There is a world of difference between reverse engineering some of the software to decipher some logs and understanding everything there is to understand to build a fac-similé.<p>While Persians are clearly clever and educated, I submit they lack the industrial infrastructure to build a drone.<p>Let's keep in mind they currently have trouble properly refining their oil...
<p><pre><code> There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered
them by the grace of God
</code></pre>
Excuse me if I doubt any of the claims in this article.
During the cold war it was common to segment data so that the compromise of a single agent wouldn't cause too much damage. I doubt there's too much concern over the data the drone contains, but the hardware is state-of-the-art and perhaps it should also have an accident (maybe the centrifuges could teach it how to self destruct ... Or a North Korean rocket will accidentally fall on it).<p>I guess I'm waiting to see how much of this information is verified by someone outside the Iranian government (hmmm ... And the U.S. Government).
There's always the chance that the drone was "lost" deliberately, in order to give the Iranians something useless to waste a lot of time on, or to deliberately mislead them on the true capabilities of the device.
Perhaps they'll build it out of oil drums like their SAM systems? I don't think Iran is capable of putting together a decent steel drum band much less stealth drones.