Iran shoots down US drone

[Skgoa]

The argument, Skgoa, is that we have relatively limited evidence that the Iranians have a physically intact drone, as opposed to a pile of wreckage.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Goddamit, we have resounding visual evidence.

That assumes the photo is indeed a photo of the real drone. I do not know if this is true. Literally do not know- nor am I qualified to guess the amount of damage the drone took hitting the ground, so I can't say the photo is reasonable or not.

Oh, the "it's fundamentally unknowable"-copout. Let's teach the controvercy!

If someone thinks it likely that the drone would be reduced to wreckage by a crash, then "they built a mockup for that photo op" becomes the "simplest explanation."

Which is why I brought up Occam's Razor: you are adding an additional, totally unfounded and unecessary, axiom. Or to phrase it in in a more german frank way: You are making a bullshit assumption so that you can arrive at a bullshit conclusion.

What unnecessary axiom? That planes usually get trashed when they crash into the ground? How is that not relevant?

The "crash into the ground" part. All sources (both US and iranian) claim that the US somehow lost control over the drone and that it flew deep into Iran. Why do you assume it had to have had a hard crash? Might it be due to your whole argument being based on that made-up fact?

If someone sees no reason why the drone couldn't have come down more or less intact, then "that's the real drone" becomes the "simplest explanation."

Stop muddying the waters by framing the "two option" as even remotely equal. The drone has come down relatively intact. There is NOTHING that suggests otherwise.

...Not even the physics of high-speed collisions?

WHAT high-speed collisions?

Put it this way, Skgoa. Suppose I told you that a man had jumped out of an airplane at ten thousand meters without a parachute, hit ground in my territory, and I said "here he is." Then I show you a photograph of a happy, healthy man.

Will you assume that because there is VISUAL EVIDENCE that the man who jumped out of an airplane is happy and healthy, then he must be so? Or will you consider the possibility that I may be faking, for reasons of my own, on the grounds that no one who jumped out of an airplane at that altitude without a parachute would be in such good condition?

Even leaving out the fact that I know of at least one such case - i.e. you just made a pretty good argument for my case -, you are still making a big assumption: that the drone fell from the sky like a stone. This in itself is an impropable thing.
But you are also lying. The example you provided is nothing like what we are talking about. Pretending that the drone we did see was undamaged or even in one part is creating a false dichotomy. The drone we saw had damage that would be expected if it was brought down in a rather slow and horizontal "crash" landing on flat, open, and hard terrain - you know, exactly the kind of landing that would be expected.

[Kanastrous]

Report after report after report state that the drone crashed in 'mountainous' terrain.

Repeated trips to the dictionary have failed to turn up definitions of 'mountainous' that include the descriptors 'flat,' or 'open.'

Still want to accuse Simon of 'lying?'

[Simon_Jester]

Oh, the "it's fundamentally unknowable"-copout. Let's teach the controvercy!

Do you always jump to conclusions, and treat the first thing presented to you as if it were evidence as infallible?

Don't be silly.

The "crash into the ground" part. All sources (both US and iranian) claim that the US somehow lost control over the drone and that it flew deep into Iran. Why do you assume it had to have had a hard crash? Might it be due to your whole argument being based on that made-up fact?

The Iranians have on occasion claimed they shot down the drone- i.e. fired a missile or gun at it and did enough damage to prevent it from flying. Aircraft which are damaged by missiles or guns and forced down by damage tend to crash hard enough to be in bad shape.

As Kanastrous noted, the drone crashes in mountains. Without knowing the exact location of the crash site, we cannot say whether the site was smooth and level, or rocky. An out of control drone that keeps flying autonomously might well crash in mountainous terrain by simply flying into a mountainside at speed- what in piloted aircraft is known as a "controlled flight into terrain."

The Iranians might be telling the truth. They might be lying. They (like the US, and many other countries) have a history of lying about things like this. And if they're telling the truth about approximately where the drone crashed, and that their defenses played a role in shooting it down, it is most unlikely that the drone is in anything like as good a shape as the photo makes it out to be.

If, on the other hand, the drone landed somewhere flat and Iranian weapons didn't do meaningful damage, then it might very well have crashed intact.

Put it this way, Skgoa. Suppose I told you that a man had jumped out of an airplane at ten thousand meters without a parachute, hit ground in my territory, and I said "here he is." Then I show you a photograph of a happy, healthy man.

Will you assume that because there is VISUAL EVIDENCE that the man who jumped out of an airplane is happy and healthy, then he must be so? Or will you consider the possibility that I may be faking, for reasons of my own, on the grounds that no one who jumped out of an airplane at that altitude without a parachute would be in such good condition?

Even leaving out the fact that I know of at least one such case - i.e. you just made a pretty good argument for my case -, you are still making a big assumption: that the drone fell from the sky like a stone. This in itself is an impropable thing.
But you are also lying. The example you provided is nothing like what we are talking about. Pretending that the drone we did see was undamaged or even in one part is creating a false dichotomy. The drone we saw had damage that would be expected if it was brought down in a rather slow and horizontal "crash" landing on flat, open, and hard terrain - you know, exactly the kind of landing that would be expected.

The falling-man case was an illustrative example. I'm sure you can find cases of people falling from 10000 meters and living (though the only person I know reputed to do so, Vesna Vulovic, was badly injured, not "happy and healthy," afterwards). But there are one hell of a lot more cases of the person who fell out of the plane being splattered all over the landscape.

The probability that the speaker is lying is itself something that has to be factored into calculations of Occam's Razor simplicity, and Boolean probability.

[Sky Captain]

How well are those drones protected from hacking? If Iran (Maybe with some help from Russian or Chineese specialists) managed to hack it and gain some access to flight control computer then controlled low speed crash landing would be reasonable and consistent with airframe that shows little damage.
Maybe Iran claimed the drone was shot down to not reveal that they have capability to hack those drones.

[Simon_Jester]

That is also possible.

What I'm trying to caution against is the practice of using a fully general counterargument to dismiss the idea that a national government might fake a photograph.

[Sea Skimmer]

So latest claim for how Iran might have brought it down is that they jammed the control link, forcing it into autopilot as one would expect, but then also generated false GPS signals to confuse the drone until it thought it was landing back at home base. Such an attack is plausible if the drone was not designed with anti spoofing measures in its navigation system (basically software that notices unrealistically quick changes in position). Given the limited service nature of the RQ-170, it’s a tad doubtful it has highly developed systems like this, US GPS guided weapons took around ten years to have such a capability added and its much easier for a weapon then a drone. Its also possible that sufficiently advanced GPS spoofing could have made the drone fly in circles so that it DID think it was covering the distance back home, and then made it land.

Of course, we don’t know that this is what Iran really did but its certainly a lot more plausible then invading the control link directly.

[Skgoa]

Oh, the "it's fundamentally unknowable"-copout. Let's teach the controvercy!

Do you always jump to conclusions, and treat the first thing presented to you as if it were evidence as infallible?

Don't be silly.

Well, you have passed silly round-about two posts ago, but I will indulge you: you claimed the drone is more likely to be fake than real. When confronted with evidence that it is real and the argument that there is no evidence that it is fake, you responded with what amounts to "we can't know that for certain." To make this clear: you should have provided evidence for your position, instead you simply claimed you can't be proven wrong. And THAT is a copout if I ever saw one.

The "crash into the ground" part. All sources (both US and iranian) claim that the US somehow lost control over the drone and that it flew deep into Iran. Why do you assume it had to have had a hard crash? Might it be due to your whole argument being based on that made-up fact?

The Iranians have on occasion claimed they shot down the drone- i.e. fired a missile or gun at it and did enough damage to prevent it from flying. Aircraft which are damaged by missiles or guns and forced down by damage tend to crash hard enough to be in bad shape.[/quote]
And what you nelgect to add is that none of this is relevant. (Also, the drone we saw is in bad shape, so once again you create an inconsistency where there is none.)

As Kanastrous noted, the drone crashes in mountains. Without knowing the exact location of the crash site, we cannot say whether the site was smooth and level, or rocky. An out of control drone that keeps flying autonomously might well crash in mountainous terrain by simply flying into a mountainside at speed- what in piloted aircraft is known as a "controlled flight into terrain."

But it didn't. If you claim it actually did, prove it.

The Iranians might be telling the truth. They might be lying. They (like the US, and many other countries) have a history of lying about things like this.

Actually: no, not like this. Think about it, does this fit in with the propaganda claims we have seen in the past?

And if they're telling the truth about approximately where the drone crashed, and that their defenses played a role in shooting it down, it is most unlikely that the drone is in anything like as good a shape as the photo makes it out to be.

Prove this.

If, on the other hand, the drone landed somewhere flat and Iranian weapons didn't do meaningful damage, then it might very well have crashed intact.

I like how you emphasize the "then", framing this so it seems to not be what it really is: what actually happened.

Put it this way, Skgoa. Suppose I told you that a man had jumped out of an airplane at ten thousand meters without a parachute, hit ground in my territory, and I said "here he is." Then I show you a photograph of a happy, healthy man.

Will you assume that because there is VISUAL EVIDENCE that the man who jumped out of an airplane is happy and healthy, then he must be so? Or will you consider the possibility that I may be faking, for reasons of my own, on the grounds that no one who jumped out of an airplane at that altitude without a parachute would be in such good condition?

Even leaving out the fact that I know of at least one such case - i.e. you just made a pretty good argument for my case -, you are still making a big assumption: that the drone fell from the sky like a stone. This in itself is an impropable thing.
But you are also lying. The example you provided is nothing like what we are talking about. Pretending that the drone we did see was undamaged or even in one part is creating a false dichotomy. The drone we saw had damage that would be expected if it was brought down in a rather slow and horizontal "crash" landing on flat, open, and hard terrain - you know, exactly the kind of landing that would be expected.

The falling-man case was an illustrative example. I'm sure you can find cases of people falling from 10000 meters and living (though the only person I know reputed to do so, Vesna Vulovic, was badly injured, not "happy and healthy," afterwards). But there are one hell of a lot more cases of the person who fell out of the plane being splattered all over the landscape.

The probability that the speaker is lying is itself something that has to be factored into calculations of Occam's Razor simplicity, and Boolean probability.

And "random guy on the internet doesn't know enough about aircraft, yet makes unfounded assumptions about drone crash" is far likelier than "everyone involved is lying." So the Iranians might be lying. Other than the non-zero probability of that, you have no evidence of it actually being true. But since you don't like Occam's Razor, let's just see what Carl Sagan has to say on the issue: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." You have not substanciated your claims with anything but "it could be true." The onus is on you to prove that the Iranians are lying. Or at least give a rational reason for believing they are lying.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, you have passed silly round-about two posts ago, but I will indulge you: you claimed the drone is more likely to be fake than real. When confronted with evidence that it is real and the argument that there is no evidence that it is fake, you responded with what amounts to "we can't know that for certain." To make this clear: you should have provided evidence for your position, instead you simply claimed you can't be proven wrong. And THAT is a copout if I ever saw one.

Excuse me, but could you please quote me specifically saying the underlined part?

A great deal about our positions relative to each other seems to hinge on whether or not the underlined statement is true.

And "random guy on the internet doesn't know enough about aircraft, yet makes unfounded assumptions about drone crash" is far likelier than "everyone involved is lying." So the Iranians might be lying. Other than the non-zero probability of that, you have no evidence of it actually being true. But since you don't like Occam's Razor, let's just see what Carl Sagan has to say on the issue: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." You have not substanciated your claims with anything but "it could be true." The onus is on you to prove that the Iranians are lying. Or at least give a rational reason for believing they are lying.

I am not trying to prove the Iranians are lying. I am saying that it is not known. It is not certain. There are people who know a considerable amount about aircraft who are themselves not sure whether the drone pictures we've seen are real (as you insist) or fake. It is entirely plausible for a drone to crash in good enough condition to be photogenic. It is, so far as I can tell, entirely plausible for the Iranians to whip up a fake drone so they have something more photogenic than a pile of wreckage to show off.

Neither of those claims strikes me as all that extraordinary, so I think playing intellectual games with the burden of proof isn't very useful as a way to figure out what's going on (as opposed to, say, analyzing the photograph).

Some things are well known and so simple that it is easy to construct a 'simplest' explanation that no reasonable person would contradict. Other things are not so well known and simple. International affairs, especially in the early days of a crisis, falls under the latter heading.

[Kanastrous]

you claimed the drone is more likely to be fake than real.

No, the perspective has been that there's room for uncertainty, as to whether the item displayed is fake, or real. I think this is the part where Simon gets to accuse -you- of lying, if he wants to. And, he'd be right.

When confronted with evidence that it is real

'Evidence' has to be qualified by the quality of the evidence. Some low-resolution video and Iranian and American claims are evidence, of course. That doesn't mean that they necessarily must be accepted as conclusive, or as compelling evidence. As repeatedly noted, for a small budget of time and money, *I* could provide you with more-or-less identical footage. By itself the footage is not conclusive evidence that it's real. Put together with Iranian claims, it's still not conclusive.

and the argument that there is no evidence that it is fake,

You don't need conclusive evidence of a fake, when you lack conclusive evidence that it's real. The latter already admits the possibility of fakery.

(Also, the drone we saw is in bad shape, so once again you create an inconsistency where there is none.)

All in one piece, only one minor area of damage noted by experts, is *great* shape for an object that the Iranians initially claimed to have shot down. You *do* trust the Iranians on their word that they shot it down, right? Or do you prefer to believe their story that they brought it down under control - after all that's more supportive of your position, so I guess you're just going to prefer -that- story, and pretend as though the conflicting story from the same people making the claims, was ever given out.

And if they're telling the truth about approximately where the drone crashed, and that their defenses played a role in shooting it down, it is most unlikely that the drone is in anything like as good a shape as the photo makes it out to be.

Prove this.

That it's unlikely that an aircraft SHOT DOWN by missile or gunfire would lack any visible damage of the kind associated with such a shootdown? For one thing, Simon points to a 'likelihood,' and yes, in all 'likelihood' a very small aircraft struck by gun or missile fire will show at least -some- external damage, from the incident. For-sure-absolutely-and-certain? No. But 'likely?' Sure.

If, on the other hand, the drone landed somewhere flat and Iranian weapons didn't do meaningful damage, then it might very well have crashed intact.

I like how you emphasize the "then", framing this so it seems to not be what it really is: what actually happened.

...and suddenly Skgoa knows what actually happened! Are your sources CIA, MISIRI, Mossad...or - I know! - Skgoa was there himself, which is how he "knows" what happened. Don't hide your light under a bushel, dude, give us the -full- report.

The onus is on you to prove that the Iranians are lying. Or at least give a rational reason for believing they are lying.

No, the onus is to offer reasons for uncertainty, concerning both the Iranian and the American sides of the story as reported so far. Which have been offered, repeatedly, whether they have registered with you, or not.

[Korto]

Or at least give a rational reason for believing they are lying.

A rational reason for a lie. Oh, the pressure. OK, without judging if they are or aren't one way or another (I really don't care), how about this:
Public face, home and abroad. You capture a drone and proclaim that to the world; you then show them a pile of shrapnel and the general public, yours and theirs, is going to assume it's just a useless pile of junk. Worthless. No brownie points there for the Iranian government, is there?
Make an intact mock-up and display it as the real thing, and you get all the credit, and as an added extra you keep the US military in the dark about its actual condition.

[UnderAGreySky]

So latest claim for how Iran might have brought it down is that they jammed the control link, forcing it into autopilot as one would expect, but then also generated false GPS signals to confuse the drone until it thought it was landing back at home base. Such an attack is plausible if the drone was not designed with anti spoofing measures in its navigation system (basically software that notices unrealistically quick changes in position). Given the limited service nature of the RQ-170, it’s a tad doubtful it has highly developed systems like this, US GPS guided weapons took around ten years to have such a capability added and its much easier for a weapon then a drone. Its also possible that sufficiently advanced GPS spoofing could have made the drone fly in circles so that it DID think it was covering the distance back home, and then made it land.

Of course, we don’t know that this is what Iran really did but its certainly a lot more plausible then invading the control link directly.

To generate false GPS signals they would have to 1) broadcast on the military GPS frequency (L2 P code), 2) encrypt it in P code with the right key and 3) broadcast it from above or at such a large amplitude in a directed fashion so that it overwhelms the upward-looking antennae (can't see why they wouldn't have dual-redundant GPS).

So, no, unlikely.

[Skgoa]

Or at least give a rational reason for believing they are lying.

A rational reason for a lie. Oh, the pressure. OK, without judging if they are or aren't one way or another (I really don't care), how about this:
Public face, home and abroad. You capture a drone and proclaim that to the world; you then show them a pile of shrapnel and the general public, yours and theirs, is going to assume it's just a useless pile of junk. Worthless. No brownie points there for the Iranian government, is there?
Make an intact mock-up and display it as the real thing, and you get all the credit, and as an added extra you keep the US military in the dark about its actual condition.

The serbs were making headlines just fine with a wreck. "No propaganda value if drone is not intact"... really? And considering that the drone/mock-up is/appears to be damaged, what would be the point of this sharade? They sawed the wings of and only half-assedly re-attached them, forchrisake! Does anyone actually believe they WANT to seem incompetent, when they have the choice? That's why I asked for a rational reason, i.e. one that doesn't need convoluted circular reasoning or falls apart at closer inspection.

[Kanastrous]

Presenting something recognizable and intact-looking is better propaganda than showing off a pile of parts. Looky what -we- got! Plus, it's much more useful in supporting the we gained control over it and landed it where we wanted narrative, than a load of debris. The best narrative along those lines that you can support with that, is we gained control of it, then -crashed- it. Not nearly so sexy as having it under one's control.

Remarkable that that's a difficult idea to accept for its simplicity.

The fact that the claim changed from we shot it down to we took control and landed it really doesn't register with you, does it, Skgoa?

[Sea Skimmer]

To generate false GPS signals they would have to 1) broadcast on the military GPS frequency (L2 P code), 2) encrypt it in P code with the right key and 3) broadcast it from above or at such a large amplitude in a directed fashion so that it overwhelms the upward-looking antennae (can't see why they wouldn't have dual-redundant GPS).

So, no, unlikely.

The GPS signal from each satellite is about 20 watts on L-band, about as much power output as a radio on a main battle tank or similar vehicle, so as far as power goes that's kind of trivial to overwhelm in a planned operation. North Korea was jamming GPS at a range of over 100km last year for a while. In a real war such jammers would just die from a HARM unless heavily defended but that doesn't apply here. I agree breaking the encryption is pretty unlikely but Iran is not an entirely backwards nation, and potentially has access to Russian-Chinese-North Korean work on the same topic. The shear number of users who have access to the P code tends to reduce the security of it, besides it being broadcast to everyone on earth constantly. I also just don't have very strong faith in US electronic warfare capabilities at the moment, it was too neglected for too long after the Soviets fell apart.

[Zinegata]

So the more likely theory then that Iran just jammed the GPS, causing a critical malfunction that caused the drone to perhaps either crash or land automatically? I also heard a theory from a friend that the drone may have had some programming design flaws - like being programmed to land immediately as opposed to turning around to land back in base - but I'm not entirely familiar with the protocols of drone behavior once they lose GPS/home base contact.

[Kanastrous]

Since we're speculating (sorry, Skgoa) I wonder if one could posit that showing an intact-looking mockup (if that turned out to be what it was) might also be a bit of a fake for the benefit of the Russians and Chinese - so long as they believe that the item is in just-about-pristine condition, it's a lot more appealing to -them- to jockey for access to it, and the Iranians could string them along with a piece here and a component there...

...yeah, okay, now I'm wandering into Tom Clancy land.

[Sea Skimmer]

So the more likely theory then that Iran just jammed the GPS, causing a critical malfunction that caused the drone to perhaps either crash or land automatically? I also heard a theory from a friend that the drone may have had some programming design flaws - like being programmed to land immediately as opposed to turning around to land back in base - but I'm not entirely familiar with the protocols of drone behavior once they lose GPS/home base contact.

I really have no idea what's likely, its more an exercise of just speculating scenarios that aren't overtly impossible. I still think the single most likely cause is what the US said, the drone malfunctioned.

As I've been saying, we don't know if the drone was even all that well developed, since the US has said it only has a few of them and only one ground control station its unlikely a vast amount of money was put into refining it. This could make it more vulnerable then would be expected if RQ-170 is more technology demonstrator then type classified service ready item. The tendency of the US to discount foreign technology unless we need to justify a specific budget item, in which case Chinese systems which have never been tested once are FULLY ARMED AND OPERATIONAL!!!, wouldn't help us in that respect.

[Kanastrous]

Something more on the 'hijacking' angle...

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.

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.

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.

"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran's "electronic ambush" of the highly classified US drone. "By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain."

The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.

The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US, Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an ever-widening covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and the Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program.

Now this engineer’s account of how Iran took over one of America’s most sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.

Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.

"Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation, says former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the technology is there.”

In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have downloaded live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to actually take control of a drone is far more significant.

Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted over its nuclear program.

Gen. Moharam Gholizadeh, the deputy for electronic warfare at the air defense headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), described to Fars News how Iran could alter the path of a GPS-guided missile – a tactic more easily applied to a slower-moving drone.

“We have a project on hand that is one step ahead of jamming, meaning ‘deception’ of the aggressive systems,” said Gholizadeh, such that “we can define our own desired information for it so the path of the missile would change to our desired destination.”

Gholizadeh said that “all the movements of these [enemy drones]” were being watched, and “obstructing” their work was “always on our agenda.”

That interview has since been pulled from Fars’ Persian-language website. And last month, the relatively young Gholizadeh died of a heart attack, which some Iranian news sites called suspicious – suggesting the electronic warfare expert may have been a casualty in the covert war against Iran.

Iranian lawmakers say the drone capture is a "great epic" and claim to be "in the final steps of breaking into the aircraft's secret code."

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Fox News on Dec. 13 that the US will "absolutely" continue the drone campaign over Iran, looking for evidence of any nuclear weapons work. But the stakes are higher for such surveillance, now that Iran can apparently disrupt the work of US drones.

US officials skeptical of Iran’s capabilities blame a malfunction, but so far can't explain how Iran acquired the drone intact. One American analyst ridiculed Iran’s capability, telling Defense News that the loss was “like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.”

A former senior Iranian official who asked not to be named said: "There are a lot of human resources in Iran.... Iran is not like Pakistan."

“Technologically, our distance from the Americans, the Zionists, and other advanced countries is not so far to make the downing of this plane seem like a dream for us … but it could be amazing for others,” deputy IRGC commander Gen. Hossein Salami said this week.
Iran: Obama should apologize for drone 'spying'

According to a European intelligence source, Iran shocked Western intelligence agencies in a previously unreported incident that took place sometime in the past two years, when it managed to “blind” a CIA spy satellite by “aiming a laser burst quite accurately.”

More recently, Iran was able to hack Google security certificates, says the engineer. In September, the Google accounts of 300,000 Iranians were made accessible by hackers. The targeted company said "circumstantial evidence" pointed to a "state-driven attack" coming from Iran, meant to snoop on users.

Cracking the protected GPS coordinates on the Sentinel drone was no more difficult, asserts the engineer.

Use of drones has become more risky as adversaries like Iran hone countermeasures. The US military has reportedly been aware of vulnerabilities with pirating unencrypted drone data streams since the Bosnia campaign in the mid-1990s.

Top US officials said in 2009 that they were working to encrypt all drone data streams in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – after finding militant laptops loaded with days' worth of data in Iraq – and acknowledged that they were "subject to listening and exploitation."Perhaps as easily exploited are the GPS navigational systems upon which so much of the modern military depends.

"GPS signals are weak and can be easily outpunched [overridden] by poorly controlled signals from television towers, devices such as laptops and MP3 players, or even mobile satellite services," Andrew Dempster, a professor from the University of New South Wales School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, told a March conference on GPS vulnerability in Australia.

"This is not only a significant hazard for military, industrial, and civilian transport and communication systems, but criminals have worked out how they can jam GPS," he says.

The US military has sought for years to fortify or find alternatives to the GPS system of satellites, which are used for both military and civilian purposes. In 2003, a “Vulnerability Assessment Team” at Los Alamos National Laboratory published research explaining how weak GPS signals were easily overwhelmed with a stronger local signal.

“A more pernicious attack involves feeding the GPS receiver fake GPS signals so that it believes it is located somewhere in space and time that it is not,” reads the Los Alamos report. “In a sophisticated spoofing attack, the adversary would send a false signal reporting the moving target’s true position and then gradually walk the target to a false position.”

The vulnerability remains unresolved, and a paper presented at a Chicago communications security conference in October laid out parameters for successful spoofing of both civilian and military GPS units to allow a "seamless takeover" of drones or other targets.

To “better cope with hostile electronic attacks,” the US Air Force in late September awarded two $47 million contracts to develop a "navigation warfare" system to replace GPS on aircraft and missiles, according to the Defense Update website.

Official US data on GPS describes "the ongoing GPS modernization program" for the Air Force, which "will enhance the jam resistance of the military GPS service, making it more robust."

Iran's drone-watching project began in 2007, says the Iranian engineer, and then was stepped up and became public in 2009 – the same year that the RQ-170 was first deployed in Afghanistan with what were then state-of-the-art surveillance systems.

In January, Iran said it had shot down two conventional (nonstealth) drones, and in July, Iran showed Russian experts several US drones – including one that had been watching over the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.

In capturing the stealth drone this month at Kashmar, 140 miles inside northeast Iran, the Islamic Republic appears to have learned from two years of close observation.

Iran displayed the drone on state-run TV last week, with a dent in the left wing and the undercarriage and landing gear hidden by anti-American banners.

The Iranian engineer explains why: "If you look at the location where we made it land and the bird's home base, they both have [almost] the same altitude," says the Iranian engineer. "There was a problem [of a few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird's underbelly was damaged in landing; that's why it was covered in the broadcast footage."

Prior to the disappearance of the stealth drone earlier this month, Iran’s electronic warfare capabilities were largely unknown – and often dismissed.

"We all feel drunk [with happiness] now," says the Iranian engineer. "Have you ever had a new laptop? Imagine that excitement multiplied many-fold." When the Revolutionary Guard first recovered the drone, they were aware it might be rigged to self-destruct, but they "were so excited they could not stay away."

* Scott Peterson, the Monitor's Middle East correspondent, wrote this story with an Iranian journalist who publishes under the pen name Payam Faramarzi and cannot be further identified for security reasons.

like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture - yeah, that's right, -be- contemptuous of your enemy...and watch him surprise you.

[Skgoa]

Presenting something recognizable and intact-looking is better propaganda than showing off a pile of parts. Looky what -we- got! Plus, it's much more useful in supporting the we gained control over it and landed it where we wanted narrative, than a load of debris. The best narrative along those lines that you can support with that, is we gained control of it, then -crashed- it. Not nearly so sexy as having it under one's control.

Remarkable that that's a difficult idea to accept for its simplicity.

But why not claim you landed it intact? Why the sawed-off wings? Why does the drone have damage and detail that you can only see when jacking up the contrast? You ignroed it before, so I am going to ask again: why should we assume they would do such a bad job faking it?

The fact that the claim changed from we shot it down to we took control and landed it really doesn't register with you, does it, Skgoa?

Have you read the original farsi? Could it be that they did not want to disclose their methods? They did not want to admit that they have a mostly intact drone untill they had it hidden in a school gym. Remarkable that that's a difficult idea to accept for its simplicity.

[Skgoa]

Since we're speculating (sorry, Skgoa)

Thanks for admiting that you have no idea what you are talking about. Now get out of the thread.

[Shroom Man 777]

Why are the Iranians so gleefully telling folks the how and the what of the way they did this thing? Wouldn't they want to make the Amerikanskis think that the drone malfunctioned, so the Amerikanskis won't go "oh shit these guys have fancy shmancy anti-drone tech that we'll just counter in a couple of years"?

[Winston Blake]

Why are the Iranians so gleefully telling folks the how and the what of the way they did this thing? Wouldn't they want to make the Amerikanskis think that the drone malfunctioned, so the Amerikanskis won't go "oh shit these guys have fancy shmancy anti-drone tech that we'll just counter in a couple of years"?

Well, the U.S. was publically already trying to close that gap:

The US military has sought for years to fortify or find alternatives to the GPS system of satellites, which are used for both military and civilian purposes. In 2003, a “Vulnerability Assessment Team” at Los Alamos National Laboratory published research explaining how weak GPS signals were easily overwhelmed with a stronger local signal.

So maybe they figured that while the vulnerability still existed, they may as well get some propaganda/deterrent/morale value out of it.

[Simon_Jester]

Alternatively, this is the sort of thing they might do on purpose if they were bullshitting about having taken control of the drone, because it lets them brag about how smart they are without actually giving away any useful information. And if the US spends a zillion dollars on making the drones hack-proof, then to the Iranians that would then be a good thing. Because if they're bragging and don't really have a system for controlling drones, then the US would just be wasting time and money countering a system that doesn't exist, and probably scaling back drone flights over Iran until that system comes into play.

Global diplomacy is a very murky place; trying to deduce what a nation is doing without open access to the facts on the ground is hard because there are often multiple explanations for why someone might do the same thing.

[Sea Skimmer]

Why are the Iranians so gleefully telling folks the how and the what of the way they did this thing? Wouldn't they want to make the Amerikanskis think that the drone malfunctioned, so the Amerikanskis won't go "oh shit these guys have fancy shmancy anti-drone tech that we'll just counter in a couple of years"?

Because Iran doesn't care about an actual conventional war with the US; they loose. They do care about playing complicated games with public and international opinion and generally keeping up a high level of tension to secure the regime until they have nuclear weapons. Plus UAVs overflying them right now are an actual threat as to what evidence they they might turn up concerning certain superhardened nuclear sites.

[Kanastrous]

But why not claim you landed it intact? Why the sawed-off wings?

Perhaps they had to get it through a small door at some point, for display purposes. Tough to say.

Assuming that the wings are actually 'sawn-off'; to me that reads as more of a proud seam. Don't know why a stealthy aircraft would have a big huge presumably non-stealthy seam running along a wing, but the only photos I've seen so far of a real RQ-170 (that 'Beast of Kandahar' shot) is so heavily blurred and pixelated as to make details of even that size impossible to see. Without a clearer picture, I don't know that those seam-looking things aren't a feature of the aircraft itself.

Why does the drone have damage and detail that you can only see when jacking up the contrast? You ignroed it before, so I am going to ask again: why should we assume they would do such a bad job faking it?

Seems to me that more detail that's revealed upon playing with contrast would suggest a -good- job at faking it, wouldn't it? Assuming that anything's fake. Anyway, when did -I- say that they were doing a 'bad job' of anything?

Have you read the original farsi?

No. Since you presumably have, thereby under-writing your superior ability to assess the situation, why not share what you read?

Could it be that they did not want to disclose their methods? They did not want to admit that they have a mostly intact drone untill they had it hidden in a school gym. Remarkable that that's a difficult idea to accept for its simplicity.

Ah, I get it...Skgoa is permitted to spin theories to his heart's content, but anyone -else- who tries that, well, -they- should just leave the thread...

What hypocrisy.