Trojan Kill Switches In Military Technology

Nrbelex writes "The New York Times reports in this week's Science section that hardware and software trojan kill switches in military devices are an increasing concern, and may have already been used. 'A 2007 Israeli Air Force attack on a suspected, partly-constructed Syrian nuclear reactor led to speculation about why the Syrian air defense system did not respond to the Israeli aircraft. Accounts of the event initially indicated that sophisticated jamming technology was used to blind the radars. Last December, however, a report in an American technical publication, IEEE Spectrum, cited a European industry source in raising the possibility that the Israelis might have used a built-in kill switch to shut down the radars. Separately, an American semiconductor industry executive said in an interview that he had direct knowledge of the operation and that the technology for disabling the radars was supplied by Americans to the Israeli electronic intelligence agency, Unit 8200.'"

Comments

Syria, you morons

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what you get for not building the hardware yourself. We on the other hand have been intelligent enough not to outsource our industries to foreign countr... Doh.

Outsourcing

[whisper_jeff]

You get what you deserve when you outsource...

Seriously, I understand the cost benefits of going with the lowest quote and all but sometimes it's best to keep things "in house" to ensure quality and accountability. And that applies to companies all the way up to governments. In this case, when dealing with national defense, it especially applies to governments...

Don't buy weapons from your enemies?

[Seth Kriticos]

Seriously, if you are going to wage war, it is a very bad idea to buy non trivial weapons systems from your enemy or his allies. Actually it's a bad idea to buy it from anyone that is not 100% on your side. Best would be to build it yourself.

Those amateur war mongering folks down there. Still don't think that anyone is learning out of it, I mean, where are the chips for NATO equipment come from? Oh yea, who manufactures them cheapest. How does this make sense in the context?

Syrians have U.S. military hardware ?

[ivan_w]

Does that mean that the U.S. provided *Syria* with sensitive military hardware (ok.. with built-in kill switches) ?

If they didn't then it's not a kill switch and the U.S. simply provided their Israeli allies with electronic warfare technologies.

It was my understanding that syrian military hardware was russian based anyway..

So I'm not sure I understand the whole thing..

--Ivan

Re:Syrians have U.S. military hardware ?

[ElectricTurtle]

Maybe some of the US hardware from Iran during the Shah era has flowed to Syria? That's the thing with military hardware, once you sell it to somebody, there's very little you can do to keep them from passing it to somebody else. In that context, kill switches are genius (assuming the 'enemy' doesn't hack your Gibson).

Riiight

[Culture20]

I'm not usually a fan of conspiracy theories, but "signals to turn off radar" seems more like a coverup to protect the Mossad agents who really turned off the radar. You can theoretically only use a kill signal like that once, but Mossad agents are much more versatile.

Re:Lesson learned?

[OzPeter]

Dont buy important technology from foreign countries, do it yourself. Especially if you ever under any way, shape or form could cross paths with said foreign country.

And in TFA they say that only 20% of chips are manufactured in the US - so that makes it kinda hard not to buy goods from foreign countries.

However what you are suggesting is that 100% of goods used by the US military should be made in the US - and that might be a good reason in itself as that would certainly stimulate the US economy

Semiconductor Executive Should Be Investigated

[fwr]

So there's a semiconductor executive that is talking about classified information in an interview? His/Her clearance should be revoked, at least temporarily, until an investigation can be performed to determine whether any laws were broken, and how long the executive should serve.

uhh...Russian technology

[Nidi62]

How do Israelis manage to build in kill switches on technology developed in Russia and provided to Syria through Iran? That would involve some deep penetration, which I doubt even the Israelis can do. The Russian did pretty much invent counterespionage, after all.

Re:Open Source

[tibman]

I'm sure the EE guys who built the Syrian's air defense system thought the same way as you. "I'll use all this great off-the-shelf tech, it's just so easy". Ohhh, it had a backdoor in the hardware... damn.

I do get what you're saying, but i think it applies differently to platforms of war. When your opponent owns the companies that built half the parts for your weapon systems... can you really trust them?

I have no doubt you could build some nifty weapons to seige a neighbor with but not a local government. The bomb techs would have analyzed the debris and come up with a short list for an investigator to pin down.

One of my fav military techs is round return radar... even though it is simple and old. There's nothing like hearing outgoing fire before the first incoming round hits!

Re:Open Source

[Cyberax]

Yes, toy rockets won't be reliable. Yes, they'll often fail. Yes, it's hard to scale the production.

But they're more than enough for one-off operations like assassinations or terror acts.

Re:Open Source

[2obvious4u]

I think you missed the point. Yes military grade guidance systems that are accurate to with 1 meter and travel 500 miles are very advanced and a hobbyist couldn't build that from hobby store parts. However, if your goal is to indiscriminatingly kill people it is very easy to do with off the shelf components, if you are so inclined.

Another thing you are forgetting is that we built atomic bombs with minimal computing power. The first computers had trouble doing ballistic tables. Now you could make ballistics tables as an iPhone app. The level of information processing available to the public is staggering. There really isn't much that an individual so inclined couldn't produce.

Re:Open Source

[kent_eh]

Ummm. I think you guys are trying to make slightly different points.

The parent was (I think) trying to refute the "you need secret stuff to build a machine that kills people" type claim.
Which in no way contradicts your experience based statement, which I interpret as: "you really do need lots of advanced hi-tech to build an accurate, advanced, effective killing machine"