Leaked Documents Detail Al-Qaeda's Efforts To Fight Back Against Drones 234
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.'"
Not just al Qaeda (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm guessing every other military in the world is also interested in a defence against drones.
Re:Al-Qaeda keeps losing recruits to Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't forget Google's "it's ok to be evil sometimes" slogan.
Re:Al-Qaeda keeps losing recruits to Google (Score:1, Interesting)
Well... cough.... sorta, mostly.....
Sodomy "For the Sake of Islam" [gatestoneinstitute.org]
Al Qaeda Bombers Learn from Drug Smugglers [cbsnews.com]
Re:MORE DISINFORMATION (Score:5, Interesting)
You take issue with referring to the ever fun-loving Taliban and al Qaida as enemies?
Cold fjord: regardless of whether I agree with them, I'd have a lot more respect for your opinions if you stopped attacking straw men. Where did the GP say anything like that? What he's questioning is how effective TPTB are at combating that enemy, how much of what TPTB spew is self-serving, and how much "collateral damage" they cause (with the ever attendant blowback, to use the CIA's own parlance).
Re:MORE DISINFORMATION (Score:3, Interesting)
Should Afghans be at liberty to send troops on the US soil, to launch military strikes at American criminals? Because, as far as I can tell, that's the next logical step of the argument you seem to be making. Or is might=right?
Re:Al-Qaeda keeps losing recruits to Google (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Fear (Score:5, Interesting)
That strikes awfully close to home, don't you think? According to a 2007 Gallup poll [wikipedia.org], 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" [wikipedia.org] 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.
Re:MORE DISINFORMATION (Score:4, Interesting)
That the US has backed some wonderful freedom fighters for use in Syria?
The same type of people who where in Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya? Must be fun for the special forces training them
They become such good freedom fighters again in such a short time