

Iran says it's building copy of captured US drone - thematt
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120422/D9U9U0A80.html

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shin_lao
There is a world of difference between reverse engineering some of the
software to decipher some logs and understanding everything there is to
understand to build a fac-similé.

While Persians are clearly clever and educated, I submit they lack the
industrial infrastructure to build a drone.

Let's keep in mind they currently have trouble properly refining their oil...

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lotux
To give you an idea about us (Iran) have a look here,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Iranian_Americans> , you can skip to
Business/Technology section if you like, we survived a devastating war and
more than 30 years of crippling sanctions that continues today. and I have to
say we have pretty good infrastructure that you have no idea about it, which
is good.

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rollypolly

      There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered
      them by the grace of God
    

Excuse me if I doubt any of the claims in this article.

~~~
_interrupt
So apparently, God is on everybody's side and has the set of all encryption
keys.

~~~
kmfrk
The oldest MITM trick in the book.

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smoyer
During the cold war it was common to segment data so that the compromise of a
single agent wouldn't cause too much damage. I doubt there's too much concern
over the data the drone contains, but the hardware is state-of-the-art and
perhaps it should also have an accident (maybe the centrifuges could teach it
how to self destruct ... Or a North Korean rocket will accidentally fall on
it).

I guess I'm waiting to see how much of this information is verified by someone
outside the Iranian government (hmmm ... And the U.S. Government).

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sycren
Would it have been better for Iran to have said nothing or is this only to
provoke the US & alies?

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ams6110
There's always the chance that the drone was "lost" deliberately, in order to
give the Iranians something useless to waste a lot of time on, or to
deliberately mislead them on the true capabilities of the device.

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eternalban
I believe it was and it was a clear signal from a certain influential clique
in the US defense establishment -- where [did] Leon work before? -- to the
Israelis that USA will not allow any nation to dictate its strategic posture
or present it a fait accompli.

~~~
larsbot
Could you explain your reasoning? How is the US purposefully losing a drone in
Iran somehow a signal to the Israelis? Surely Israel already knew that we were
capable of / already flying drone over Iran considering their use in two of
Iran's neighbors (Iraq and Afghanistan).

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eternalban
2 pairs of shoes:

1 Put yourself in the shoes of US commanders unhappy about the possibility of
one day waking up and seeing little blips heading toward Iran. You would have
2 choices and they are both lousy. Business is good. Oil is flowing. Who wants
it all to go up in smoke? Certainly not America.

2 Put yourself in an Israeli analyst's shoes/head and rewind date to day of
release of footage. 3 possibilities, 1 obviously unlikely, and other 2 just
"shocking". (And I leave that for you to divine).

Now, I assert that US president and commanders are sleeping easier, and that
Israelis are no longer so glib about sending aircraft over IRI and taking US
involvement for granted. After all, if IRGC can bring down America's drone,
Israeli F16s could also fall off the sky near the borders of Iran ... by the
"grace of God" ...

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lotux
don't take it personally, you decrypt someone else code , we decrypt yours, so
there will be one to decrypt ours again. is all about decryption ;)

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googoobaby
Perhaps they'll build it out of oil drums like their SAM systems? I don't
think Iran is capable of putting together a decent steel drum band much less
stealth drones.

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johansch
I was under the impression that Iran has a pretty decent higher education
system. And that it includes female students as well - with a noticably high
percentage of female students in fields that are male-dominated in the west,
like computer science.

No idea how they are doing in mechanical/aeronautical engineering though.

~~~
lolcraft
Iran is under an international embargo on military supplies, thought. The GP
might be overstating the case or trolling, but I suppose getting the materials
to build a replica, communication gear and fuel will be difficult for the
iranians. Specially when some western country with the biggest military-
industrial complex of the world is angry at you because you broke one of their
toys.

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zotz
Wow. Will it kill civilians and crash like the original?

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rsanchez1
They better watch out before they insert their USB cable into the drone's
port. The last time they inserted without protection, they caught Stuxnet.

