Face It: IRAN PWNED the CIA's Drone!

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
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Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer


Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

Pretty smart. I hope some of the guys and gals over at the CIA and Lockheed Martin (?) are doing some face palms over this.

Merry Xmas to Iran, Russia, China, etc.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
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Kind of cool, if true. It's obvious the thing wasn't shot down as they had claimed. I assumed that there was some sort of control error that caused it to land in no-no land.

I will say though, that if it is learned that Russia gains intel from this, it would be bad news for US-Russia relations.
 

fatpat268

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2006
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It's still amazing to me that there isn't some type of self-destruct mechanism on these drones.
 

PottedMeat

Lifer
Apr 17, 2002
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lol

so they did:

1. jam control frequencies
2. drone goes into autopilot -> tries to go home
3. swamp legit GPS signal with custom signal so it lands in iran?

if that's true maybe it should default to some sort of visual or stellar navigation


where is a gps antenna directed in aircraft? upwards? that would interesting if they fed the signal from a higher flying aircraft.
 
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GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
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Me too, but I guess they feared if it landed and killed a civi we would be in a world of shit.

Which is why we're never going to win in the middle east. You can't fight wars when your primary goal is to avoid pissing people off.
 

halik

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
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Err I thought all the drones take off and land under the controls of the local crew at the airport before handing it over to satellite control. There's no autopilot for doing that.
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
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Err I thought all the drones take off and land under the controls of the local crew at the airtpot. There's no autopilot for doing that.

Wasn't this supposed to be some new drone? I know it's not a reaper or predator. They should really have a decent AI in the thing along with hardened firmware.
 

KB

Diamond Member
Nov 8, 1999
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I guess we aren't going to move to that unmanned army of drones after all. We can't use computer pilots if they are easily tricked. We may need to build a new GPS system just for the military.

Yeah and why isn't there a self-destruct system? It makes sense you can turn the drone into a kamakazie pilot if it runs out of bombs. At least build something to fry all the electronics.
 

Wyndru

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2009
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Or....just maybe....they like sounding smart and the drone simply malfunctioned.
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
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And if there wasn't, I'm surprised the place where it's at hasn't been bombed.

obama did ask Iran to return the drone.. and in a very nice manner.

But but.. that would an unprovoked attack... while the U.S has been trying to rebuild Iraq, Iran has been sending people and weapons in to cause more chaos.

It is hard to believe that on one hand Iran can be had by a very intelligent stuxnet virus.. and on the other hand have the U.S. send out a drone that can be easily hacked.

My theory is still they had inside information. whether it be someone in the U.S. getting a payday for blueprints or the Chinese finding info from all their incursions into military networks. Definitely should be a wake up call... but like most things this will be forgotten about in 3 months.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
42,589
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Fake?
Many have said it is likely from the time it was announced

Until someone from outside of Iran actually gets a look at the unit, anything is possible.
 

Patranus

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2007
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No, Obama PWNED the CIA when he called off any attempts to recover/blow up the drone once it crashed hopping that "pretty please" would work.
 

Soccerman06

Diamond Member
Jul 29, 2004
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I like to think the US planned to land it in the desert. No reason they couldnt have bombed the whole desert to kingdom come if they wanted to destroy the drone. I think this is an elaborate rouse to gather a bunch intel on Iranian forces and tech. Also WTF is Christian Science Monitor?
 

Brovane

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2001
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These are the times that I wish we still had the SR-71 flying. Fly in the plane over Tehran right at prayer time. Give it a real nice sonic boom and then fly back out while watching the Iranian Air Force scramble around.
 

RavenSEAL

Diamond Member
Jan 4, 2010
8,661
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Fake?
Many have said it is likely from the time it was announced

Until someone from outside of Iran actually gets a look at the unit, anything is possible.
How the fuck does it seem "fake"?

I'm sick and tired of government officials, they should just come out and say whether it happened or not.

No one will give a shit anyways.