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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."
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 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.
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.
I think we all know who made that decision.
Someone smart enough not to get into a shooting war with Iran?
My current speculation is that they couldn't override the control signal, but they could jam it, and then the drone did some kind of emergency crash landing or whatever.
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!
The CIA "version" seems to have gone from "We don't think they have the capacity to do that, and they've lied about it before, so it's probably fake," to "Actually, we did lose a drone in about the right time period over Afghanistan near the border, we should look into that," to "Yeah, they seem to have intercepted our drone over Afghanistan." Doesn't seem to be the story changing, just them gaining new information.
Clearly the solution is to have the planes fly autonomously, so if the signal from the remote control is broken, the onboard AI can move and deploy weapons at its own discretion.
No it's the US government that can be taken so easy, at $100 million a pop.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
What I don't understand is why they didn't have it wired to self-destruct, at least the internal systems if not the entire aircraft.
AFAIK, manned Air Force aircraft are equipped with labels on the sensitive avionics and components saying something like "in case of imminent capture, shoot here to destroy." I'd think that self-destruct would be an absolute requirement for a drone.
I mean, the USAF is pretty darn good at destroying things. You'd think if you were flying it over hostile territory you'd at least equip it with enough thermite to make the electronics and optics go away should the drone lose contact with HQ for longer than some preset time period.
Or maybe that's what happened in a kinder, gentler fashion. Maybe a self-destruct did happen to the internals, including the flight controllers. The "my-controller-has-melted" control-arm position might be preset to a glide configuration so that it will cause the least amount of civilian damage if it goes down.
Or maybe it was deliberate. Maybe it's a Trojan horse with a secret compartment filled with VX or anthrax or something, on a remote control that can be triggered by an operator when Ahmadenijad gets close enough to gloat. "Remember the tooth."
John
it was cited as response to an American act of aggression.
Illegally invading another country's sovereign airspace is an act of aggression.
Now we hear that they overrode communications and forced the drone to land.
Any stray military aircraft would also be offered a choice of being forced to land, or be shot down, under the same circumstances.
It's also possible that the drone was patrolling the border from inside Iraq or Afghanistan
The US lately seems to have no problems with crossing borders in Pakistan and Yemen and even killing people there in complete violation of international law. Why would flying over Iran be a problem? You have played the "poor innocent America we mean no harm we come in peace" card far too often. Sorry.
There's an air of deliberation here that doesn't square.
Oh it squares alright. Just like the ICBM launched off the California coast earlier this year oh no sorry it was a "jet". Just like the Chinese sub popping up next to the USS Kitty Hawk and saying hi. Just like the satellite that got blown out of the sky. It says "look what we can do - please invest more trillions in easily circumventable drone technology".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Well, it's their airspace, they can do whatever they like to objects in it.
Besides, I overheard a report on CBS that this drone is a part of a spy drone fleet which was routinely flying over Iran and collecting information for years. If the goal is really to stop foreign spy planes flying over your land, it might be more beneficial to down the plane and showing it to the hole world instead of shooting it down.
What battlefield advantage? Anything they MIGHT have will be wiped out by B2 stealth bombers before any other shots are fired.
If anything, Iran gets to wave this at the Security Council (china and russia are pals with veto power) when the US wants to "librate" them. Nukes or not, Iran has not attacked the US or Israel directly, or violated any airspace under their operation. The US can't exactly say the same, can they.
Iran is not going to make the same mistake playing chicken with the US like Iraq did. Israel has already played our hand with the unprovoked attack on Iran's nuclear development (pissing off China and Russia)
Their goal is to talk smack to get Israel to keep stepping over the line... They are not attacking anybody right now.... Playing "fair" is not the same as violating international law and Iran is playing very carefully.
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
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.
Free Martian Whores!
It works *nothing* like an R/C model, aside from the fact that radio signals are somehow involved. R/C models are flown "by hand", i.e. the pilots manipulate the elevator/ailerons/throttle etc directly. The drones are almost entirely flown by the on-board autopilot, flight management computer, and inertial navigation. These are indeed connected via radio to the control center but rest assured, it is not being intercepted or overridden by external agencies.
This one had a malfunction, went into a fail-safe mode, ran out of fuel, and landed more-or-less intact. Of course they are claiming more than that.
Brett
What could possibly go wrong?
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
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
Don't kid yourself. They're military grade, and they're military-grade priced. And the tech inside is all American sourced chips, as they don't trust foreign chip foundries for this kind of stuff.
But a few ounces of thermite or C4 are cheap insurance. Not being remote commanded while inside enemy airspace? Blow it up.
The Iranians didn't remotely operate this device. They might have jammed its frequencies, as that's within their technical capabilities. But nobody's breaking the military encryption. It's not a Panasonic web cam being remotely operated and subject to URL tampering.
John