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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.
Iran simply does not have the ability - the technical knowledge and manufacturing ability - to "clone" these aircraft.
More likely is that China and / or Russia have already sent a team to take it apart and learn its secrets.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
ACTUALLY Its more like putting a camera on the fence looking at your neigbors yard, and they rip it down, and then asking for it back.
It's possible that we deliberately downed a drone over Iran with a modern appearance but made with the wrong materials, and with old sensors and electronics generally — or maybe with electronics deeply flawed in a subtle way — with the intent of having Russia and China get their hands on it and then underestimate our capabilities. It's possible, that is, that this is actually an intelligence coup of the highest order.
Knowing our government from inside experience, though, I'm voting for the assclown theory as the survivor of Occam's razor.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Like a Trojan horse, the Iranians are parading the thing around all their secret facilities.
This analogy is definitely the winner.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
I heard it reported that the software was the most sensitive part of the drone and that it was remotely destroyed on landing. Surprises me, as I would imagine the hardware was a pretty big deal too. In any case the US doesn't seem to concerned.
-- My apologies if the above facts contain any opinions, or vice versa! --
What I find the most hilarious, is that their secret facility appears to be a basketball court/high school gym (see the markings on the floor):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16098250
Or maybe they decided to house it in a school gymnasium so if the USA does decide to launch an attach against it, Iran gets to parade around video of the USA destroying a school.
A President with balls would never have asked for it back. He would have said "You have 6 hours to return the drone intact. If you don't, it will turn into a smoldering crater."
They'll never close the Straits of Hormuz because it'd piss off not just the US but the entire world.
didn't look very crashed to me.
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As the other poster noted, when you have a downlink that's shooting out live video feeds, the people on the ground need to have access to that data in near real time and you're not going to run every soldier that -might- be using the link through a SECRET/TOP SECRET security clearance check before allowing them to have access to it. Then you have to redistribute the keys to all those soldiers whenever they get swapped out. It's a logistical nightmare that doesn't net you much of a benefit in light of the below...
What the US is observing in real time is of limited usage. Without knowing the location of the observer, a top down view of a place can be very difficult to make useful, especially depending on how close the view is. Without readily discernible landmarks identifying buildings from other buildings it can be extremely difficult to discern where you're looking. As an example, get someone to pick a point in the city you live on the closest zoom level on Google Maps. Don't use any street names. Now try to ID where you're looking at. Further, just seeing what is being observed isn't 100% indicative of the intentions of the observer's actions and knowing that they view the streams has potential applications in the realms of disinformation. For instance, if we knew some insurgents were monitoring the downlink and were holed up in a building we could station a net around the build then use the drone to watch the building and wait for them to flee into more open terrain and be caught by the net.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Link to the referenced story:
http://gizmodo.com/5658661/fbi-gets-caught-tracking-mans-car-wants-its-gps-device-back