Iran Wants To Clone Downed US Drone 663
PolygamousRanchKid sends this quote from the LA Times:
"The Obama administration has sent a formal diplomatic request asking Iran to return the radar-evading drone aircraft that crashed on a CIA spying mission this month, but U.S. officials say they don't expect Iran will comply. 'We have asked for it back,' Obama said Monday at a news conference in Washington with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. 'We'll see how the Iranians respond.' His comments marked the first public confirmation that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone now in Iranian hands is a U.S. aircraft, though U.S. officials privately acknowledged that in recent days. Iran has claimed it downed the stealthy surveillance drone, but U.S. officials say it malfunctioned. Capture of the futuristic-looking unmanned spy plane has provided Tehran with a propaganda windfall. The government announced that it planned to clone and mass produce the bat-winged craft for use against its enemies."
Iran has also demanded an apology from the U.S. for the drone flight in its airspace.
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:3, Insightful)
I never had a problem asking for the ball back.
I also never had a problem paying for the damages by working it off for them. Its called being accountable for your actions.
What did you do? Run off and hide while the poor bastards window was replaced at his expense?
Jesus (Score:5, Insightful)
As they should. If I found some stealthy character in my backyard looking in on my wife, an apology is the LEAST I would demand.
Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure their clone will be almost as good as mine, but probably not actually as good.
The important technology in the device is embedded in chips that are the most tamper resistant devices on the planet, they'll be utterly destroyed and unusable for reverse engineering well before they get anywhere near the tech.
The optics I'm sure are impressive, but not so much that they'll get some giant leap.
The encryption keys were worthless before the aircraft hit the ground.
The paint and fuselage material are the most important things on it that they can gather data from that isn't already something they can get their hands on through other channels.
Its just silly for anyone to think they have a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything it it. It would be hard for US to reverse engineer it, let alone Iran.
Re:When will Iran apologize to humanity? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably the same day the U.S. apologizes for the coup that overthrew democracy in Iran and put the Shah in power in 1953.
What nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:5, Insightful)
What a competent president would have done is sent another drone to destroy it so the technology didn't fall into the hands of every enemy state in the world.
Yeah, an act of war against a foreign nation after they shoot down your spy drone that was in their airspace sounds like a great plan. Particularly when they're one of the world's largest oil suppliers and gas would probably hit $10 a gallon.
why no self-destruct? (Score:5, Insightful)
It boggles my mind that this thing didn't self-destruct for exactly this reason.
Re:why no self-destruct? (Score:5, Insightful)
These drones do have a self-destruct as well as other "things are going wrong" modes. One of them is to just circle waiting for control communications to be re-established. Another one is an automatic safe landing mode. Some people suspect that this drone may have gone into auto landing mode which would explain why it appears undamaged. For such a sensitive device leading to such horrible PR if captured, I feel perhaps the self-destruct should be the default failure mode :)
However, having it just blow up in some civilian household would probably not be good PR either.
...But he said Please! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:5, Insightful)
Or like Law enforcement putting a tracking device on your vehicle and asking for it back when you go public with it.
They already knew (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:3, Insightful)
Forget the fact that they are one of the largest oil exports. Don't ignore the fact that they can close the Straight of Hormuz which would choke off the oil supply coming out of THE LARGEST oil supplier.
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:4, Insightful)
If it is an act of war against a foreign nation... what do you call it when several helicopters full of navy seals are sent into a foreign nation to kidnap or kill an individual who is living there with the implicit permission of the host nation, killing anyone who resists, taking the body of the target out... all without notice or permission of the host nation?
Do you really want to play a game of "lets pick and choose what we call an act of war"?
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that was just grand theft airplane.
Re:why no self-destruct? (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't have to self-destruct at an explosive level, just fry all the electronics and you're good.
And we don't know if this didn't happen. 'Course, as usual, we don't know much at all about what really happened.
Re:They already knew (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds to me like Tehran is escalating. Their rhetoric is typically warlike, but increasing in tone. Fortunately, their military has zero experience fighting a modern well trained and equipment armed force, and our military has 10 years of advanced experience in the harshest environments possible. Iran has zero chance of winning any type of military conflict and very little support even among middle eastern countries. So in effect we have them boxed in, they can't win an open war, all they can do is fund shadow terrorists and try to build a nuclear weapon. Which when used will result in the complete destruction of the Iranian state. But yeah, go ahead and blame the US if you want. The tyrannical muslim state is obviously the injured party here.
Re:When will Iran apologize to humanity? (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, for things like sentencing Salman Rushdie to death?
Or like stealing the last election to prop up the Revolutionary Guard's puppet and when the people don't like it, beating the hell out of them, killing them and/or imprisoning them, even going so far as to not return bodies of the dead to their families but burying them in graves in restricted areas, where families can't visit. Cuz, you know, they RG runs Iran, not the Mullahs or Ayathollah, which are allowed to go about their business, pretending there's some actual republic when it's really all a sham and military coup by feat.
What I'd like to know is why these drones don't even have a Self Destruct on a dead-man switch, out of contact for so long and sensitive bits are fused by a burning strip of Sodium or such.
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that's just a police action, there's a difference. Hell if I know what it is.
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:4, Insightful)
Well it wouldn't be completely unprecedented, as I'm fairly sure we've blown up in-development nuclear enrichment facilities before with cruise missiles.
Where? The closest I can remember was blowing up a pharma factory in some African nation which couldn't fight back. Sudan?
Iran is already being threatened with a boycott of their oil by Europe, one of the main consumers of their oil.
A pointless exercise, because China will be happy to buy all the oil they can get.
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Iran's caused it, it would have had to been a disruption of some sort to avoid much damage to the drone. While we know that the downlink from drones tends to be unencrypted (for good reasons)
Out of curiosity, what are the good reasons for not encrypting the downlink?
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:5, Insightful)
That could be considered an act of war. But then again, some might also consider a terrorist mass-murderer, engineer of an attack killing over 3,000 civilians and some unknown number of other attacks, living in a supposedly allied country, apparently with their implicit permission, to be an act of war as well. While we're at it, allowing "protesters" to attack an embassy in your country and hold everyone inside hostage for years is also generally considered to be an act of war. So is sponsoring attacks against the armed forces of another country.
Basically, there's plenty of acts of war to go around in this area.
Re:I'm curious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely I don't have to be a fan of Iran to point out the idiocy of this statement? Iran is technologically one of the most advanced states in the region, probably only second to Israel.
Oh they're a Gulf state; they must be camel-riding barbarians who only know how to sell oil. I'm going to say it right out: this is not mere ignorance, it's outright bigotry.
Mart
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:4, Insightful)
A president like that would have caused the deaths of dozens, hundreds, or maybe tens of thousands of people depending on how much such an ensuing conflict would escalate to. Thank God we're not all dicks like you who think that it's worth killing people you don't know and spending collective money that you don't have because someone hurt your imaginary feelings.
Re:Iran? Nope, China and Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Iran? Nope, China and Russia... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's quite a distance between "they're all primitive camel-riders" and "they're a technological power to rival the United States."
Stuxnet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Now these guys have some balls (Score:5, Insightful)
That may be, but I don't think that the US is going to allow the Bushes, Clinton, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, etc. to be extradited. The Pakistanis, Iraqis, Indonesians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, etc. are just out of luck. Only the US and Israel are allowed to pursue revenge killings.