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Iranian TV Shows Downed US Drone
First time accepted submitter loic_2003 writes "Iranian TV has broadcast footage of an advanced U.S. drone aircraft that Tehran says it brought down using electronic methods to override its controls. The BBC's James Reynolds watched the footage and said the fact that the drone appeared undamaged provided some evidence to support Tehran's version of events. The film was captioned 'RQ170 — advanced U.S. spy plane' and carried on the Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 channel."
There is nothing more dangerous to a drone than a TV show.
Doh
They have anti-aircraft TV shows? We're screwed.
Gotta love those great photoshop-jobs they have hanging up.
It's always confirmation bias!
...then I took an arrow to the knee
is the drone is apparently made entirely of cheese. not only is it good for espionage work, it tastes delicious on crackers!
UPDATE: Iranian TV has upgraded their broadcast footage to FIVE (*very* similarly damaged) advanced U.S. drone aircraft.
I mean given that hobby R/C work pretty much the same way, just way smaller scale, who would have thought that you could override a remote signal.
I guess the suits in Washington never had a hobby otherwise they would know this.
Next they will want to put weapons on them cause they could never be taken control.... never mind.
Now I already realize these things must have some kind of scrambled frequency, but still generate enough interference and you have a drone.
...someone stole your sweetroll.
So they shot it out of the sky, and it doesn't have a single scratch on it?
I dunno why, but when I heard "drone" I thought of something smaller and less conspicuous. This thing's easily 4 meters across.
hooray human shields
stuxnet 2.0 / trojan horse?
Trojan horse implied by the submitter's use of the trojan helmet?
I hope that part at least is fake or that is seriously sad security measures in place for an automated weapon platform.
I seem to recall reading that the communications to the drones are largely unencrypted for some unknown reason, so if that's the case, I could see someone overriding the controls and bringing down the plane.
It seems very unlikely that an uncontrolled aircraft would come down in one piece, yet the US claims that the drone in Iran's possession is one they lost control and track of. The idea that the US could lose track of a piece of technology that size with all their spy satellites and spy planes doesn't seem very likely to me, further lending credence to Iran's story.
Methinks the US may have been caught red-handed spying on Iran. It's not a surprise that they would be doing so, but it is very surprising that they've been sloppy enough to get caught.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I was hoping this would turn out to be bs. I guess they've claimed to have shot down our stuff before and never produced any evidence.
I guess it's a little irrational but I don't mind keeping an eye on them from space... but flying aircraft over a nation like that is asking for trouble. You can only use, "It veered off course" so many times. I mean, especially from the same folks that can put a missile through your bedroom window from a couple thousand miles away.
Captured US Drone Destroyed By US Drone Strike in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Story title is
'Iranian TV Shows Downed US Drone'
closely followed by this
'Ask Slashdot: Is Your Data Safe In the Cloud?..'
Data? maybe, dinky wee spyplanes? apparently not...need heavier cloud cover, maybe?
also amusing: 'captcha' thingie is Bumbler...apposite apropos the controller of this beastie...
Would it give Iran any great insight into US technology? Or anything of that nature?
I like how they hang American flags with white skulls instead of stars beneath it as well as graffiti covering them. Real mature. Sort of makes me want to photoshop their flag with the tulip being one person stoning another person while blood drips down into the bottom band.
So you've downed a pristine intact drone from your mortal enemy. Do you A) keep it secret to have an upper hand and send it to a lab to analyze all of its weaknesses and offer this information to your allies or B) take pictures in front of it with propaganda surrounding it and show the world? Well, I guess when you don't know how to do A you have to go with B!
My work here is dung.
Honestly a drone takeover requires you to be above it. They get control from satellites and AWAC's that are flying ABOVE Them. they do not get controls from ground based transmitters. Plus how did they get their hands on the C&C protocols?
IF they did this, then the USA military electronics is a complete and utter joke. But right now I'm claiming that it glided into the sandy wasteland after it had a failure and they found it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not surprised really. Well, a little surprised it has taken this long for something like this to happen given the leaks about how poorly encrypted (or not encrypted) the control channels are on these things.
I am a USA citizen, but I am really kinda glad they have it and hope they do share the tech with everybody. I think UAVs just serve to further insulate soldiers from the violence of war and make war crimes WAY too easy. If everybody has these little gadgets, then it levels the battlefield a bit as it were.
Just FYI, most other reports are saying that the United States acknowledges this the only incredulity surrounds how the drone went down -- not whether it was there or not. US says technical malfunction. Iran says Allah helped them hack it and control it themselves.
My work here is dung.
Despite extensive covering on the underside, to me it looks TOO fresh and undamaged. It doesn't look used at all
I think this is a mold reproduction of whatever they did get, faired out the damaged areas, swapped over a few parts and the paint is is still wet. There is nothing underneath it, its just a surface shell that looks right.
Is it just me or does this look a few steps away from Skynet?
If you override or jam the control frequencies, doesn't it just become an unguided flying object? My (very limited) experience with R/C flying indicates that usually results in a crash landing. I realize the drones will have some internal stabilizing circuitry, but shouldn't it fly until it runs out of fuel or hits something? The undamaged appearance would seem to indicate that they either took over the controls or faked the whole thing.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Just a thought, but could this have been stolen from an air base in Iraq / Afghanistan? It would explain the lack of damage.
If by "offend," you mean "possibly start a fucking war by sending U.S. troops into Iran, all for the sake of a lousy drone" then yes.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What you call "offend" would more commonly be understood as war. I'm going to guess it was the President's decision not to engage in a war against Iran.
"Tehran says it brought down using electronic methods to override its controls" Hey now. Espionage and sabotage are one thing, but that might be a DMCA violation!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Wouldn't you expect that n hours after failing to receive commands, and if no coded 'safe' key input, a self-destruct system would trip in? Check that thing for ticking, guys; remember HMS Campbeltown!
But they didn't want to "Invade" Iran. Yet. [According to a report in the Wall Street Journal].
I think we all know who made that decision.
FTFY.
I think we all know who made that decision.
Someone smart enough not to get into a shooting war with Iran?
Why don't we put explosives in these things with different conditions on detonation (lack of signal for a certain amount of time, receipt of encrypted detonation signal, unauthorized opening of the drone, etc)?
"Are they made from real Girl Scouts?" ~Wednesday Addams
This is scary that the US control system is able to be taken over. You would think they would have more security than RC channel 5.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Yeah Obama's such a pussy, not wanting to invade a sovereign nation the US is already on bad terms with just to pick up a crashed drone that has no bleeding-edge tech on board.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
When this story first broke, it was cited as response to an American act of aggression. Now we hear that they overrode communications and forced the drone to land. At the very least, the latter seems to me to be something that you'd have to be well prepared to do, in advance. So perhaps the drone was deliberately encroaching on Iranian airspace, but they must have been patiently waiting for their opportunity to pounce.
It's also possible that the drone was patrolling the border from inside Iraq or Afghanistan, and Iran sent radio waves across the border to make the intercept. That's unknown. But by pateience and pouncing or by cross-border override, in either case it seems to me that they've given up the right to shriek in righteous indignation about being violated. The proper response to "Oh No!! Our airspace is being violated!!" would have been to shoot the thing down. There's an air of deliberation here that doesn't square.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
They got bought. Can you still trust them?
Yeah it's quite possible they jammed the signal and the drone failed un-gracefully (maybe started circling and was low on fuel), but if this was actually taken over then it was designed by morons.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
But right now I'm claiming that it glided into the sandy wasteland after it had a failure and they found it.
For a recon platform, that's a pretty crappy fail safe mode.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
I'd like to agree with you on this, but unfortunately, this thing appears to be a flying wing. And if I remember correctly, flying wings don't glide very well without control. Also, given enough power a ground based transmitter will have no problem over powering a satellite signal.
How do you expect to get modded up with a sane and rational comment like that?
When the initial drone story broke, I was highly dubious and anticipated Photoshopped aircraft parts.
Then the U.S. denied anything had happened. Then they said they had lost control of a drone and it had veered int Iranian airspace prior to crashing. All the while, Iran claimed to have brought it down, under their control and in tact.
Today, with the release of this video, it does indeed seem that Iran is telling the truth in this case. That's a major blow to the U.S. and its drone program.
The only question is, assuming that Iran is correct, why did they take so long to release the video?
The NYT article, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/world/middleeast/iran-shows-us-drone-on-tv-and-lodges-a-protest.html?hp , says the drone operates at "50,000 feet, far higher than most aircraft can fly." A quick Google has AWACS planes topping out at 40,000.
Would it give Iran any great insight into US technology? Or anything of that nature?
Intelligence agencies think that China has been providing a lot of technical assistance to Iran (as well as other nations). The Iranians have some experience reverse engineering older, simpler aircraft (Their Saeqeh fighter is a virtual clone of Northrop's F-5. The only visual difference is twin vertical stabilizers), but no one thinks the Iranians have any experience with things like shaping, radar-absorbent coatings, or composite structures.
No, on something like an RQ-170... which is state of the art stuff... they're probably going to need Chinese help. China has a lot of advanced US tech already (recall the F-35 tech that fell into their hands), and is working on actual stealth aircraft themselves.
I seriously doubt the Iranians brought the drone down with "cyber-warfare". Witness how they were absolutely owned with the virus in their nuclear facilities. It was probably a malfunction on the part of the drone that brought it down, but regardless, the technology is almost certainly going to be in Chinese hands soon. Maybe that's for the best, in a perverse way, as USAF puts entirely too much reliance on stealth technology (when there are much, much cheaper ways to counter that technology in combat). Perhaps the US will start to build fighters with traditional fighter attributes again, and ones that don't cost $150 million+ apiece. I'm not quite in the Pierre Sprey absolute-minimalist school of fighter design (Pierre thinks that things like radar are a bad idea), but I do think we should build military aircraft that are affordable enough (and more reliable) to buy in large quantities. 183 air superiority fighters... no matter how good they may be... ain't gonna get it. But when 5 fighters cost you over a billion bucks, right off the production line, well... that's all you're going to get.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The mock American flag with skulls in the blue field in place of stars. Entertaining.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
AFAIK, when drones are landing they receive commands from ground crews because things like wind shear need to be accounted for with responses faster than the time it takes to communicate with satellites (that takes a couple hundred milliseconds).
That's plausible, but it doesn't seem wise to me to show their hand like this. A hack like this a one-shot deal -- you know the US will switch up protection on the remote link if you reveal this drone capture. If you have the capability to commandeer enemy drones, wouldn't it be more prudent to have it up your sleeve for when you can disable/commandeer an entire fleet coming at you? If the story is indeed true then it seems Iran just traded a serious battlefield advantage for some political one-upmanship. At best this would delay a future drone incursion by a few weeks for the newer firmware to be uploaded.
This story is really strange to me and I have a sinking feeling that what we've seen in the media isn't even close to the entire picture.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
The reason they conceal the bottom of the drone could be that they want to keep secret how they acquired the drone. My wild guess is that they dropped a kind of dragnet over the aircraft. The dragnet is attached to a set of parachutes, which will slow down the aircraft and make it sink slowly to the ground. Think this is a wild theory ? Then think about how America captured photo capsules dropped from satellites mid-air over the pacific with modified C130s.
The whole point of drones are that they're disposable and don't put a pilot/crew at risk. It's impressive if they forced it down via electronic countermeasures or similar. Otherwise, congrats, Iran just got a really nifty model airplane.
bah.
Isreal +1 Dude where did those centrifuges go? Destroyed with some iranian porn on a usb.
Iran +1 Dude where did your multimillion dollar drone go? Brought down with a trip to radio shack.
America -1. Head of the strategic cyber command former f16 pilot and still trying to figure out how to use those inter nets. Oh shit.
Well ladies and gentlemen. They best upgrade the RC controls from windows ME to something that works.
Probably just transmitted large amounts of interfering noise in the same spectrum as the C&C.
Or a large pulse of high power microwave radiation, enough to cause circuit damage.
However, we also don't know if there really is any bleeding-edge tech on board. Granted there is a whole lot of nothing being said about it, but other than it kind of looking like a B2 which implies that there might be some low profile capability to it (likely nothing that isn't already known) nobody has actually produced any proof that it has bleeding-edge tech on board.
We will probably never know how the plane came down - unless some new Manning leaks the info to us: US gov won't admit anything - and all Iranian 'proof' is subject to doubt...
Assuming the worst: the control channel was hacked and the drone was guided down - would involve immense sophistication even with assuming they've cracked all security features in the system - you'd still need to reverse-engineer the protocols, plan and test the attack mode, and execute it in the right signal-environment - not to mention build a working replica of the guidance platform and human interface control and train someone to pilot the thing down.
Something like this would need superior surveillance over a long period - outside help would probably help a lot: Russian signal intelligence satellites, combined with Chinese cyber experts most likely - already the intel community is speculating that the Russian and the Chinese are the real end-customer here for this 'delivery'.
Someone here mentioned a previous intercept of a video feed from a US drone over Irak: that was intercepted between a relay and unencrypted satellite link - not the drone and ground-station. Any modern military tech can't possibly use an unencrypted control channel in the battle field these days!?!
Someone else mentioned that the control signal comes from above: satellite or AWACS aircraft - and shouldn't be able to be intercepted from a ground station. Well, that's all relative if its simply a matter of signal strength. And who sais the intercept came from down below - both R and C have satellites above...
The only fact we know about the drone guidance system is what the US military told us: in the event of lost communication the drone should return automatically back to base.
Now we can speculate how that guidance logic would work: if it is like the one on current smaller Israeli drones for example - it is simply a GPS-autopilot back to home co-ordinates - which is subject to false/spoofed GPS signal that the Iranians could've subjected the drone to - GPS signal is notoriously weak, even with upward pointing antennas it might be overridden from ground - and then you'd only have to drown out the control signal to make the drone go into autopilot mode, and land the thing in the false co-ordinates provided by the ground signal. The Iranians surely know where the home base was so it would be simple matter of shifting the reference coordinates to their own airfield or landing area in the desert...
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
Given their earlier shenanigans with photoshopped rocket launching pictures and oil drums welded together to look like antiaircraft missiles, which is more likely in your mind:
Looking for a job in Portland, Oregon?
So how long until another unneeded war begins? I'm placing my bets on next year around election cycle. The democans/republicrats like to trade off in 8 year cycles, so I foresee action taken in either Iran or Syria in the next 8-10 months, if not sooner. Americans rally behind the war and patriotism and fear of the word nuclear; Obama and his buddies get another 4 years of cronyism to the max and the republicrats step back into office to do the same thing, just flashing the other side of the same coin to give the illusion of 'our change is different than his change'.
Vote incumbents out. Vote 3rd party. Doing so is better than not. The mainstream dogs Ron Paul for his foreign policy, but I've got to say that it seems all other options we've been trying haven't yielded great results and are only cartwheeling America further into debt and enlarging the complex.
Here come the political down-mods!
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The most belligerent country for the last 60 years has been the United States Of America.
There's no way, even if it flat-spinned in, that it landed intact (unless it has some sort of parachute recovery system). Also, (I'd like to think that) there's no way that they could take over the control system.
That's not a real drone. It's just some mold. You can see the imperfections in the curves in the video. Looks like someone just carved it. Also, the grate on the intake has imperfections as well.
So many slashtards. So gullible.
It seems that RQ-170s are based at Creech AFB. It's possible Iran have retailiated for stuxnet. I would be surprised if those toys would require external input to fly their mission, jamming it's signal should not bring it down (I hope....). Imo it indicates it had more than likely been re-programmed (it did not appear to have crashed).
Curious that this is a stealth drone that Iran managed to "detect". Someone on their payroll?
Warning! Pure conjecture on display.
BM3
Yeah, whatever happened to self-destruct mechanisms? ...or maybe that would constitute an aggressive detonation of a munition on enemy soil, with the potential for casualties (civilian or military) and an international incident?
Totally, even more likely though the plane didn't even fail, it "failed". Meaning the government wanted it to fail, wanted to have it captured, wanted us to believe Iran is evil, and wanted another bogus media trampling of Iran so they will have more support to go to war with Iran when the time comes. FALSE FLAG!
Other sources have indicated that the RC-170 has a 'fly home and land if lost' mode. If maybe simply that the Iranians confused it's GPS or for whatever reason the plane decided to land, thinking mommy would come pick it up soon. Instead, it turns out to be the Big Bad Wolf (or it's really one hell of a Trojan).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
i see the chinese offering money for the drone
The chassis is covered by flags, I think it and the bottom side of the plane got damaged during the landing.
This is flagrant violation of drone rights by wrong coloured humans!
__
L.
Remember a month ago it hit the news that the drone testing facility in California had a virus and malware that the government couldn't remove? Programs were loaded from thumb drives?
So if Israel or the US can make Stuxnet to infliltrate their nuclear facilities what makes you think the Iranians didn't do the same with US technology and reverse the protocol? Or simply they infected the drones computer with a rootkit and as soon as the computer heard a signal it disabled the US's subroutines in it and turned them into zombies.
My guess is the Iranians/Russians were responsible and simply remoted into the aircrafts computer and landed it in Iran. This is troubling as Israel and the US would surely use these drones before the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities begen very soon.
http://saveie6.com/
If your engine cuts out, there's not much else you can do.
The US flies lots of these things all the time. One had to have a critical failure and go down sometime.
This aircraft is probably chock-full of latest-generation receivers and signal processors which were used to spy on Iranian electronic emissions. And full of cutting-edge software used to analyze complex signals coming from their S-300 and S-400 missile systems amongst many other stuff. An F15 probably would be a much less sophisticated loss. Your reasoning is quite wrong.
The revolution failed.
The US military is pulling out of Iraq.
The propaganda "Iran is a terrorist" is ramping up. Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iran.
UN resolutions to fill the requisite paperwork so it's all "legal".
Economic sanctions on major exports.
There have been softening up attacks on the defences and other strategic targets.
All that's left to do really is have some "event" which will be seen as an act of war on the part of Iran as justification. Some Arch Duke Ferdinand.
Deleted
Yeah such a pussy.
Never mind the US has a good probability of having a repeat of 2008 thanks to irresponsible spending from wars and a bloated military budget and the fact we funded Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Would do you suggest? Bombing a foreign country? Yeah I am sure there will not be any repurcussions or a call for sanctions agaisnt the US from all muslim countries, Russia, China, and Syria. If anything the people will rally in support of the nuclear bomb and view it neccessary to anhiliate Israel and bomb US cities before they bomb us, etc.
It is not that simple and besides even if you do bomb it enough material from the skin will still give the Iranians knowledge of how it works and how to amke their own stealth nuclear missles anyway.
http://saveie6.com/
Not true. I don't know about this particular model, but I do know that many drones use line-of-sight ground-based control stations.
So, did anybody believe the US military when they they announced (after a leak to the media) that they were deploying a brand-new stealth aircraft in Afghanistan just to monitor an enemy with no radar facilities?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Honestly a drone takeover requires you to be above it. They get control from satellites and AWAC's that are flying ABOVE Them.
Well, "at higher altitude" doesn't necessary equate with "above". What if, instead of jamming the control signal, the Iranians jammed the GPS signal?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I've retired my tin foil, but stories like these make me want to pick up some more from the store. I wouldn't rule out your conjecture in the least.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The first thing that crossed my mind was not that they downed it, but wow, the Chinese will be begging to see this thing. Can you imagine this new multi million pound drown, crammed with the most high tech remote control systems and nav systems around in the Chinse hands? Iran needs friends too...
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
Nice, I enjoyed your input and would agree with you. "It just doesn't add up". Honestly the way I see it, if "I" were in charge of a way to capture one of the most sophisticated spy equipment that the CIA has. I wouldn't try to "out smart it" by jamming it or cracking the it. I would just figure out that these things are probably slow due to it's ability to stabilize as a "wing" object, figure out the max speed and turning G's then create a bunch of rockets built to outrun and "capture" it by using some sort of primitive harsh net with parachutes. Outsmarting the CIA isn't the way to go. Usually simple and cheap is the best way to go so you might as well go cheap and go rough if your going to play dirty!
I like to call this "Ohkams rockets".
So I am asking all you nerds out there if you were to design a way to bring down the most sophisticated remote controlled spy plane how would you do it? Jam it? Shoot it? Hack it? Or force it to watch fox news until it becomes stupid enough to land on an enemy airstrip?
Looking at it http://www.suasnews.com/2011/12/10488/fear-of-iran-makes-us-abort-covert-plan-to-retrieve-spy-drone/ it really does not look real. It also took a couple of days to come to light. My money is on a Predator or Reaper being the downed aircraft, but I stand to be corrected. Just look at the wing joiner, its horrid.
It probably should have a flag in the nav program that indicates whether it is in hostile territory or not.
Then, if it loses control and GPS signals, go into safe mode, and once fuel gets low, attempts either a soft landing or self-destruct depending on whether it thinks it's in danger of capture.
Also, couldn't it generate a return to home heading at each waypoint? Hell, simply reversing course might be enough to head away from jamming until it can re-establish control.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
you'd think the drones would self destruct given a situation like this...
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Aha, silly american imperialist swine !! I CRACK you like a whip !! I have b2 bomber drone now and make it yellow so easy to see you stupid american. We also capture wee-man fantastic voyager america drone pilot and have reversed his size to normal. He has big america penis which we like so much. We are iran. You will be asswipelated.
It were a fully armed drone? They could have reprogrammed it or taken control of it to attack US or Saudi or Israeli targets.
It you were really sophisticated you could perform a man in the middle attack. Down the drone, mod the software/replace some hardware chips so you have effectively trojaned the drone. Then during a military action you can down the drone again and add weapon bio weapons package so that when it returns to base it could attack the military facility and personnel.
Too bad it's such a repressive religious regime that doesn't believe in technology/creative thinking otherwise they would have the talent to pull this off.
I'm surprised that most of the middle east isn't developing itself for electronics manufacturing.They have the capital for to purchase the manufacturing tools. And manufacturing is getting more and more automated all the time such that they wouldn't need a cheap workforce like china. They have plenty of silicon though sand and they have plenty of sun for solar energy...
Technologically repressive regimes... sounds like George Lucas' THX1138.
Not that the United States farts roses, but... you really need to study up on history a lot more. I can guarantee that whatever source you got that from all but completely discounted Soviet and Chinese offenses, mischaracterizes all United States military action as unprovoked, and probably didn't even mention France and the United Kingdom.
On the other hand, the results of such a rigorous analysis can't fit in 140 characters, so your explanation survives because of that.
Wait, I thought that was Barry's plan to ensure a second term -- start a war with Iran, get all the hawks behind him, and keep all those troops being demobbed in Afghanistan from coming home and joining OWS when they all can't find jobs.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They say it was, the US says it wasn't. I'm not saying believe the US on this but you are an idiot if you just blindly believe whatever Iran says. It is entirely possible it was in Afghanistan, and they diverted it to Iran.
It is also possible that they did nothing of the sort, that the drone lost control and came down in Iran.
Ahmadinajad just KILLS me. ROFLOL
What's the big deal? If Iran wanted to fly its own drones over US airspace, I'm sure the US would be totally cool with it.
Oh, and they will be controlled by your iPhone
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The aircraft shown on Iranian television today was not the American stealth drone that crashed in Iran last week, as the Iranian government claimed, but was likely just a model, U.S. officials told ABC News.
Minutes after a Pentagon spokesperson said that military personnel and others were examining the footage broadcast today of what appeared to be an undamaged stealth RQ-170 Sentinel, multiple U.S. officials said that based on inconsistencies with the design of the drone, along with clues from imagery of the actual drone's crash site, the drone shown was not the Sentinel. U.S. officials previously confirmed that an RQ-170 did, in fact, crash land somewhere in Iran.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-rq-170-sentinel-stealth-drone-shown-iran/story?id=15115781#.TuEsofJbeV0
Yeah someone should introduce those guys to some leftist ideology. Might shake things up a bit.
If I were there with these guys in Iran I would stay far the fuck away from that aircraft! The us has $100 mil to spare, what are the chances that if they land a drone there that the Iranians will a) take it to their most secret location or even b) parade their most important political leaders and/or scientists in to see it? BOOM!
When this is all declassified in 50 years, it will be amusing to learn this was a Trojan horse used to probe Iran's electronic warfare capacities and testing locations as a prelued to more focused intelligence gathering.
What intelligence agency wouldn't be interested in knowing where Iran does its secret device testing?
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Even if you manage to disrupt 5% of the bits of a spread-spectrum signal, this can easily be repaired by sufficient amounts of Forward Error Correction Bits. Look it up in wikipedia. Proper spread-spectrum links such as SINCGARS (now decades old) are virtually impossible to jam effectively. You would need your own power station and transmitters capable of transforming that into RF to completely saturate from (say) 10 MHz to 85 MHz to take out a SINCGARS link.
Yeah man where is that self destruct?
If I were designing a drone that was supposed to be uber-top secret, I'd fill it with C-4 and program it to explode if signal was lost after a designated period of time.
Waste of a perfectly good drone full of C4 with a strong target identification signal.
I'd program it to home on the jamming transmitter. Problem solved for the next drone.
-- Terry
Didn't you see that episode?
Or, maybe some - now very wealthy - US enlistee arranged the entire thing?
I hereby christen it Francis Gary Powers
Instead of a human being, the enemy is left with boasting of taking possession of an artifact that is nearly indistinguishable from magic to them (e.g. the military stooge playing with a flap on the wing). Contrary to the common "America in decline" narrative all signs seem to be that this technologically driven military disparity is only increasing. Stealth drones, naval rail guns, hypersonic 1 hour global strike cruise missiles, round the corner explosive "assault rifles" and the list goes on - all very real weapons that are either deployed or nearing realization with no real counterparts anywhere else.
The Russians have been out of the game for 30 years at least and the Chinese are nowhere near developing these kinds of weapons (they have yet to field an aircraft carrier which could arguably become obsolete with an introduction of a viable railgun equipped destroyer, their much vaunted stealth craft is probably more show than reality (look at the engine exhaust on it), etc., etc.).
Mate, the signal hopping will be cryptographically controlled, so without knowing the codes you have to blank out the whole band, which can nowadays be from 5 MHz to 2000MHz, if the system designers decide so. Have fun with your 461-stuff to do that. Hint: you also need a nuclear power station to get the juice to do that.
..welcome our new robotic overlords.
A sophisticated virus probably introduced by a unknowing flashstick user. In the US soldiers like to stick in gaming flashsticks to play when bored. These reinfect US computers over and over. The only method is eliminated these device ports. There are on every commodity computer.
And if you turn the microwave on, he might still just loose the over secured signal.
This has little to do with payback, there are no external gains for revenge against the US. These episodes serve only to serve as a distractiong for the horrible mismanagement of Iran's resources and infrastructure by the current Iranian government.
The Iranian government must wave the flag and strive for nationalistic sentiment otherwise the Iranian people would start to realize that if they actually had a job to go to they wouldn't be standing around at 11am watching this all play out on their neighbor's TV set.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
According to this story http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-rq-170-sentinel-stealth-drone-shown-iran/t/story?id=15115781 the drone shown on Iranian tv is, according to officials, a fake.
They claim inconsistencies in the design and with pictures of the crash site (like how it probably was demolished when it crashed at several hundred miles per hour).
I thought it looked like a fiberglass mockup. Anyway, good to know this, I read that to get any real use out of the drone, it would have to be almost completely undamaged because tolerances are very important when it comes to aerodynamics and stealth (I guess that's why those air force guys don't like it when I go about measuring their F-117s with my calipers at various air shows!)
What is even more disconcerting than electromagnetic jamming is that the west is unsuccesfull at communicating with some groups of people.
This becomes obvious if you study the following case:
step 1: Ahmadinedschad holds one of his talks at the UN assembly.
step 2: Western news report that diplomats walked out of the assembly in protest.
step 3: News reports catering to other groups of people report that Ahmadinedschad was applauded while talking in concilatory tone.
step 4: Shit happens
step 5: Profit
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
If your engine cuts out, there's not much else you can do.
The US flies lots of these things all the time. One had to have a critical failure and go down sometime.
Watchdog with a self-destruct?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Hmm? Forget about the fact they did.
Why would they broadcast it?
Deleted
Snoop it all you like
Ok so you've got this unbreakable communications connection between drone and control...
Please explain the completely undamaged big beige plane sitting in the Iranian hangar.
Deleted
does it run Linux?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Aviation Week, in a story a few years ago, basically minimized the bleeding-edge technology used in the RQ-170. Shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia: " The design lacks several elements common to stealth engineering, namely notched landing gear doors and sharp leading edges. It has a curved wing planform, and the exhaust is not shielded by the wing.[10] Aviation Week postulates that these elements suggest the designers have avoided 'highly sensitive technologies' due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading edge technology.[10] The publication also suggests that the medium-grey color implies a mid-altitude ceiling, unlikely to exceed 50,000 feet since a higher ceiling would normally be painted darker for best concealment."
This drone looks VERY LITTLE like an actual RQ-170, or any other drone we make for that matter. I call fake.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-05/news/30476805_1_previous-drone-rq-170-tehran
Ahmadinejad and top generals killed as "captured" US drone explodes on live televison.
If there's actually anything secret in it.
I'd program it to home on the jamming transmitter. Problem solved for the next drone.
The trick would be to distinguish jamming transmitter from the controlling one that got some problem (e.g. hung up and is transmitting the same signal repeatedly).
I mean, go ahead, but you'll be the guy to debug this in the field. ~
A flying-wing does not "glide". It's an inherently unstable design. I can almost guarantee it was a controlled landing.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
unmanned stealth spy plane
"oh if we run out of fuel we'll autopilot to land safely behind enemy lines"
I'm not sure this is better than the Iranians getting control over it.
Trojan? Probably not: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" -Napoleon Bonaparte
Everyone's assuming they hacked it - what about a HERF gun???
What a cluster *
Seriously, the USAF has fallen and fallen. It also shows why we need to focus on our security. We have too many fools at the top in the military as well as CONgress, who no longer put the nation first. Instead, they are fighting for their retirement as high up as possible instead of fighting for the nation.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Some high up DOD said that this was one of ours and that Iran has it. They do not say that it is an RQ-170, but, that is assumed. Hopefully, there is more to the story then what it appears to be.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Some things are interesting. For starters, on CNN, they claim that it was demolished in a crash landing. Over on Faux, they they are saying that what you see is the drone (which means it is in good shape). It would be real nice if this was a trojan horse.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hello, I am a drone. I am the best of the best! I am packing navigation system, signal location unit and enough C4 that if I am jammed, I will make that fucker dead! Glory to the USA!
Today is a special day for me: I was just launched to carry out a patrol against (hopefully) unfriendly targets. I am being remotely piloted from this aircraft carrier towards the shore.
Oh damn: That lowest-bidder-made capacitor in my communication system just got blown. My backup system was installed backwards. Lost signal from my pilot. That could mean one thing: Some god-damned tango JAMMED me!
Right. Where is that strong jamming signal, so I can nail the bastard?! Whoah! That ship over there got one loud, strong signal comming off its radar-looking dish! Just a simple case of turning around and arming the explosives.
FOR GLORY!!!!!!!!!!
If it's a US drone it should have some type of destruction mechanize, right? They spend over 200 million for these drones and the Army can't even remotely or by capturing the device a way to blow it up. I also understand that most of the satellite communications are not even encrypted which is also really stupid. Nice going...
1) Is it real or is it an elaborate fake model based on the real one that crashed?
2) If it's real then it doesn't look like it was shot down or that it crashed.
3) If it wasn't shot down and it didn't crash, then somehow it either landed itself or someone hijacked it with a cyber attack and landed it.
4) If it is a fake, then it's all Iranian propaganda, notice the posters blasting America. Even if it is real, it's one heck of a propaganda tool.
Previously we heard that early drone models had their video streams hacked as captured terrorist laptops contained video files intercepted from drones. Apparently, they weren't encrypting the transmissions or if they were it was breakable encryption. This leads me to believe that the security measures may be extremely weak in this state of the art spy drone. Spared no expense on data collection and transmission and avionics but then didn't take enough measures to encrypt and secure command and control interfaces. What if that RSA penetration had something to do with it? You think the military is foolish enough to use an RSA encryption protocol that might have had it's encryption keys stolen?
If this is the Boeing drone then I read it was designed to land on an aircraft carrier and do so in an automated fashion. Perhaps it has a directive to try to land if it can and all this is a malfunction of the self-destruct logic.
It is interesting that the landing gear is obscured by camouflage netting and the signs were hung in front so you can't see the landing gear. Perhaps it tried to land or it entered a slow level glide decent when it malfunctioned and just slid to a stop in the desert. Maybe did a belly landing and the Iranians had to stand it up on crates because the landing gear doors are damaged.
We'll likely never know the real story of what happened. Maybe a big cargo plane with a huge net snatched out of the sky. Heck, we use to snag parachuted film cartridges dropped from early spy satellites so anything is possible.
If it was hacked perhaps it was an advanced crew of international black hatters who decide to take the Iranians money and deliver the drone to their front steps.
when the self destruct sequence starts. I mean there's a self destruct measure built in, right?....you know to scuttle the thing?...in case it gets captured....oh nvm...jeez
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
of an article released 2 years ago about a cheap hack to get drones information.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html
so it can not be that much harder to control them!
But right now I'm claiming that it glided into the sandy wasteland after it had a failure and they found it.
For a recon platform, that's a pretty crappy fail safe mode.
Yes you'd think that if the last known position was over hostile territory a nose-first-into-the-ground landing would be a better bet. A bit of thermite around the critical bits (the stuff you don't want the enemy to get) might help too.
The password to the drone system was probably "Pa$$w0rd"
There once was a time when the Congress actually had to VOTE on whether or not to go to war. Now the US military is the president's private toy.
The TV shows said they took controlled of the drone remotely and landed it safely.
Does the USA have a local equivalent of the Iraqi Information Minister? Did he defect and get given a new job?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It most likely did, considering that it doesn't have landing gear deployed. Also, US claims that drone was "shot down", which would imply crash landing.
The drone is a trojan horse. It is still on mission, doing exactly what it is supposed to.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Yeah, whatever happened to self-destruct mechanisms? ...or maybe that would constitute an aggressive detonation of a munition on enemy soil, with the potential for casualties (civilian or military) and an international incident?
Invading a country's airspace with a military aircraft is already an act of war. (It's not as if the CIA would have filed a flight plan with Iranian ATC.)
The clever but somewhat unorthodox hacker employed by the Iranians pulls out his Apple Laptop and types furiously at a constant rate into a window with unrelated scrolling green text. A modal dialog box appears with a progress bar slowly ramping up to 100% and the text 'Sending virus to enemy drone'. He sits back looking smug with his hands behind his head. Once 100% is achieved, he again types furiously whilst explaining to the general standing behind him that he is going to send a surprise to the american scum operators. The drone sends out some sort of pulse of energy back up the channels being used to control it, and the equipment the american scum operators are using explodes in a shower of sparks and electrical discharges, frying the operators. The hacker than pushes a single button and the drone lands on a convenient long empty road. Everyone cheers. The hacker gets the girl.
Hmm.
From http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2011/12/mil-111208-dod01.htm
DOD News Briefing with George Little and Capt. Kirby from the Pentagon
Q: But you did put out a statement last week saying you'd lost a drone, and you thought this might be it.
MR. LITTLE: We said, you know, all week that, you know, we did have a UAV go missing. But you know, when it comes to sensitive reconnaissance missions, we call them sensitive for a reason. So we're not going to add to what we said over the weekend.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Yes.
Yeah, probably lost power but not attitude control and happened to end up in relatively flat terrain. Then some iranians came along and picked it up and claimed they hacked it.
I'm amazed that so few Slashdotters are aware of the Avtobaza ELINT jam/control system that the Iranians now have. It was designed to do just this to drones, and it apparently works quite well.
Wasn't there a virus that infected the "cockpits" of the drones. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/
Secretary of Defense: "note to self, include on all drones a self destruct device which activates upon contact with sand or camel shit."
So, uh, you just spent 10 minutes of your time blasting somebody who agrees with you...
Notice the wings? It looks like they've been crudely welded back on. And the paint job isn't quite right. Either this thing crashed and was rebuilt or they Iranians did a poor job of taking it apart and putting it back together again.
There's plenty else you can do. It could glide out into deep water, or do a nose dive at terminal velocity into the ground, or contain self-destruct mechanisms.
Now, maybe there really isn't anything that interesting inside, so nobody cares. But, if you did care the last thing you'd try to do is a soft landing in the desert.
How's this one?
"And here are our contestants! Taylor Smith! Taylor Jones! Casey Jones! Casey Taylor! Taylor Jones-Casey! And finally, Bill Kowalski!"
(It was less a comment on one specific ethnic group and more a comment on the hilarious propagation of unoriginal names in any culture. It just happened to be tailored for a Middle-Eastern flair.)
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
That drone looks like nothing more than a mock up. I viewed the video before reading any comments and my first reaction was that it was fake. No detailed shots of any interior components and no rear shots. Plus the simple explanation of "we took control of it and captured it" is absolutely absurd. If I captured a piece of my enemy's advanced military technology you bet you ass I would be displaying its guts (or just enough to let them know I do in fact have it) to embarrass the secrecy of my enemy. Its akin to running ones underwear up a flagpole, embarrassing undergarments that are kept private and out of view.
One theory I have as to why the US isnt answering claim may be because the US did in fact loose a drone but not to jamming or hacking but simple failure. Lets say a critical component of the drone failed resulting in a crash. The Air Force has no idea what happened, the signal just went dead. Iran learns of the crash, goes out, picks up the pieces and then fabricates a phony mock up along with an equally phony news conference. They then claim they hacked and took control of the aircraft while showing the phony in the background. This is a pretty good idea on their part, they have created a nice little information war with the US. The US might have no idea how the UAV was downed. They cant be sure so they don't want to admit anything yet. This might lead to the Airforce grounding all UAV's for extensive testing or upgrades keeping the skies over Iran clear of UAV's. The Iranian people are given hope that their government has technology capable of defeating the enemy. And Iran can try to reverse engineer the craft or sell it to another US hostile country or China. The act also makes Iran looks technologically stronger then it actually is. Since the Stuxnet worm destroyed their uranium enrichment plant(s), they want it to look like they have tech capable of hacking US military hardware. It gives the Iranian people something to be proud of while stirring doubt within your enemy's (and the world for that fact) populace.
I see this an an information war. And Iran has the upper hand because the US isn't saying one word. Add to the fact that there are reports of cheap software being used to intercept un-encrypted video from drones as well as the US being known to have lost a few drones already. Its an attempt to discredit the US military and its technology.
From my standpoint, I find it highly unlikely they ever took any form of control of the UAV's flight electronics. I cant see how the military would not have security and encryption policies in place relating to communication with military hardware. Plus even if they could communicate with the UAV's computer, how do they know how to talk to the flight software to take control? This isn't some lame Hollywood or TV show where some hacker types furiously on a keyboard and lands the thing with an Xbox controller. You have to know how to communicate with the flight software which means you have to reverse engineer the software or steal its source code or documentation. They might have just been able to jam it or shoot it down, but that is all speculation.
The "Kentucky Fried Movie" 'Fistful of Yen' parody of "Enter the Dragon" featured guards named: Hung Well, Long Wang, and Enormous Genitals.
Yeah, but what about self-destruct? Why make it "land" when it will probably do it in enemy territory.
I'd jam the control signals (easy) then modify the GPS signals so that whilst it thought it was flying home, it was just going round in circles waiting for the fuel to run out.
where are my fucking comments
HA-HA!
some of the comments show massive ignorance. Iran is not an arabic speaking country. No one in Iran has a name that starts with Al. and Iran is not all sands, it has rivers, mountains, deserts, lakes, and every thing.
now aside from that, some people appear to get a kick out of claiming they are privy to top secret classified stuff. no one knows what happened here, but one thing for sure, with the amount of money they spend on these drones, no way the military is going to let a complicated system that might malfunction have explosives or termites on board, that would be extremely stupid. however if they want to destroy the drone, there are other assets that military can utilize (rangers, bombers, etc. ) except that this time it happened to be deep in a hostile territory and CIA screwed up, again.
third, it's unlikely that Iranians or even chinese will be able to get any thing out of this. they probably are going to study it and study it, but it wouldn't get them much.
you can't even reverse engineer an average micro-chip, let alone an entire system like that.
and fourth, those of you who are salivating at another "shock and awe" and another blood bath, I wouldn't be too confident about the outcome if I were you,
40% of world's oil goes through the strait of Hurmuz and Iran can block it very easily, that alone would send oil to $300 a barrel, and would crush the vulnerable western economies.
Have some patience, the Islamic Republic is a very brutal regime, and Iranians are working on changing it, it won't happen tomorrow though, but it will happen.
I didn't know Islam was a race.
First, while it's possible that with Russian or Chinese assistance (and they'd be more than happy to provide it for a share of that technology prize), Iran would be able to effectively jam a control link, I think it's very unlikely that it's feasible to actually gain control of it via the encrypted command channels. As others have pointed out, even basic 20+ year old U.S. comms equipment uses very, very strong and well-implemented crypto (complete gaffe with video feeds on earlier drones notwithstanding, even on those the actual control was encrypted). You have to figure Iran may well have spent the last year or more monitoring these missions (bistatic radar is especially suited to countering stealth when you know your opponent's likely flight paths) and experimenting with jamming techniques. Against an eyes-on-ground-oriented surveillance platform, the most practical thing to do might be to simply jam its uplink, then literally "sit on it" with another aircraft, gear-down, to force it to soft-crash mostly intact. A little crazy, but we've seen stranger and more creative things in the intelligence world, especially from 'technically inferior' opponents. Second, would you really send your most-current stealth and sensor technology out on mission after mission after mission, knowing that simple mechanical failure is a statistical certainty? It certainly wouldn't be the first drone (or the second, or the fifth) downed for whatever reason. If we didn't learn from the EP-3 incident near Hainan island, and the RAH-66 downed in the Bin Laden raid, then we've got a more serious and fundamental problem. It stands to better logic that it's either A) Effective-but-deprecated technology suitable to the mission risk of loss, or B) It's a counterintel operation, with deliberate, subtle defects in various bits of technology which will no doubt be replicated in excruciating detail. Brings to mind the Siberian-pipeline sabotage in the 80's.