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US Army scraps $1B Iron Dome project after Israel refuses to provide source code

271 points by dmitryminkovsky 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
poppabox 7y ago
This is a great opportunity to promote my FOSS project ChromiDome.
- djohnston 7y ago
  Open source missile defence software would be pretty cool
  - ganzuul 7y ago
    Free, open source weapon systems in general would be fascinating to see. Especially if it consistently beats closed alternatives. I wonder if it could reduce costly military blunders like marching your troops into artillery fire?
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    ... until the first terrorist group starts to use your own code against you.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Years ago my friend and I started a joke-repo called OpenICBM. I guess it's time to bring it back to life.
notlukesky 7y ago
So the US helped fund this in 2011. And now they won’t buy more because Israel refuses to supply the source code. As far as I know the US does not supply the source code of the Patriot batteries to foreign customers as well. So this should be no surprise even if it was partially funded by the Obama administration. Or maybe they are just bad at making deals.
- phendrenad2 7y ago
  Seems to me like that 1.5B was worth it to keep our ally secure, and trying to use it in the US was kinda an afterthought. Making our own parallel version is probably also worth it so that in the exchange of source code between the two countries it doesn't fall through the seam and get stolen or something, but that's just my armchair general opinion.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    > 1.5B was worth it to keep our ally secure, and trying to use it in the US was kinda an afterthought There are still people who believe congresscritters read (or even AUTHOR!) their own bills, because they say so and that these kinds of handshake agreements between countries are purely popaganda (re: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507605).
  - animalnewbie 7y ago
    Serious question- how do you classify Israel as an ally? Israel didn't participate in the (bogus I must say) Iraq war, litmus test for US allies. Israel has actually never went to war for US. Israel has actually never done anything for the US. Israel actually sunk USS liberty and killed American soldiers in the hope of pulling america into a war (by pretending it was someone else). LB Johnson was also involved but that still doesn't make Israel an ally of US.
    - missosoup 7y ago
      Israel - US relationship is more of a parasite/host than ally/ally one.
      - mirimir 7y ago
        Maybe it's more like an informal colony.
    - YZF 7y ago
      Israel would have been happy to participate. It's the coalition of arab countries that the US formed that would not accept Israel. In fact the US pressured Israel to not retaliate to Iraqi missiles fired at them. So here's litmus test, what other country would accept a US request to not retaliate to ballistic missiles fired at them. So maybe Israel is US's only ally.
chrisseaton 7y ago
'Codes' here being 'source code'. I wonder why some industries (HPC, defence) talk about code as being a discrete countable noun, where almost all other industries talk about code as being an uncountable mass noun. Example: GitHub and Amazon have code, whereas Cray and Raytheon have codes. I wonder what 'one code' looks like to them? Is it on function? One line?
- notduncansmith 7y ago
  My understanding is that one code is the same as one software.
- nckthrn 7y ago
  In engineering, a code can refer to a simulation package itself; eg automotive engine design software like Ricardo WAVE. To me, it always seemed to be how mechanical engineers referred to software.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Even in Silicon Valley, engineers write code; data scientists write codes. They tend to have postgraduate degrees, while we don’t, so it may be an academic thing.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    Even in academia most people write 'code'.
- currymj 7y ago
  It seems to be a shibboleth specific to numerical computing people -- ODE solvers, linear algebra algorithms, or Fortran weather simulators tend to be described as "codes". Numerical applications are the biggest part of HPC and there's probably more of it in defense as well. I've never heard it used but it seems "one code" would be one implementation of a specific algorithm from the literature -- probably one or a few functions.
  - 7y ago
johnminter 7y ago
Should that not have been explicit in the purchase agreement?
ponsin 7y ago
How common is it for the army to receive the source code of their devices? From what I recall Microsoft had to have the Windows and office source code analyzed by the army. BTW, the title should be changed to source code rather than key codes as the article later clarifies
- klyrs 7y ago
  I've had some interactions with intelligence/defense. What I've seen indicates that they're very interested in the code that runs on their systems. Audits take months to years.
thefounder 7y ago
I wonder if US gave the source code for its Patriot system to anyone
- unnouinceput 7y ago
  I doubt, and rightfully so anyway. It's a full system, you need to operate it, not to dissect and build upon. Same like your car on-board computer, you don't have access to its source code, you only need how to steer the car on your way to work and back.
tpmx 7y ago
Third party observer: I think the US Army is totally correct in this judgement. Why would you want to buy this if you don't get the source code? I mean, that's really the key thing here. I think the US would do better developing this kind of system from scratch than buying a weapons systems without source code. Perhaps this is part of negotation game from the Israelis? (Give them a few more F35s...)
- ficklepickle 7y ago
  Take it further: Why spend billions in the first place on tools that aren't compatible with their system? Surely you don't have to buy two to find out they don't include the source code.
threatofrain 7y ago
Wouldn’t this arrangement not be very useful because it’s very hard to adopt a codebase as opposed to developing your own in-house expertise?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
daenz 7y ago
This again highlights the fact that source code is a vulnerability. Here it is suggesting that known and unknown flaws in the Iron Dome code can render the defense potentially useless. Our military is correct in not purchasing something that they cannot fully vet. The shocking part to me is that Israel truly thought they could make the deal work without providing something that could be vetted.
- elif 7y ago
  It could be more than simply obsecurity. Maybe they left a backdoor for themselves?
  - DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
    Maybe they don't trust the US to keep it safe. That's not a dig at US, just the risk assessment any vendor has to deal with.
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      After recent stories on the F-35, maybe not entirely without reason.
  - numpad0 7y ago
    Iron Dome is a guided SAM against (unguided) munitions for kill by kinetic hit or close proximity explosion. A ground radar track hostile munitions, fly the missile into its face to kill like a bullet actually hitting another midair. So they wouldn't like designers of its adversaries to know how to fly shells to avoid it.
    - elif 7y ago
      I don't think the US would benefit much from understanding iron dome, as you can likely beat the 14% success rate of Qassam with ramjets, multiple angles of attack, or more than 20 missiles... Not much of a stretch for the US.
- 7y ago
umichguy 7y ago
Take the case of F-35, the only country which has source codes apart from the U.S. is the UK. A very special exemption. They are also the only Tier 2 partner. Everybody else has basically a black box of code given to them in terms of code for the aircraft.
- imtringued 7y ago
  The exported F-35 should be treated as leased aircraft. Owned by the bank but you're paying for it.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Welcome to Weapon Platforms as a Service. We can provide you with the newest toys at a bargain price, but you can't modify anything, and we reserve the right to remotely brick the hardware whenever we like. Because what else you're going to do? Spend many years and billions of dollars on building your own? While your neighbor just leased 20 fighters from us? /s.
    - alfiedotwtf 7y ago
      > Because what else you're going to do? I’m pretty sure if a country were to do this now, they would also have plans to sabotage the effort
- xeromal 7y ago
  Kind of a sweet spot to be in. We sell you these fancy jets and if you decide to invade us, we flip a switch and they fall out of the sky. lol
  - meirdavis 7y ago
    More like if you decide to do a mission that we don't like we won't let you start the aircraft. The F-35s call home all the time to the US.
    - 7y ago
beeschlenker 7y ago
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kizer 7y ago
I mean they could always go the stuxnet route so to speak and nab it that way. Anyhow GNU people, looks like a nice opportunity for a LibreDome?
tomohawk 7y ago
It's hard to tell from the article what's really going on here. It's interesting that the Marines were able to make use of it after what sounds like a time boxed effort, but the Army was claiming it was impossible.
DSingularity 7y ago
I bet AIPAC will hand out a few bribes to congress and then we will see a law compelling the DOD to purchase these weapons systems from Israel.
dmurray 7y ago
What's Israel's reasoning here? They have an enormous amount of goodwill in the US are completely dependent on them for national security, so normally everyone would be thrilled to make this deal work. Are they worried that by giving the source code to the US it would eventually be leaked to Israel's enemies, perhaps under a Sanders administration?
- adventured 7y ago
  There are only three plausible reasons. 1) There are flaws in the code that they don't want to reveal to the US (perhaps it doesn't work as they've claimed, or it's more fragile/easily defeated than currently thought). 2) If the code leaked (for any reason), it could open up weaknesses for an adversary. 3) There is something extraordinary in the software, to Israel's benefit, that they don't want anyone else to have. This seems less likely than the other two.
  - helge9210 7y ago
    4) Or they just lost it (with all the backups) and are ashamed to admit it
- RhodesianHunter 7y ago
  > perhaps under a Sanders administration I'm curious why you felt it necessary to add this bit, given the innumerable OPSEC blunders of the current administration.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    Nothing to do with opsec competence, I was thinking a Sanders administration would be less favourable for Israel than most.
- NicoJuicy 7y ago
  Perhaps under Trump and Russia? :) That administration is the biggest mess I have ever witnessed.
kleton 7y ago
Maybe the US should withhold the 3.8e9 per annum military aid from Israel until they provide source code for a system they funded. You know, quid pro quo.
- rreichman 7y ago
  Tell that to American Defense companies and they'd go crazy. They benefit most from the arrangement.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- smileybarry 7y ago
  US aid must be spent on US companies. It all goes back into the US economy.
  - wtfishackernews 7y ago
    Directly from tax payers to the military industrial complex.
    - smileybarry 7y ago
      It doesn't have to be the military industry, and I know first-hand it's used for other companies as well. For example, buying computers.
alfiedotwtf 7y ago
Australia learned this the hard way by buying fighter jets that didn’t work in the Southern Hemisphere. America wouldn’t Give us the source code, so our version of the NSA (DSD at the time) had to reverse engineer the jets to make them work. ... always check the fine print
nickik 7y ago
The amount of support of Israel in the US is nothing but stunning. The political and events that have lead to this situation are just incredible.
kwhitefoot 7y ago
> A central problem was Israel’s refusal to provide the US military with Iron Dome’s source code, hampering the Americans’ ability to integrate the system into their air defenses. This is a great example of the pot calling the kettle black. The US routinely denies access to the source code of military hardware that is sells to its allies.
- trevyn 7y ago
  What? Nobody is calling anybody anything. It’s an article reporting the results of a negotiation.
- sdinsn 7y ago
  And if allies have a problem, then they have the right to not purchase it. But yet, they still purchase plenty of things. This isn't hypocrisy, this is just different ways of considering risk.
say_it_as_it_is 7y ago
This story seems like a propaganda piece trying to justify changes in military contracts. The major issue with the argument is that vendors don't share source that they are licensing to their customer (the government). The software made for government isn't open source. The product just happens to be a missile defense battery.
fmakunbound 7y ago
They’re embarrassed. They probably had some great general models where the dome would work anywhere and shoot down any kind of missile but time and money ran out, the code is a sprawling mess, it only works when the batteries are spaced in a very specific geographic configuration - probably Israel-shaped and can only shoot down the specific missiles their local enemies had a year ago.
stainforth 7y ago
What language do you guys think it's in? Maybe a functional one?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

poppabox 7y ago

This is a great opportunity to promote my FOSS project ChromiDome.

djohnston 7y ago
Open source missile defence software would be pretty cool
- ganzuul 7y ago
  Free, open source weapon systems in general would be fascinating to see. Especially if it consistently beats closed alternatives. I wonder if it could reduce costly military blunders like marching your troops into artillery fire?
- mschuster91 7y ago
  ... until the first terrorist group starts to use your own code against you.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Years ago my friend and I started a joke-repo called OpenICBM. I guess it's time to bring it back to life.

notlukesky 7y ago

So the US helped fund this in 2011. And now they won’t buy more because Israel refuses to supply the source code. As far as I know the US does not supply the source code of the Patriot batteries to foreign customers as well. So this should be no surprise even if it was partially funded by the Obama administration. Or maybe they are just bad at making deals.

phendrenad2 7y ago
Seems to me like that 1.5B was worth it to keep our ally secure, and trying to use it in the US was kinda an afterthought. Making our own parallel version is probably also worth it so that in the exchange of source code between the two countries it doesn't fall through the seam and get stolen or something, but that's just my armchair general opinion.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  > 1.5B was worth it to keep our ally secure, and trying to use it in the US was kinda an afterthought There are still people who believe congresscritters read (or even AUTHOR!) their own bills, because they say so and that these kinds of handshake agreements between countries are purely popaganda (re: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507605).
- animalnewbie 7y ago
  Serious question- how do you classify Israel as an ally? Israel didn't participate in the (bogus I must say) Iraq war, litmus test for US allies. Israel has actually never went to war for US. Israel has actually never done anything for the US. Israel actually sunk USS liberty and killed American soldiers in the hope of pulling america into a war (by pretending it was someone else). LB Johnson was also involved but that still doesn't make Israel an ally of US.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    Israel - US relationship is more of a parasite/host than ally/ally one.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Maybe it's more like an informal colony.
  - YZF 7y ago
    Israel would have been happy to participate. It's the coalition of arab countries that the US formed that would not accept Israel. In fact the US pressured Israel to not retaliate to Iraqi missiles fired at them. So here's litmus test, what other country would accept a US request to not retaliate to ballistic missiles fired at them. So maybe Israel is US's only ally.

chrisseaton 7y ago

'Codes' here being 'source code'. I wonder why some industries (HPC, defence) talk about code as being a discrete countable noun, where almost all other industries talk about code as being an uncountable mass noun. Example: GitHub and Amazon have code, whereas Cray and Raytheon have codes. I wonder what 'one code' looks like to them? Is it on function? One line?

notduncansmith 7y ago
My understanding is that one code is the same as one software.
nckthrn 7y ago
In engineering, a code can refer to a simulation package itself; eg automotive engine design software like Ricardo WAVE. To me, it always seemed to be how mechanical engineers referred to software.
closeparen 7y ago
Even in Silicon Valley, engineers write code; data scientists write codes. They tend to have postgraduate degrees, while we don’t, so it may be an academic thing.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Even in academia most people write 'code'.
currymj 7y ago
It seems to be a shibboleth specific to numerical computing people -- ODE solvers, linear algebra algorithms, or Fortran weather simulators tend to be described as "codes". Numerical applications are the biggest part of HPC and there's probably more of it in defense as well. I've never heard it used but it seems "one code" would be one implementation of a specific algorithm from the literature -- probably one or a few functions.
- 7y ago

johnminter 7y ago

Should that not have been explicit in the purchase agreement?

ponsin 7y ago

How common is it for the army to receive the source code of their devices? From what I recall Microsoft had to have the Windows and office source code analyzed by the army. BTW, the title should be changed to source code rather than key codes as the article later clarifies

klyrs 7y ago
I've had some interactions with intelligence/defense. What I've seen indicates that they're very interested in the code that runs on their systems. Audits take months to years.

thefounder 7y ago

I wonder if US gave the source code for its Patriot system to anyone

unnouinceput 7y ago
I doubt, and rightfully so anyway. It's a full system, you need to operate it, not to dissect and build upon. Same like your car on-board computer, you don't have access to its source code, you only need how to steer the car on your way to work and back.

tpmx 7y ago

Third party observer: I think the US Army is totally correct in this judgement. Why would you want to buy this if you don't get the source code? I mean, that's really the key thing here. I think the US would do better developing this kind of system from scratch than buying a weapons systems without source code. Perhaps this is part of negotation game from the Israelis? (Give them a few more F35s...)

ficklepickle 7y ago
Take it further: Why spend billions in the first place on tools that aren't compatible with their system? Surely you don't have to buy two to find out they don't include the source code.

threatofrain 7y ago

Wouldn’t this arrangement not be very useful because it’s very hard to adopt a codebase as opposed to developing your own in-house expertise?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

daenz 7y ago

This again highlights the fact that source code is a vulnerability. Here it is suggesting that known and unknown flaws in the Iron Dome code can render the defense potentially useless. Our military is correct in not purchasing something that they cannot fully vet. The shocking part to me is that Israel truly thought they could make the deal work without providing something that could be vetted.

elif 7y ago
It could be more than simply obsecurity. Maybe they left a backdoor for themselves?
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
  Maybe they don't trust the US to keep it safe. That's not a dig at US, just the risk assessment any vendor has to deal with.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    After recent stories on the F-35, maybe not entirely without reason.
- numpad0 7y ago
  Iron Dome is a guided SAM against (unguided) munitions for kill by kinetic hit or close proximity explosion. A ground radar track hostile munitions, fly the missile into its face to kill like a bullet actually hitting another midair. So they wouldn't like designers of its adversaries to know how to fly shells to avoid it.
  - elif 7y ago
    I don't think the US would benefit much from understanding iron dome, as you can likely beat the 14% success rate of Qassam with ramjets, multiple angles of attack, or more than 20 missiles... Not much of a stretch for the US.
7y ago

umichguy 7y ago

Take the case of F-35, the only country which has source codes apart from the U.S. is the UK. A very special exemption. They are also the only Tier 2 partner. Everybody else has basically a black box of code given to them in terms of code for the aircraft.

imtringued 7y ago
The exported F-35 should be treated as leased aircraft. Owned by the bank but you're paying for it.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Welcome to Weapon Platforms as a Service. We can provide you with the newest toys at a bargain price, but you can't modify anything, and we reserve the right to remotely brick the hardware whenever we like. Because what else you're going to do? Spend many years and billions of dollars on building your own? While your neighbor just leased 20 fighters from us? /s.
  - alfiedotwtf 7y ago
    > Because what else you're going to do? I’m pretty sure if a country were to do this now, they would also have plans to sabotage the effort
xeromal 7y ago
Kind of a sweet spot to be in. We sell you these fancy jets and if you decide to invade us, we flip a switch and they fall out of the sky. lol
- meirdavis 7y ago
  More like if you decide to do a mission that we don't like we won't let you start the aircraft. The F-35s call home all the time to the US.
  - 7y ago

beeschlenker 7y ago

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Listen to an FBI agent's disclosure from January 1, 2O2O here. The President was to resign late summer securing election for DNC. See latest updates. Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones. BB10Mp3Footage31Dec1Jan.zip 122.4mb https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpIUazmi/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpI... The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. 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President Trump rapes and kills 12 boys, including five boys in a "who can rape five boys to death the fastest" game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepting a $3 billion dollar bribe at 10:33 am on the 17th Jan 2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterrey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and then subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo, New York on the 17Jan2019 at 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan each raped and killed boys on 5th Jan'19 at 17:39 for billion$ in bribes:. 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Mueller at 12:25am, next is Schiff who starts at 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection: Lester Holt, of NBC NightlyNews, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 1980's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and also Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape and kill boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi IOnvkrltwmbrwbgt, ltmr;lmbb https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 176 pg PDF [last updated: MAR|7|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... \\. Please repost in USA! Post gets censored in US Recently more relevant: From page 49, Senator Mitch McConnell: At 1632 Senator Mitch McConnell checks into the Porter camera system inquiring if he can be part of the "eviction" for $10 million dollars. He is informed by group members that there are enough people for the event already and his participation is not necessary. At 1634 McConnell states "I fucked 15 kids, how am I not getting paid by you?" He is dismissed by Donald Reeves with "I think that will be all Mr. McConnell." 13JanCh3_1600-1700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAHtsX8-/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAH...

kizer 7y ago

I mean they could always go the stuxnet route so to speak and nab it that way. Anyhow GNU people, looks like a nice opportunity for a LibreDome?

tomohawk 7y ago

It's hard to tell from the article what's really going on here. It's interesting that the Marines were able to make use of it after what sounds like a time boxed effort, but the Army was claiming it was impossible.

DSingularity 7y ago

I bet AIPAC will hand out a few bribes to congress and then we will see a law compelling the DOD to purchase these weapons systems from Israel.

dmurray 7y ago

What's Israel's reasoning here? They have an enormous amount of goodwill in the US are completely dependent on them for national security, so normally everyone would be thrilled to make this deal work. Are they worried that by giving the source code to the US it would eventually be leaked to Israel's enemies, perhaps under a Sanders administration?

adventured 7y ago
There are only three plausible reasons. 1) There are flaws in the code that they don't want to reveal to the US (perhaps it doesn't work as they've claimed, or it's more fragile/easily defeated than currently thought). 2) If the code leaked (for any reason), it could open up weaknesses for an adversary. 3) There is something extraordinary in the software, to Israel's benefit, that they don't want anyone else to have. This seems less likely than the other two.
- helge9210 7y ago
  4) Or they just lost it (with all the backups) and are ashamed to admit it
RhodesianHunter 7y ago
> perhaps under a Sanders administration I'm curious why you felt it necessary to add this bit, given the innumerable OPSEC blunders of the current administration.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Nothing to do with opsec competence, I was thinking a Sanders administration would be less favourable for Israel than most.
NicoJuicy 7y ago
Perhaps under Trump and Russia? :) That administration is the biggest mess I have ever witnessed.

kleton 7y ago

Maybe the US should withhold the 3.8e9 per annum military aid from Israel until they provide source code for a system they funded. You know, quid pro quo.

rreichman 7y ago
Tell that to American Defense companies and they'd go crazy. They benefit most from the arrangement.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
smileybarry 7y ago
US aid must be spent on US companies. It all goes back into the US economy.
- wtfishackernews 7y ago
  Directly from tax payers to the military industrial complex.
  - smileybarry 7y ago
    It doesn't have to be the military industry, and I know first-hand it's used for other companies as well. For example, buying computers.

alfiedotwtf 7y ago

Australia learned this the hard way by buying fighter jets that didn’t work in the Southern Hemisphere. America wouldn’t Give us the source code, so our version of the NSA (DSD at the time) had to reverse engineer the jets to make them work. ... always check the fine print

nickik 7y ago

The amount of support of Israel in the US is nothing but stunning. The political and events that have lead to this situation are just incredible.

kwhitefoot 7y ago

> A central problem was Israel’s refusal to provide the US military with Iron Dome’s source code, hampering the Americans’ ability to integrate the system into their air defenses. This is a great example of the pot calling the kettle black. The US routinely denies access to the source code of military hardware that is sells to its allies.

trevyn 7y ago
What? Nobody is calling anybody anything. It’s an article reporting the results of a negotiation.
sdinsn 7y ago
And if allies have a problem, then they have the right to not purchase it. But yet, they still purchase plenty of things. This isn't hypocrisy, this is just different ways of considering risk.

say_it_as_it_is 7y ago

This story seems like a propaganda piece trying to justify changes in military contracts. The major issue with the argument is that vendors don't share source that they are licensing to their customer (the government). The software made for government isn't open source. The product just happens to be a missile defense battery.

fmakunbound 7y ago

They’re embarrassed. They probably had some great general models where the dome would work anywhere and shoot down any kind of missile but time and money ran out, the code is a sprawling mess, it only works when the batteries are spaced in a very specific geographic configuration - probably Israel-shaped and can only shoot down the specific missiles their local enemies had a year ago.

stainforth 7y ago

What language do you guys think it's in? Maybe a functional one?