Iran shoots down US drone – state TV

[Mr Weiss]

http://rt.com/news/iran-us-drone-shot-001/

Iran's military has shot down an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran," an unnamed source has reportedly told Iran's Arabic-language television network.

According to Press TV reports, Iranian authorities managed to seize the unmanned aircraft upon being downed, which they claim received "minimum damage."

The drone, reportedly an RQ-170 sentinel, "is a low observable unmanned aircraft system which the United States Air Force uses to "directly support combatant commander needs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to locate targets."

[Paslode]

There was an alleged video of the drone posted today which showed the alleged drone with little to no damage....

I wonder if this is related....

http://professionalsoldiers.com/foru...ighlight=virus

http://professionalsoldiers.com/foru...ighlight=virus


Or maybe........

http://professionalsoldiers.com/foru...=chinese+chips

President Obama politely asked if we could have the drone back. Think we will get it in time for Christmas?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ned-craft.html

[Pete]

Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middl...anian-engineer

"............Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety......"

Was it that easy? What good is technology when you give it away?

[Storm]

This certainly seems like it could be quite troublesome. If, and I emphasize if, Iran could do this, then it certainly seems like it would be a virtual cakewalk for many other more advanced countries to do the same thing. Aside from the obvious upgrading, or changes in GPS signals, I wonder if this argument is going to be be another facet of the manned vs. unmanned aircraft debate?

[BOfH]

There have been instances of drones crashing due to deliberate and accidental RF interference[1]. Additionally, the video link on some is not encrypted and can be intercepted, as has occurred in Iraq[2]. Drones after all are robots, which contain one or multiple embedded computers, which run software, which has a high probability of containing security vulnerabilities. With that in mind, and the fact that many components and some software are COTS products, finding and exploiting a vulnerability may not require as much research and analysis as previously thought. We have been operating drones over Iran for some time, so they have had time to analyze the command and control traffic and poke at the actual software running the craft.

That said, I more or less believe that Iran went with the simpler yet effective RF jamming technique, hence the appearance of malfunction to the US drone operator(s).


[1]https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/17946-Drone-Wars--When-Cyber-Warfare-Becomes-Real.html
[2]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html

[tonyz]

I can hear AG Holder now “…we never walk drones across the border…”

Gunflyer…has a certain ring to it...

[Wiseman]

Lockheed Martin must be going bonkers with every interview.

[Counsel]

Why not carrie a self-destruct mechanism? If not the hole aircraft maybe just its classified components?

[35NCO]

The story sounds legit in theory. But if this was going on, our guys had to see it. It is very easy to jam GPS. Period. However the claims of controlling the aircraft are a little bit more shady. It does not take too much of a nerd evil genius to raise the noise floor and blast an area with power. Especially in GPS frequency’s. The Db level is fairly low.

To change command hand-shakes they would have had to have control of the uplink. I would be more curious to their technical explanation of that. With the jamming as well of the GPS system there would have to be a substantial GPS jammer in the area. Possibly old Russian equipment or Chinese hand me downs. From what little of the story is out and claimed to be fact from what they are telling us, we are to assume that they must have been jamming from a good distance.

But also too, if they understand the command and control procedures so well, then why did they not just “take it over from the start”? And how did they even know it was in the area?

I suppose that’s about as far as I could speak to that conversation. I will tell you though, stranger things have been done. I once heard a validated story of a man that jammed a satellite with a welding rod! So who knows?

[BOfH]

Originally Posted by 35NCO

Entire Post

The engineer quoted stated that they spoofed the GPS coordinates used by the drone. As I understand it, the military GPS signal is encrypted (P(Y)), however, it is possible that they recovered the key(it is static I believe) from other captured equipment that they got hold of in either Afghanistan or Iraq. The other far out possibility is that the GPS module is a civilian COTS system which is easily spoofed...

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

Just a theory but is it possible they are getting some outside help from Russia or China? It would benefit both countries to send a team there and see how they could counter our technology. I am just guessing I have no knowledge of these things or technical know how.

IMHO, I am sure they are, whether it be passive or active. Additionally, I would not be surprised if some of our "known allies" are covertly involved as well. American exceptional-ism irks many, especially those in intelligence and reconnaissance...

[35NCO]

I think this could get a little border line rather quickly...So the technical aspects of jamming and frequency's should be left out, even if listed in some Jane's book somewhere.

There has been a new change to the overall story though. A "military official" (love how they always talk to the press) claims the drone was in fact on a mission in Iran. So that throws out the "we guided it to Iran".

Again, with the overall detection of the drone, it was most likely flying at a very high ceiling. The max altitude claimed by the press is 50,000 feet. Now I do not know if that is operational, or max ceiling. Its not like the Iranians looked up and saw it there. Hard to believe they could have detected it at all.

But...if they had any assumption it was there and jammed the heck out of it, it does make sense that the auto-pilot kicked in and by some miscalculation it self landed in Iran. Or, I do not know if they have this or not, it may have had a parachute, some drones tested of the predator series did have chutes.

One more piece of the puzzle (that still does not fit with the Iranians story) is that it was cited in another article that immediate satellite imagery of the crash site showed "significant damage" to the drone. So what are they showing on Iranian television? Could be a very elaborate mock up, while the real thing, (in pieces) is being reverse engineered by others.

It does make a valuable propaganda asset for Iran, so if this is the case, no surprise there.

I agree too, that a self destruct of sensitive components should be critical to design. I think at this point, Lockeed is thinking the same thing...on the other hand if you lose all contact anyway, you could not command detonate it. It would have to do it by itself, which could be a liability.

[mark46th]

Looks like a good argument for Job Security for Air Force pilots...

[35NCO]

Right. Now they will claim " jamming" PTSD.

[hoot72]

They (Iranians) are now claiming they managed to hack into the GPRS system/GPS navigation system of the drone and managed to get it to land without damage.