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Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

csmonitor.com

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Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#111

Post by nate_meurer »

rdtsc wrote: post #98
blhack wrote: post #10

(Prelude edit: A few people seem to be missing the point I'm making here. I know quite a lot about the predator, and a bit about the Global Hawk. I do not know much about the Sentinel. The jab about building a drone with parts on my kitchen table is a joke, meant to illustrate that this is either an absurd level of incompetence on the part of Lockheed Martin [not likely] or the article is incorrect, the latter being…

> absurd level of incompetence on the part of Lockheed Martin [not likely] or the article is incorrect, I am also working in the area of government military contracting and I would claim your credibility in LM's competence is baffling. Are we talking about the same company here?

Absolutely. Lockheed's an enormous company, so generalizations are risky, but they sure do some low-quality engineering sometimes. Their Littoral Combat Ship program is a textbook example of a clusterfuck.

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#112

Post by einhverfr »

Jach wrote: post #107
einhverfr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a contrarian view. I would argue that mutual spying in general is a good thing and that it generally has the potential, properly managed, to prevent war. The problem has to do with leadership and less to do with spying itself. During the cold war, both the US and USSR had extensive satellites deployed that would provide an early warning for the launch of ICBM's. As Lt. Robert Bowman pointed out in "Star Wars:…

Did Bowman also point out Petrov Day and the dangers of these systems malfunctioning? ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/jq/926_is_petrov_day/ ) I mostly agree with your comment; the CIA has been relatively benign compared to other agencies and the military at large. My own take on the moral implications of spying is that if you already have a Palantir, you might as well use it since more information is advantageous in the ze…

Yes. In fact his big criticism of antisatellite missiles was that if the USSR knows we have the capability to take down their satellites, this adds additional failure conditions that could be mistaken for a prelude to an attack. So for example a satellite runs into a piece of space junk and is destroyed. Now you have to decide whether that was the result of hostile anti-satellite warfare (and a prelude to a nuclear first strike) or whether it is just an ordinary malfunction.

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#113

Post by whatgoodisaroad »

presidentender wrote: post #69

In the early to mid 2000s, the US rendered military aid to Georgia, in both training and equipment. This included unmanned aircraft. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, and presumably captured some of those aircraft. No security system should rely on the secrecy of its function, but in practice, many do. If any agency in the world can break the security of US UAVs, it'd be Russia. Remind me again how the Russians and Ir…

Correction, in 2008, Russia invaded PART of Georgia. If my memory serves, they only invaded as far as one military base, and that only temporary.

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#114

Post by gcb »

johno215 wrote: post #48
jgrahamc wrote: post #2

So, they spoofed GPS and jammed the rest of the communications to make it land automatically. Given that there are test transmitters for GPS devices used when consumer devices are being created it's not a surprise that they managed to do this. Not very long ago there was a GPS jamming exercise in the UK done on a military range. I realize that as a Westerner I shouldn't be rooting for the Iranians but if they did spo…

Hmm, the GPS signal the military uses is supposed to be encrypted and un-spoofable. I wonder if Iran cracked it. If so, can the US reset the key easily? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_signals#Precision_code

you don't have to understand a signal to jam it.

unless it also has frequency hopping when it senses a jam.

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#115

Post by davnola »

whatgoodisaroad wrote: post #113
presidentender wrote: post #69

In the early to mid 2000s, the US rendered military aid to Georgia, in both training and equipment. This included unmanned aircraft. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, and presumably captured some of those aircraft. No security system should rely on the secrecy of its function, but in practice, many do. If any agency in the world can break the security of US UAVs, it'd be Russia. Remind me again how the Russians and Ir…

Correction, in 2008, Russia invaded PART of Georgia. If my memory serves, they only invaded as far as one military base, and that only temporary.

No, the Russians occupied several Georgian cities, including Poti, Gori, Senakie, and Zugdidi.

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#116

Post by ColdAsIce »

trotsky wrote: post #106
rdtsc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However at the same time a lot of them claim to be critical of US govt's policies on war, drones, extra-judicial killings and so on. All that taken into account is surprising that they as a group would rush to discredit Iranians' capability and ridicule this situation. It is interesting that they are essentially playing along to the US govt. propaganda. The govt. knew what had happened but lied, telling the media a m…

It is interesting that they are essentially playing along to the US govt. propaganda. [...] It is also funny how after more evidence comes out, neither the media, nor say, Redditors, go back and admit their previous mistake, instead the strategy moves to "ridicule". You shouldn't under-estimate how much propaganda being done by a variety of states is being done online through the use of sock puppets. While I'm not tr…

Does that mean that our internet has been taken over by sock puppets?

When we no longer can trust that the other guy is indeed a guy/girl just like us, but now is an algorithm, carefully crafted for a specific purpose.

Communication suffers, the internet may no longer be a meeting ground.

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#117

Post by tarre »

johno215 wrote: post #48
jgrahamc wrote: post #2

So, they spoofed GPS and jammed the rest of the communications to make it land automatically. Given that there are test transmitters for GPS devices used when consumer devices are being created it's not a surprise that they managed to do this. Not very long ago there was a GPS jamming exercise in the UK done on a military range. I realize that as a Westerner I shouldn't be rooting for the Iranians but if they did spo…

Hmm, the GPS signal the military uses is supposed to be encrypted and un-spoofable. I wonder if Iran cracked it. If so, can the US reset the key easily? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_signals#Precision_code

I think there is no need to hack the signal. It can be done by capturing and delaying signals. What you need for that is

1) the location of satellites. You can probably get it from the commercial signal.

2) transmission system, which overpowers signals from satellites. Many amateurs have it too.

3) location of the receiver you want to distract. I have no idea, how this works, but apparently it is possible.

4) program that calculates right delays for each signal so that plane will locate itself incorrectly.

Maybe the droid was programmed so, that GPS overrides other locationing devices, if it is working and the droid thought that GPS was working.

As jgrahamc says: "I realize that as a Westerner I shouldn't be rooting for the Iranians but if they did spoof GPS, jam the rest of the communications and get this thing to land thinking it was at its home base then it's at least a neat hack."

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#118

Post by skeptical »

azernik wrote: post #93
sehugg wrote: post #6

One American analyst ridiculed Iran’s capability, telling Defense News that the loss was “like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.” An ox-cart technology culture that is allied with China and Russia. I hope this kind of hubris is counterbalanced by more realistic attitudes in the defense world.

I wouldn't downplay Iran's technological capability as this anonymous analyst seems to. By Middle Eastern (and developing world) standards, it's a fairly technologically advanced society - GDP per capita 4 times that of Egypt, 3 times that of Iraq - and this is a country where (unlike, say, Iraq in the 80s or Syria in the 2000s) its nuclear development program and missiles are indigenous. That said, I'm sure China an…

I don't know if you visited the countries you mentioned nor if you have any idea of their academic standards for example.

Many people in here are used to american technological society and have no idea what it's like in other parts of the world. In countries like Iran the huge majority of the population never red a book, can't really read and write much more than the very basics, most of the people haven't assimilated the concept of multiplication, just to give you an example. I'm from a country way more developed than iran in technological/scientific terms and I always have trouble to explain to Americans, Canadians, British, Germans, etc. how non tech-savy other parts of the world are.

I wouldn't downplay _the lack of_ technological capability. That's more like it.

I don't know what happen with that drone, but so far I've seen zero evidence and 100% speculation. That is a fact. I might be wrong, but there's no single bit of proof of anything.

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#119

Post by ysangkok »

gcb wrote: post #114
johno215 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, the GPS signal the military uses is supposed to be encrypted and un-spoofable. I wonder if Iran cracked it. If so, can the US reset the key easily? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_signals#Precision_code

you don't have to understand a signal to jam it. unless it also has frequency hopping when it senses a jam.

how would the satellite in space detect a jam on the ground ? we're talking gps jamming. state your source

Re: Report: Iran Hacked, Hijacked U.S. Drone

#120

Post by ysangkok »

tarre wrote: post #117
johno215 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, the GPS signal the military uses is supposed to be encrypted and un-spoofable. I wonder if Iran cracked it. If so, can the US reset the key easily? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_signals#Precision_code

I think there is no need to hack the signal. It can be done by capturing and delaying signals. What you need for that is 1) the location of satellites. You can probably get it from the commercial signal. 2) transmission system, which overpowers signals from satellites. Many amateurs have it too. 3) location of the receiver you want to distract. I have no idea, how this works, but apparently it is possible. 4) program…

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack
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