Slashdot Mirror
Iran Wants To Clone Downed US Drone
PolygamousRanchKid sends this quote from the LA Times:
"The Obama administration has sent a formal diplomatic request asking Iran to return the radar-evading drone aircraft that crashed on a CIA spying mission this month, but U.S. officials say they don't expect Iran will comply. 'We have asked for it back,' Obama said Monday at a news conference in Washington with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. 'We'll see how the Iranians respond.' His comments marked the first public confirmation that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone now in Iranian hands is a U.S. aircraft, though U.S. officials privately acknowledged that in recent days. Iran has claimed it downed the stealthy surveillance drone, but U.S. officials say it malfunctioned. Capture of the futuristic-looking unmanned spy plane has provided Tehran with a propaganda windfall. The government announced that it planned to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies."
Iran has also demanded an apology from the U.S. for the drone flight in its airspace.
It also takes balls to ask for an apology for receiving a very nice gift.
I never had a problem asking for the ball back.
I also never had a problem paying for the damages by working it off for them. Its called being accountable for your actions.
What did you do? Run off and hide while the poor bastards window was replaced at his expense?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Iran has also demanded an apology from the U.S. for the drone flight in its airspace.
As they should. If I found some stealthy character in my backyard looking in on my wife, an apology is the LEAST I would demand.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I'm sure their clone will be almost as good as mine, but probably not actually as good.
The important technology in the device is embedded in chips that are the most tamper resistant devices on the planet, they'll be utterly destroyed and unusable for reverse engineering well before they get anywhere near the tech.
The optics I'm sure are impressive, but not so much that they'll get some giant leap.
The encryption keys were worthless before the aircraft hit the ground.
The paint and fuselage material are the most important things on it that they can gather data from that isn't already something they can get their hands on through other channels.
Its just silly for anyone to think they have a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything it it. It would be hard for US to reverse engineer it, let alone Iran.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Probably the same day the U.S. apologizes for the coup that overthrew democracy in Iran and put the Shah in power in 1953.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How absolutely ridiculous of them to ask us to apologize for committing an act of war. Hasn't anybody been paying attention? The US, and only the US, has the right to invade other countries' airspace, kidnap, torture, and murder their citizens, and then accuse those countries of breaking the law. That's how democracy works. Those silly backward Iranians just don't get it. It must be Islam's fault.
What a competent president would have done is sent another drone to destroy it so the technology didn't fall into the hands of every enemy state in the world.
Yeah, an act of war against a foreign nation after they shoot down your spy drone that was in their airspace sounds like a great plan. Particularly when they're one of the world's largest oil suppliers and gas would probably hit $10 a gallon.
It boggles my mind that this thing didn't self-destruct for exactly this reason.
i keep hoping this is some elaborate super secret spy ruse but the more I watch the incompetence the more I realize its just incompetence.
Or like Law enforcement putting a tracking device on your vehicle and asking for it back when you go public with it.
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
Everyone knows that Iran will not return the drone, and they're in that right. The US politicians will just use this as an excuse to escalate things and drive us closer to another unwanted war.
Forget the fact that they are one of the largest oil exports. Don't ignore the fact that they can close the Straight of Hormuz which would choke off the oil supply coming out of THE LARGEST oil supplier.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
If it is an act of war against a foreign nation... what do you call it when several helicopters full of navy seals are sent into a foreign nation to kidnap or kill an individual who is living there with the implicit permission of the host nation, killing anyone who resists, taking the body of the target out... all without notice or permission of the host nation?
Do you really want to play a game of "lets pick and choose what we call an act of war"?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
No, that was just grand theft airplane.
You know, for things like sentencing Salman Rushdie to death?
Or like stealing the last election to prop up the Revolutionary Guard's puppet and when the people don't like it, beating the hell out of them, killing them and/or imprisoning them, even going so far as to not return bodies of the dead to their families but burying them in graves in restricted areas, where families can't visit. Cuz, you know, they RG runs Iran, not the Mullahs or Ayathollah, which are allowed to go about their business, pretending there's some actual republic when it's really all a sham and military coup by feat.
What I'd like to know is why these drones don't even have a Self Destruct on a dead-man switch, out of contact for so long and sensitive bits are fused by a burning strip of Sodium or such.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Now that's just a police action, there's a difference. Hell if I know what it is.
Well it wouldn't be completely unprecedented, as I'm fairly sure we've blown up in-development nuclear enrichment facilities before with cruise missiles.
Where? The closest I can remember was blowing up a pharma factory in some African nation which couldn't fight back. Sudan?
Iran is already being threatened with a boycott of their oil by Europe, one of the main consumers of their oil.
A pointless exercise, because China will be happy to buy all the oil they can get.
If the Iran's caused it, it would have had to been a disruption of some sort to avoid much damage to the drone. While we know that the downlink from drones tends to be unencrypted (for good reasons)
Out of curiosity, what are the good reasons for not encrypting the downlink?
That could be considered an act of war. But then again, some might also consider a terrorist mass-murderer, engineer of an attack killing over 3,000 civilians and some unknown number of other attacks, living in a supposedly allied country, apparently with their implicit permission, to be an act of war as well. While we're at it, allowing "protesters" to attack an embassy in your country and hold everyone inside hostage for years is also generally considered to be an act of war. So is sponsoring attacks against the armed forces of another country.
Basically, there's plenty of acts of war to go around in this area.
I don't reply to ACs
Surely I don't have to be a fan of Iran to point out the idiocy of this statement? Iran is technologically one of the most advanced states in the region, probably only second to Israel.
Oh they're a Gulf state; they must be camel-riding barbarians who only know how to sell oil. I'm going to say it right out: this is not mere ignorance, it's outright bigotry.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
A president like that would have caused the deaths of dozens, hundreds, or maybe tens of thousands of people depending on how much such an ensuing conflict would escalate to. Thank God we're not all dicks like you who think that it's worth killing people you don't know and spending collective money that you don't have because someone hurt your imaginary feelings.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
I'm a computer programmer, and yet I have to buy my furniture from a store. But wait, how is it possible that I could have the technological capacity to produce software when I have to rely on others for something as rudimentary as furniture? It's almost as if some skills and technical abilities were completely independent of others, and you could be very good at one while remaining completely ignorant of others...
I'm an American, and I know that Iran only recently was able to reverse-engineer the F-5 (early 60's tech) and still hasn't been able to do the same for the F-14 (mid 70's tech.) If they can't reverse-engineer a fighter that they've had for thirty years, and is based on decades-old US technology, what makes you think they can reverse-engineer current US tech in a reasonable amount of time?
There's quite a distance between "they're all primitive camel-riders" and "they're a technological power to rival the United States."
How do you know the people in Iran aren't "supposed" to download the software, and in so doing propagate another worm?
But then again, some might also consider a terrorist mass-murderer, engineer of an attack killing over 3,000 civilians and some unknown number of other attacks, living in a supposedly allied country, apparently with their implicit permission, to be an act of war as well.
That may be, but I don't think that the US is going to allow the Bushes, Clinton, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, etc. to be extradited. The Pakistanis, Iraqis, Indonesians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, etc. are just out of luck. Only the US and Israel are allowed to pursue revenge killings.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin