Iran Releases Video Of Captured US Drone Plane

Since most people are going with Iran's side of the story being correct, I'll be the counter voice. It is far more likely that the plane did malfunction and it landed on its own and Iran picked it up. I'm not saying it is impossible for them to hack the communications channel, but is extremely unlikely. Pretend for a second that the military was using something even marginally dumb (which they aren't), the minimum requirement for Iran to take control would be:<p>* Intercept the control signal<p>* Decrypt it somehow (in a short period of time)<p>* Jam (from the ground) the US signal going to the plane, while not jamming themselves (equally unlikely)<p>* Give the proper C&#38;C commands to the plane to land<p>Or the more likely scenario of the plane malfunctioned (it is a <i>test</i> plane being used in production) and landed itself.<p>My biggest concern would be if the self-destructs onboard fired as they were supposed to.

I've never worked on the RQ-170, but I have directly worked on other models, as well as other low observability aircraft. It has a command channel but was likely running autonomously.<p>To me, it looks like a rushed mockup designed from existing images for a press event:<p>- The wing seams are jacked up for a low observable airframe, though this could be because they disassembled it prior.<p>- The inlet grill configuration is an odd design for low observability and looks like it would significantly block airflow, but this is a low speed aircraft.<p>- The paint job is odd. Birds are always being repainted all kinds of crazy schemes, but I've never seen this kind. The body does look like it was crated with aircraft metal, though.<p>I'm willing to bet the original crashed and burned and that this is a mockup. Iran doesn't have the resources to land one of these intact, themselves. Neither does China or Russia.

Honestly, this whole episode sounds like the Americans allowed the super secret drone to fall into Iran's hands. Think about it, we're being told that there are no contingency plans to scuttle sensitive drone technology when it goes rogue? That this rogue drone landed itself in hostile territory when we know full well that it has GPS and probably a detailed map of no-fly zones? We scuttle everything that is abandoned: subs, stealth choppers. This capability was certainly not overlooked in these drones.<p>This is either a super fancy way of getting a new version of Stuxnet into Iranian research facilities, or a proxy play to deliver crippled/broken stealth technology to China.

As an Iranian I can tell you the one thing the Iranian government loves the most is propaganda. Always bet on the side of incompetence rather than Iran being super secret spies. I can almost guarantee you that no Iranian believes anything about this that's coming from Iran's side, but you should not blindly trust either of what Iran or the US is saying about what happened.<p>This is just trying to catch people's attention and make Iran seem like a powerful country and a threat, and trust me the only people falling for it are the blind followers of mainstream news. No Iranian believes any of this.

I wonder if this story is linked to the below?<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/drone-virus-nuisance/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/drone-virus-nuisance...</a><p>This could make an understanding of the drone's C&#38;C structure by Iran much more of a feasible possibility. I have no idea if these really are connected but it was the first thing that came to mind reading about this story.

"Iranian officials say its forces electronically hijacked the drone and steered it to the ground."<p>"BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the intact condition of the Sentinel tends to support their claim."<p>If this is true, how on earth did they manage to take control of the plane ? Surely a top secret drone would have significant defenses against precisely this kind of attack.

How many of us are fantasizing about hacking our own drone so we could become the kid with the coolest rc-plane on the block?

US military contractors should learn the difference between fail safe and fail secure.

They allegedly landed it with this - <a href="http://rt.com/news/radar-detectors-iran-arms-757" rel="nofollow">http://rt.com/news/radar-detectors-iran-arms-757</a> - by hijacking the control channel.

There have been a lot of interesting views described so far, from hacking the control channel to the plane intentionally landing to put crippled technology into certain countrys' R&#38;D pipelines.<p>My question is this: How do we even know that's a working drone? It would take a competent body and fender guy less than a week to fabricate and paint a 1:1 model of the exterior of one of these drones.

My bet is that the US wants them to try to use the technology to either a.) get another Stuxnet into their computers while they download data from it, or b.) see them try to use it and ultimately embarrass themselves in the process.

That must have been a big net!

How come a drone like this doesn't have a self destruct?