Slashdot Mirror
US Sentinel Drone Fooled Into Landing With GPS Spoofing
McGruber writes "Following up on the earlier Slashdot story, the Christian Science Monitor now reports that GPS spoofing was used to get the RQ-170 Sentinel Drone to land in Iran. According to an Iranian engineer quoted in the article, 'By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.' Apparently, once it loses its brain, the bird relies on GPS signals to get home. By spoofing GPS, Iranian engineers were able to get the drone to 'land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications.'"
putting aside allegiances for a moment and looking at this from a purely engineering standpoint: bad ASS!!
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So, the Iranians admit to spoofing GPS positions and this *isn't* used as an excuse to say 'the Iranians tricked it into crossing the border'? Color me impressed.
So, first of all, this is just really neat. It sounds like something that would happen in a movie. That's some movie-hacker shit right there.
That aside, the thing that really worries me here is that the military's GPS was able to be spoofed in the first place. One would think that the GPS the military relies on would be encrypted or something, y'know? How difficult is it to spoof military GPS?
With apologies to Under Siege 2:
The US government is spying on Iran's nuclear ambitions. We (Americans and Iranians) know about the spying. And they know that we know. But we make-believe that we don't know, and they make-believe that they believe that we don't know, but know that we know.
Everybody knows.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
So, the Iranians admit to spoofing GPS positions and this *isn't* used as an excuse to say 'the Iranians tricked it into crossing the border'? Color me impressed.
When Coke originally changed the recipe and then had to do a LOT of backpedalling to restore the original flavour (and get the sales back), the CEO made a wonderful comment on the whole thing. People were accusing Coca Cola of doing this on purpose to drive sales. Keough answered this speculation by saying "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart".
I think this can very much also apply to this situation. The US government wasn't dumb enough to openly admit to spying and the like, but they weren't smart enough to concoct your excuse before the cat was out of the bag.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Halting would be one thing, but the reality is that the CIA started off trying to prevent Iran restarting a nuclear weapons program that had already been halted, then it moved to trying to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons in a couple of decades that it would not likely be able to ever deliver. It is now trying to stop Iran having deliverable nuclear weapons in two years.
The assassinations, sabotage of equipment and virus infestations have led to a massive increase in Iran's investment and a net acceleration of the program.
As halting goes, this is a total, unmitigated disaster beyond all possible imagining. Doing absolutely nothing at the start would have been sounder policy, based on data available. Doing bugger all once the program had started would still have given us ten years WE DON'T HAVE ANYMORE.
Whatever lunatic thought up the program needs their head examined because this is the kind of absolute failure of intelligence (and wits) plus absolute failure of strategy that has led to the US spending $1tn on achieving bugger all in the Middle East this past decade. $1tn we taxpayers have to fork up. $1tn we don't have, won't have and will never have because we're going to now be pulled into another $1tn disaster. WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY ANYMORE, EITHER!
Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, and by that standard half of CIA HQ should be locked up in a padded cell. This is inexcusable stupidity beyond all comprehension.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You mean the CIA has been actively trying to halt the nuclear weapons program of a nation who is opposed to the United States?
Maybe a better, simpler solution is to build good relations with those who oppose you? This current strategy doesn't seem to be working very well and looks like it will only end with lots of people getting killed.
The United States spends more on military toys and the US military in general than *all* of the other nations in the world *combined* (which includes Russia and China). Yet, as was shown in Viet Nam, as was shown in Iraq, and is being shown in Afghanistan, the US military, with all its high tech toys, can be defeated by simple, low-tech (and cheap) devices made up of 25 bucks of Radio Shack parts. The US military has it's "eye on the ball", yet it continues to over estimate its power and the effectiveness of its toys. Trillions of US dollars down the drain every year for military toys and invasions of other countries which pose absolutely no threat to the US, and for what? A false sense of security at best.
One small correction -- at least one of the assassinated scientists turned out to be a theoretical quantum mechanics lecturer with no skills or knowledge applicable to the type of nuclear science relating to weapons technology. So basically they're not killing nuke scientists, they're killing scientists in the hopes of killing nuke scientists.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You mean the CIA has been actively trying to halt the nuclear weapons program of a nation who is opposed to the United States?
Maybe a better, simpler solution is to build good relations with those who oppose you? This current strategy doesn't seem to be working very well and looks like it will only end with lots of people getting killed.
Building good relations with Iran probably wouldn't go over very well, given the results in the past when the US has "built good relations with Iran". Avoiding screwing things up like the US has historically done would be a good first step, however. Working to remove the label of "international power-hungry bully" from the non-domestic US branches of government would also help. Until this happens, Iran's not going to trust the US further than it can throw a sandal.
Iran, too has been invaded before. Iraq invaded Iran within living memory and attempted to annex and wipe out Iran (Hussein cited the original Muslim invaders of Persia as rallying cries for his invasion). In doing so, Iraqi troops performed acts of brutality, and WMDs (supported by the US) against both military and civilian targets, as well as engaging in terror bombing.
Why isn't it acceptable for Iran to say "Never again" and defend itself against neighbors that would see Iran destroyed? (Also keeping in mind that iran hasn't engaged in any aggressive actions or invasions against her neighbors since the 18th century or so, while Israel has bombed and invaded all of its neighbors at some pont, and its most recent war happened in only 2006.