get that sorted out in a few days.

Re:Procurement

[westlake]

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

There are export controls on military hardware and crypto. News at eleven. You buy the plane. You adapt it to your needs.

Re:Procurement

[t123]

This is the Australian defence force we're talking about, the one that spent AU$1 billion on helicopters for the navy that don't:

1. Fly at night
2. Fly in bad weather
3. Fly over water

Re:Procurement

[Xiaran]

I suspect Australia(disclaimer Im Australian) thought that as the US and Australia are very close allies the USAF might give us the ability to use the aircraft we purchased. But hey we followed the US into Iraq so what the hell do we know :)

Re:Procurement

[Protonk]

Read the original comment:

The export restrictions on military hardware doesn't just stop Joe Shmoe from buying an F-18. It helps to create an entire bureaucracy around the sale of same items. Let's take an example of something that isn't strictly military, but dual-use.

Hughes aircraft puts up a satellite on a Chinese launch vehicle (rocket) because it is cheaper than the US alternative and the launch window is more favorable (only so many launch vehicles fly at any given time). Rocket blows up in the air. Hughes aircraft gives the Chinese some pointers in ground control as to what caused the failure and how to avoid it in the future. partially becausee the ground operators were just THERE, partially because Hughes wants to put other satellites up later on the same kind of vehicle, and they don't want a 120 million dollar fireball for their efforts.

OOPS. Turns out that that 'advice' improved a dual use technology, and that the State Department (and Congress, blah, blah) wasn't too happy about it.

How did we figure out which bits of information were allowed or forbidden? It isn't just as simple as "are you an ally? Are you buying our stuff? Ok, go nuts." there is a complex (read: clumsy) enforcement scheme designed to stop information from leaving US borders. We all know this as what stopped cryptosystems from being exported--even though they weren't military-created or robust in any way.

Export enforcement schemes are complex and unwieldy. There is a strong incentive to streamline these restrictions (from Defense Corporations), but also strong incentives to strengthen them (From organizations like the state dept, the NSA, and from Congresscritters who get elected by raising up bogeymen).

Re:hm

[biocute]

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.

Understandable

[A beautiful mind]

Mr Beazley said the Americans knew what the Australians were doing and were intrigued by the progress they made.

So, we knew that they knew that we cracked the aircraft codes. But did they know that we knew that they knew? It also begs for the question that if they did, did we know that they knew that we knew that they knew?

Cartoony image

[packetmon]

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..."

Just wondering...

[corser]

does the DMCA apply retroactively? If so, then Australia can never step foot in the US again.

We were ALL impressed

[elrous0]

The Americans knew what the Australians were doing and were intrigued by the progress they made.

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.

Here is the secret code

[Seumas]

Up
Up
Down
Down
Left
Right
Left
Right
B
A
START

Intrigued?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"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!"

Re:Impotance?

[vlchung]

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).

the USA didn't do anything about it

[circletimessquare]

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

Happening again with the F-35?

[aktzin]

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/

Re:.. And as usual..

[skyshard]

whoooooooooooooooooooosh! did i just see something pass overhead?

Re:Thrilling story

[Xtense]

Outsmarting somone is enormously satisfying. If this is true, then you won't mind me being satisfied over nitpicking a typo, eh? :)

Re:Thrilling story

[irtza]

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!

Re:Impotance?

[ZuluZero]

I think the post meant to say "Impotence" - the inability to shoot when desired.

Re:.. And as usual..

[internewt]

whoooooooooooooooooooosh! did i just see something pass overhead? Yeah, a hornet with crippled radar ;)

Re:Cricket Rules

[Mikkeles]

Here you go:

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he is out. When they are all out, the side that's been out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out, he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who are all out all the time, and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

(Floating around the net :^)