Leaked Documents Detail Al-Qaeda's Efforts To Fight Back Against Drones

An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports, 'Al-Qaeda's leadership has assigned cells of engineers to find ways to shoot down, jam or remotely hijack U.S. drones ... In July 2010, a U.S. spy agency intercepted electronic communications indicating that senior al-Qaeda leaders had distributed a "strategy guide" to operatives around the world advising them how "to anticipate and defeat" unmanned aircraft. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that al-Qaeda was sponsoring simultaneous research projects to develop jammers to interfere with GPS signals and infrared tags that drone operators rely on to pinpoint missile targets. Other projects in the works included the development of observation balloons and small radio-controlled aircraft, or hobby planes, which insurgents apparently saw as having potential for monitoring the flight patterns of U.S. drones... Al-Qaeda has a long history of attracting trained engineers ... Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, holds a mechanical-engineering degree ... In 2010, the CIA noted in a secret report that al-Qaeda was placing special emphasis on the recruitment of technicians and that "the skills most in demand" included expertise in drones and missile technology.'"

Comments

Al-Qaeda keeps losing recruits to Google

[JoeyRox]

Better pay, free food, "20% time" to work on individual plots to destroy Israel, and of course, 72 geeky virgins.

Re:Al-Qaeda keeps losing recruits to Google

[girlintraining]

Better pay, free food, "20% time" to work on individual plots to destroy Israel, and of course, 72 geeky virgins.

Ya gotta understand... engineers are HIGHLY sought after by terrorist organizations. Many specifically pony up for college just to get them skilled up enough to fight for the cause. The problem is... with an education comes this funny idea that maybe blowing up infidels isn't the best long-term strategy. If you knew how many people come here on student visas and just before graduating show up at the local FBI office or something to say "Yeah, hey guys... I actually came here on the 'death to america' ticket, but it turns out I like jeans, scantily clad girls, beer, and decent-paying jobs and, you know, I'd be grateful if you could, I don't know, keep me?" ... you'd probably be both surprised and a little bit heartened. I'm not saying it's a frequent occurrance, but it happens often enough to be worth writing home about as it were.

That said... the terrorists may be working on ways to neutralize drones, but so too is every major military, including our own. Early generation drones didn't have a lot of failsafes, and several were successfully jammed. If it lost the signal, it just fell out of the sky. Some advancements have since occurred and they now have the same basic logic as a cruise missile, which is 'complete last command' on the event of a communications loss. Which is to say, if it's on a kill mission, it will complete the job if jammed... so by the time you see it, you're already fucked.

Advancements now mean that they can rely on a variety of sensors beyond GPS for navigation and have a 'return to base' command in the event of a loss of communications -- they can often fly entirely autonomously and record everything for later (manual) retrieval. Communications after take-off is not necessary for many operational profiles.

In fact, it is also very hard to jam surveillance drones as they employ rapid frequency shifting and super wide spread spectrum -- you have to basically jam tens of Ghz of spectrum to have a shot at impairing a drone's operation -- or the encryption keys, from which the PRNG used to syncronize the transmitter and receiver during these frequency hops, which occur at over 30,000 times per second. Basically, good luck even finding the signal, let alone jamming it, or getting a lock on it. This is the same technology used for stealth technology to prevent radio comms from giving away the position of our bombers, etc.

And since it's all implimented using highly specialized FPGAs that are wiped on a power loss event or if the aircraft suffers any number of failure modes that prevent successful retrieval of the aircraft, it auto-erases and goes to a failsafe mode, transmitting it's location just prior to impact and then powering off. Which must have really pissed Iran off when they captured one of our Predator drones, popped it open, and found nothing but a melted fuck you scorch mark where the control logic was.

Now, that doesn't mean all drones in all flight profiles use this technology. I'm just saying, it's available, so drones can be used even in an emissions-hostile environment. Sometimes it isn't used, but these are for reasons of practicality and ease of use. If you want a drone with an electronics package that says "Fuck you" in fifty foot tall neon lettering to anyone trying to jam you... there's an app for that.

MORE DISINFORMATION

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Designed to create the belief:
1 - Intelligence intercepts and interrogations are effective at getting information that "protects" "us".
2 - Drones are an effective weapon against "our" "enemies" and not principally dangerous to villagers and local civic functions.

But WHY do you believe ANY public information from an agency that has DECEIT in its charter?

Re:MORE DISINFORMATION

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"Al Qaeda" is a term of convenience. The Libyan "rebels" were 70+ % Jihadi "Al Qaeda".

The Syrian "opposition" is 80+ % "Al Qaeda" - funded by Qatar and Saudi, for the same regional purposes, with a generous assist from these CIA heroes, that you rush to defend.

http://syriareport.net/fsa-al-qaeda-fighting-under-the-one-flag/
http://www.cfr.org/syria/al-qaedas-specter-syria/p28782
http://rt.com/news/qaeda-militants-kill-fsa-commander-979/

They laugh at your ignorance, and they count on it.

Re:MORE DISINFORMATION

[nbauman]

I was one of the Taliban's torturers: I crucified people

How do you think they should be referred to?

Well, let's take a look at your facts. According to this story, the Taliban, if that's what this man is referring to, were supported by the U.S. to fight the Soviets. So at that time, they weren't our enemies. They did the same brutal murders (of Najibulla, for example) and the U.S. smiled and patted their heads.

Now they switched alliances and they're "our" enemies.

I don't think dividing the world into "good guys" and "bad guys," depending on whether they're committing brutal murders on our behalf or against it, is useful.

For that reason, I don't think the term "enemies" is useful either. Historians don't use that word.

Re:MORE DISINFORMATION

[nbauman]

Unfortunately, everybody does it.

If you want to punish everybody who has committed torture, fine. Henry Kissinger is on the list.

If you want to be selective, I don't buy that. You're not against torture. You're just using it as an excuse to justify your political goals that have nothing to do with torture.

Re:Why are they called cells?

[Deadstick]

Bad people have cells.
Good people have teams.
Useless people have focus groups.
Self-serving parasites have Six Sigma groups.

Re:Fear

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

> this kind of religious devotion is mental illness

That strikes awfully close to home, don't you think? According to a 2007 Gallup poll, about 43% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Viewed from the other side, our current mission to bring "democracy to the world" (or whatever the hell we're doing and excusing it with), might just as well be seen as modern day crusades. I'm absolutely sure both you and I would fight it if we were at the other end of the stick.

As for the quote from Rudyard Kipling's story, that applies to any enlisted or ranked man, in any military at any point in history. See Gwynne Dyer's documentary "War" for an excellent view into the training of Western world enlisted men. So yeah, maybe your comment was indeed sarcastic? Hard to tell. Some people actually do believe that "the team I'm with is better than and morally superior to yours". Tribe belongingness is after all how human kind has survived over the millennia. I wouldn't call it sophisticated, though.

Finally, are we supposed to be afraid? Well, but of course we are! How else would our masters be able to pull a sock over our head and go on with their cocaine induced power-trips? "We've always been at war with Eastasia", and so on.