Thread: WAR: Does Iran really have one of our drones?

@Jack Tschitt: The US is missing a drone, and Iran claims to have a drone. There is no reason to doubt that they have a drone (an especially advanced one at that) of ours in their possession. At any rate, I wouldn't call any "attack" to bring the drone down a cyber attack necessarily--such would imply the drone's programming was tampered with (such would have to be a previous action, or else foreign and malicious programming would have to be inserted while the drone was in flight), which seems rather impossible--if anything, Iran somehow managed to sabotage the drone's communication link to its controller (its tether), or else the drone's power. I chose to dub such a thing an "electronic" attack, because such seems like something that is feasibly possible with forces that could be so utilized and already rule the minds of science fiction and thriller writers. (An electromagnetic pulse is a devastating effect a nuclear explosion has, by the way. A nuclear weapon can potentially devastate another country while not killing many [if any] of its citizens.)

But again, it's charitable to assume that Iran is capable of that.

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@Jack Tschitt & @Tempa!: It is sensible to assume/demand that the US not allow sensitive, advanced technology to fall into the hands of anyone, especially enemies and antagonists. Drones employed in sensitive areas should have some self-destruction protocol--or, at the least, sensitive elements should have such protocols. (Y'know, it'd be both amusing and ironic if the Iranians obtained a supposedly sensitive drone that in fact contained little sensitive design information--but that'd be charitable, to assume the US was so clever.) At any rate, a tamper-triggered self-destruction protocol does indeed make sense. It'd also be smart to increase any doubt about such elements.

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@Tempa! & @Mijzelffan: China could live without the US, and the US could live without China. One shouldn't make out a country's way of life, politics, and economy to be embedded into the country. The US might not be so profligate if it didn't have such a lender as China (alternatively, it possibly could have such a lender even if China didn't exist), but it would appreciate not having a powerful and antagonistic rival in the region and world in general. China, meanwhile, would be a #2-ish (granted, #2 stinks) power in the world were there simply no United States. At any rate, scenarios in which things simply don't exist don't make much sense, and aren't the best things to waste your time thinking about. Scenarios in which things leave existence or change phase make more sense, as the way in which a thing happens (and not just a happened thing) also determines outcomes. There's also the vacuum phenomenon: nature abhors a vacuum. There'd be a power vacuum, for one, if either of the countries didn't exist, as well as such things as influential and geographic and security vacuums: who would possess China's access to the rare earth elements located there? what would Japan's security plan be if there were no US--would it then pursue or have pursued earlier its own nuclear weapons capabilities? would whatever country/countries that occupied the place of the US be open markets to China? etc. etc.

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@TheKnittingno.: You hope China, who is developing a stealth aircraft of their own (in that case a fighter jet), gains access to the drone? Perhaps you're just a technology enthusiast (that would be charitable), but China getting a hand on such a thing would in all likelihood neutralize the capability of US drones against China and various of its allies (which many it could have, given its economic clout), if not other nations as well. We should also note that drones decrease the human risk and cost of war, which would mean that in conflict, the US, a beneficent power as far as nations go, would suffer many more losses in war, while China, a power not beneficent, an antagonizing and ambitious power (seeking to dominate and close off the region), would be empowered and possibly emboldened.

We should also note that it is vaunted American capabilities that deter war from nation-states.

Guys try to stay on topic. Less talk of China and more on this drone in Iran and how it got there / if it's fake.

Originally Posted by League

The US is missing a drone, and Iran claims to have a drone. There is no reason to doubt that they have a drone (an especially advanced one at that) of ours in their possession. At any rate, I wouldn't call any "attack" to bring the drone down a cyber attack necessarily--such would imply the drone's programming was tampered with (such would have to be a previous action, or else foreign and malicious programming would have to be inserted while the drone was in flight), which seems rather impossible--if anything, Iran somehow managed to sabotage the drone's communication link to its controller (its tether), or else the drone's power. I chose to dub such a thing an "electronic" attack, because such seems like something that is feasibly possible with forces that could be so utilized and already rule the minds of science fiction and thriller writers. (An electromagnetic pulse is a devastating effect a nuclear explosion has, by the way. A nuclear weapon can potentially devastate another country while not killing many [if any] of its citizens.)

But again, it's charitable to assume that Iran is capable of that.

Well, now that I know that the US reports one missing drone, there's next to no doubt in my mind that Iran has a drone.

It is sensible to assume/demand that the US not allow sensitive, advanced technology to fall into the hands of anyone, especially enemies and antagonists. Drones employed in sensitive areas should have some self-destruction protocol--or, at the least, sensitive elements should have such protocols. (Y'know, it'd be both amusing and ironic if the Iranians obtained a supposedly sensitive drone that in fact contained little sensitive design information--but that'd be charitable, to assume the US was so clever.) At any rate, a tamper-triggered self-destruction protocol does indeed make sense. It'd also be smart to increase any doubt about such elements.

I'm surprised the drone didn't self-destruct when Iran allegedly tampered with its communications. A cyber-attack (or hacking, or whatever you want to call it) would explain it not self-destructing. Or this drone doesn't have a self-destruct mechanism. But anyway, the main issue here isn't how they got the drone. Somehow, they got the drone, but the issue is what information they could get out of it. And I'm not really sure if the information in a reconnaisance drone would be terribly vital. But if they give it a self-destruct feature, it must be pretty sensitive information. Still, the only things I can think of at the moment that a drone could have information about could be maybe a map of the area, coordinates to the base where it came from, and pictures of Iranian operations it's recorded in action.

Like I said, the US should probably just play it safe for now, and take preparations as if they had the drone.

Appearently they do have the US drone.

Originally Posted by League

@TheKnittingno.: You hope China, who is developing a stealth aircraft of their own (in that case a fighter jet), gains access to the drone? Perhaps you're just a technology enthusiast (that would be charitable), but China getting a hand on such a thing would in all likelihood neutralize the capability of US drones against China and various of its allies (which many it could have, given its economic clout), if not other nations as well. We should also note that drones decrease the human risk and cost of war, which would mean that in conflict, the US, a beneficent power as far as nations go, would suffer many more losses in war, while China, a power not beneficent, an antagonizing and ambitious power (seeking to dominate and close off the region), would be empowered and possibly emboldened.

We should also note that it is vaunted American capabilities that deter war from nation-states.

I appreciate the explanation, and I assure you I'm well aware of China's cute little drone as well as the implications of them getting ours. When you have a hammer, all problems look like nails. I have an aerospace engineering degree, so all problems look like the lack of a space race. I would love for China to surpass the United States in any aerospace related field.

(Hmm, just as I was about to post here and, in part of my post, change my prior description of any Iranian effort to bring down the drone as an "electronic attack," I find this article, where Iran supposedly has made claims [differing from its original claims, I might add] that "it was able to bring it down with relatively little damage through an electronic attack[,]" emphasis added. There's also this article I found in doing some further research, and if you read it some of this post will be spoiled. [The last link is minorly optimistic, both in its view as to what information Iran might possibly gain from a preserved-enough drone, and as to the implications of this drone being lost, though it gives a potential backstory as to what happened--it's a pretty good read.] That said, I still am due to change my prior terminology, and/or offer a new one.)

I heard it mentioned that it was odd that, first of all, of course, that we lost communication to this drone, and, second of all, of course, that this drone didn't use Explosion (it also apparently does have such protocols). Both could be attributed to system malfunctions, while the first could be a communicative malfunction as well. Well, I also heard it raised that this drone may have landed in an unexpected position in Iran, geographically. (Alternatively, this drone didn't even have to land in Iran necessarily [just close enough, right across any Iranian border] for Iran to retrieve it.)

Once one strikes away the ideas that Iran wasn't just gifted with a drone that malfunctioned and went down in its territory, or was lucky enough to recover the drone after a physically destructive attack (I'm not beyond those points yet), then an electronic attack (or a non-physically destructive attack of some sort--spoiler alerts) is the most likely remaining possibility. It's doubtful that Iran would be capable of any such thing on its own, so, if anything, at least one of Russia and China would be already involved before the drone's crash in such a case. (The second provided link in my parenthesis-prologue does state that Iran was recently provided with defenses by Russia that, it is speculated, could have given Iran [this is speculation, of course] the ability to jam the UAV.)

But back to the actual "attack" on the drone. With this drone actually having destruction protocols, system error might account as to why this thing didn't explode... but there is an "attack" scenario where this drone wouldn't explode either beyond an "electronic attack." The drone might have had its communication hijacked, with foreign attempts at making "appeal" to the drone being successful. In such a case, the control of the drone would have had simply changed hands in midair. In such a case I would label any any attempt to to steal or wrest control of the drone as a "communications" or "communicative attack." Such (statement amended) is a possibility beyond a jamming attack.

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The above all implies and operates on the premise that the US was caught with its pants down. (Such seems to obviously be the case.) I heard raised though, firstly/partially/mostly as a humorous what-if, the idea that this drone could be a Trojan horse of some sort. The first guy who I saw that suggested this had a nuclear payload (!-what!?) in mind, but others had cyber-weapons pictured (much more believable).

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At any rate, I don't think drones are currently the technology of the future, at least if they're not completely pre-programmed, or aren't completely protected from failures such as this. (Perhaps drones could simply require constant command input, like a password being inserted every minute and evry time a new command is issued? Such could prevent control seizure. There could also be velocity, estimated return, and self-destruction protocols, where a failed drone would seek to return but, if failure to return seemed likely, then explode.) At any rate, drones shouldn't be the basket America puts all its air-power eggs in in the future. UAVs do remove various elements and some vulnerabilities that pilots (such as limited tolerance of g-force, limited tolerance of the mundane, limited tolerance of other deadly things, etc.) have, but they have vulnerabilities all their own.

Hahaha, the nerve of the US government. One of our top secret military tools just happens to fall into the hands of our most public enemy, and we have the nerve to ask them to politely give it back? Christ on a bike...

Originally Posted by Katelynn

Hahaha, the nerve of the US government. One of our top secret military tools just happens to fall into the hands of our most public enemy, and we have the nerve to ask them to politely give it back? Christ on a bike...

It's like when you crash your model plane in Old Man Jenkins' back yard. You're never going to see that plane again...

So Iran is Old Man Jenkins? Actually based on their foreign policy decisions... that makes enough sense.

Asking for the drone back in public was a stupid move. Because now the US simply cannot claim that Iran doesn't have a drone. If they hadn't asked for it back, they could have claimed that it was a hoax (and most people would have believed the US).

I'm still shocked that a piece of high-grade US technology got taken out by Iran. But I suppose it was bound to happen. People are occasionally careless after all.

Article I read about a week ago (don't have the link anymore) answered how it was done; they simply hacked the GPS, a surprisingly simple thing to do, and made the drone think it was landing at its base when, in reality, they tricked it to land it Iran. The GPS is the weakest point on the drone because of how easy it is to fool. By the time the Americans realized there was a problem, the Iranians had already disabled the explosives inside.

Originally Posted by Santa in Plain Sight

So Iran is Old Man Jenkins? Actually based on their foreign policy decisions... that makes enough sense.

Asking for the drone back in public was a stupid move. Because now the US simply cannot claim that Iran doesn't have a drone. If they hadn't asked for it back, they could have claimed that it was a hoax (and most people would have believed the US).

I'm still shocked that a piece of high-grade US technology got taken out by Iran. But I suppose it was bound to happen. People are occasionally careless after all.

It's funny because Colbert actually made the old man Jenkins joke on his show a few nights ago XD

I beat him to it of course :3