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It is not unreasonable to believe the US government has some kind of system capable of this. There is a consumer system available for years now that can fire s

by ruined 6y ago

It is not unreasonable to believe the US government has some kind of system capable of this. There is a consumer system available for years now that can fire small arms at long range to hit a laser-designated stationary or moving target tracked with computer vision. https://youtu.be/watch?v=IUVikGxQJBE https://youtu.be/watch?v=IUVikGxQJBE American helicopters have used laser-targeted autocannons that "aim where you look" for decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Acquisition_and_Designation_Sights,_Pilot_Night_Vision_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Acquisition_and_Designa... Given modern computer vision, and satellite control of drones for decades now, this is totally plausible. The hardest part would be finding someone local willing to drive a truck around and keep their mouth shut, which is also why it's easier to do this than hire a team of trained shooters.

Jnr 6y ago
It seems as if making such UAV killer robot systems is easier than detecting and protecting against them. They can't be jammed if they are truly autonomous and use computer vision + other sensors, probably very hard to detect on radar. The only thing that comes to mind is dealing with the satellites that provide the initial intel. And those also could be replaced with drones.
dogma1138 6y ago
It’s not unreasonable to believe that a system like this could exist, it’s unreasonable to believe that it was employed in this case. Iran and the Arab countries like to prop up the near mythical capabilities of the US and Israel to avoid the harsh reality that their internal security services are inept. From a political stand point it’s easier to sell to the people that some super high tech weapon was used and that there was nothing they could do about it. The use of such high tech is pointless it complicates the operation as it requires you not only to have people on the ground but also the ability to move in tech or construct it in country which is much harder than you think. It also ads a metric ton of additional points of failure with no benefit. If you get only one chance and you can put boots on the ground that’s what you do, you aren’t going to delegate target verification to some “AI model” that is more likely than not to fail. There is absolutely no reason to do this and no effective way of achieving this in theatre either. Even if we take some of the accounts to be true like the source of the fire was a machine gun at 100-150m it makes no sense to set up some complex camera that will be able to get an image good enough for facial recognition in all conditions of a passenger in a moving vehicle. Even if he was riding up front there would be no way of knowing that a head of time and any op that depends on such simple variables for success will not be green lit. There are plenty of assets on the ground in Iran that would be willing to participate in this operation for either ideological reasons like the various resistance groups or for financial reasons like criminal organizations and Iranians turned into intelligence assets. Previous assassination always used people including the assassination of Abu Muhammad al-Masri who was responsible for the US embassy bombing and was killed in Iran when gunmen opened fire on his car just weeks prior to the event we’re discussing here. In fact the assassination of al-Masri is nearly identical to that of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, both happened on the streets of Teheran and both were as simple as see car, shoot car.
- piracy1 6y ago
  Similar to how everyone who gets hacked says it was super 1337 APT threat actors using 0days.
- totalZero 6y ago
  > both were as simple as see car, shoot car. Fakhrizadeh's wife was in the car and was unharmed, so it's not that simple. It's true that Iran has an interest in convincing its people that Israel is using unstoppable weapons, to cover its own security failures. It's also true that Israel and the US have an interest in denying news reports about secret technology that they may use in order to kill people.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    We don’t know if she was in the car, what we know is that both he and his security guard were shot. People can aim too you know. This isn’t a secret technology it’s a remote weapon station Israel has a metric ton of them including a system to intercept insurgents across the border from Gaza and Lebanon https://www.wired.com/2007/06/for-years-and-y/ https://www.wired.com/2007/06/for-years-and-y/

by ruined 6y ago

Jnr 6y ago

It seems as if making such UAV killer robot systems is easier than detecting and protecting against them. They can't be jammed if they are truly autonomous and use computer vision + other sensors, probably very hard to detect on radar. The only thing that comes to mind is dealing with the satellites that provide the initial intel. And those also could be replaced with drones.

dogma1138 6y ago

It’s not unreasonable to believe that a system like this could exist, it’s unreasonable to believe that it was employed in this case. Iran and the Arab countries like to prop up the near mythical capabilities of the US and Israel to avoid the harsh reality that their internal security services are inept. From a political stand point it’s easier to sell to the people that some super high tech weapon was used and that there was nothing they could do about it. The use of such high tech is pointless it complicates the operation as it requires you not only to have people on the ground but also the ability to move in tech or construct it in country which is much harder than you think. It also ads a metric ton of additional points of failure with no benefit. If you get only one chance and you can put boots on the ground that’s what you do, you aren’t going to delegate target verification to some “AI model” that is more likely than not to fail. There is absolutely no reason to do this and no effective way of achieving this in theatre either. Even if we take some of the accounts to be true like the source of the fire was a machine gun at 100-150m it makes no sense to set up some complex camera that will be able to get an image good enough for facial recognition in all conditions of a passenger in a moving vehicle. Even if he was riding up front there would be no way of knowing that a head of time and any op that depends on such simple variables for success will not be green lit. There are plenty of assets on the ground in Iran that would be willing to participate in this operation for either ideological reasons like the various resistance groups or for financial reasons like criminal organizations and Iranians turned into intelligence assets. Previous assassination always used people including the assassination of Abu Muhammad al-Masri who was responsible for the US embassy bombing and was killed in Iran when gunmen opened fire on his car just weeks prior to the event we’re discussing here. In fact the assassination of al-Masri is nearly identical to that of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, both happened on the streets of Teheran and both were as simple as see car, shoot car.

piracy1 6y ago
Similar to how everyone who gets hacked says it was super 1337 APT threat actors using 0days.
totalZero 6y ago
> both were as simple as see car, shoot car. Fakhrizadeh's wife was in the car and was unharmed, so it's not that simple. It's true that Iran has an interest in convincing its people that Israel is using unstoppable weapons, to cover its own security failures. It's also true that Israel and the US have an interest in denying news reports about secret technology that they may use in order to kill people.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  We don’t know if she was in the car, what we know is that both he and his security guard were shot. People can aim too you know. This isn’t a secret technology it’s a remote weapon station Israel has a metric ton of them including a system to intercept insurgents across the border from Gaza and Lebanon https://www.wired.com/2007/06/for-years-and-y/ https://www.wired.com/2007/06/for-years-and-y/