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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

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: * Intercept the control signal * Decrypt it somehow (in a short period of time) * Jam (from the ground) the US signal going to the plane, while not jamming themselves (equally unlikely) * Give the proper C&C commands to the plane to land Or the more likely scenario of the plane malfunctioned (it is a test plane being used in production) and landed itself. My biggest concern would be if the self-destructs onboard fired as they were supposed to.

marshray 15y ago
Or perhaps they lured it to a known location, spotted it in the daytime with binoculars, intercepted it with an old-fashioned human pilot in a jet, who blasted it with turbulent jet exhaust until it went into an unrecoverable stall. Sure it's probably a long shot, but we don't know how many times they may have tried and it didn't work either.
bajsejohannes 15y ago
Agreed, it's a simple application of Occam's razor. The only possible scenario I see where they actually managed to take control of it is if they have good inside information. That's not impossible, of course, but then they wouldn't give it away like that.
- 9oliYQjP 15y ago
  China was able to gain full access to an American satellite (or at least blamed for it [http://informationweek.com/news/government/security/231901900 http://informationweek.com/news/government/security/23190190... ]). I would bet that Russia has similar capabilities. Iran isn't working in isolation, and if either Russia or China decided to crack their knuckles in this situation, the likelihood of the craft being downed is higher than one might initially think.
joezydeco 15y ago
If you can jam the control signal long enough, does the plane go into some kind of failsafe mode where it tries to land? What happens if it runs out of fuel?
- colanderman 15y ago
  I'd say the most likely scenario is this: low-level engineer discovers the frequency the drone is on, jams it, it lands itself, then the (pleasantly surprised) engineer claims to his superior that he intercepted it and commanded it to land.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    This sounds about right. It probably just turned out that it was trivial to force the thing into landing mode for whatever reason.
gfaremil 15y ago
Here is one possible theory: * majority of technology in US is outsourced to China / India * China is a good friend of Iran and India has a very close relationship * some info about technology might be passed to Iran And joke is: when they open the drone, they will see "made in China" sign somewhere.
- watmough 15y ago
  Not sure why you are being downvoted, there are many worries about exactly this, compromise of components used in the US military, when imported from foreign countries. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058849/Chinese-counterfeit-electronic-parts-putting-U-S-military-risk.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058849/Chinese-coun... Also, it seems highly likely that most US secrets including drone control systems are likely to have been compromised by hackers. http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/chinese-hackers-took-control-of-nasa-satellite-for-11-minutes-20111119/ http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/chinese-hackers-took-... http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-21/us/pentagon.hacked_1_plane-s-production-hackers-lockheed-martin?_s=PM:US http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-21/us/pentagon.hacked_1_plan...
- nosequel 15y ago
  Despite all the conspiracy theories you read from news sites, black programs do not outsource to other countries.
equark 15y ago
I think you're potentially overestimating how competently the military protects these drones. Video from drones over Iraq were intercepted by insurgents using a $26 piece of software: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/middleeast/18drones.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/middleeast/18drones....
- jsight 15y ago
  Losing track of frequently shared video is a very different problem from losing track of never shared command & control.
  - VladRussian 15y ago
    considering Iran's hacking of Diginotar certificate as a precedent, i don't think it is unimaginable. Similar possibility without actual hacking of C&C channel encryption is that the drone (or its windows command machines in Nevada) is just plain infected with a drone virus (like it was recently reported) which has a code "if (it is a steath drone flying over Iran) then (land)"
    - nosequel 15y ago
      Sigh, again, modern news gone bad. Computers in the same base and area as the control computers had a virus, but it could not affect the software used to control the planes.
      - VladRussian 15y ago
        >Sigh, again, modern news gone bad. Computers in the same base and area as the control computers had a virus, but it could not affect the software used to control the planes. so, operator behind windows machine can issue a command to the drone using keyboard/joystick/mouse attached to that machine, yet virus residing in the same machine can't? How come? Does the drone recognize received commands as issued by virus vs. issued by operator ? By smell or a smily at the end or the word "Please" at the start of the command :)
slug 15y ago
Pretend that 1. they jam the control signal and the drone goes into safe mode, tries to return to base. 2. Now, let's also jam the GPS signal with fake information to distort the earth's map so that it thinks that the base is somewhere inside Iran. 3. Show pretty pictures to the press with the intact drone. I think I saw some movie about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies
- StavrosK 15y ago
  How are you going to fake the GPS map? It sounds pretty hard to do. Is there an actual attack? I guess you could do it if you had actual atomic clocks sending precisely-calibrated signals made to look like the satellites were wherever you wanted them to be. Still, I guess it would be pretty hard to jam the actual satellites, since you'll also be jamming your own signal.
  - ww520 15y ago
    You can just jam the GPS signal. The plane when lacking location info and C&C info would just land in wherever it is.
    - ppereira 15y ago
      That seems like a pretty silly design. Can you imagine if cold war era ICBMs did the same?
      - tomsaffell 15y ago
        Indeed. ICBMs perform a celestial fix in that case.
  - slug 15y ago
    Well, if you ever tried to use a more powerful RF transmitter than your neighbor, you can overwhelm her signal, no need to "jam" with noise or mine for that matter. I should have used a different word than jamming for the GPS map distortion, since it might imply that I was referring to sending random gibberish, so wikipedia to the rescue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaconing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaconing Now, knowing that DGPS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DGPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DGPS) is pretty common, I don't see where's the difficulty on sending a fake signal in the GHz range, more powerful than the weak one coming from the km high satellites. Considering that some(most?) drones send their return video in the clear, I wouldn't be surprised if the GPS systems end up being not properly engineered to handle this scenario.
jfoutz 15y ago
I've got nothing to say about the encryption - that seems impossible to deal with. You can (apparently) get a developer kit for STANAG 4586 for the low low price of € 9 900.00. Not like the diy drone stuff, this is a kit based on the NATO spec for participating on a UAV's control network. This is like 5 minutes and google. an organization with the resources of a nation behind it could probably get farther.
ibisum 15y ago
Be sure you're not just discounting Iranian competence due to your own nationalistic pride. Its quite feasible that this drone was taken over - after all, drones in that area have been being hacked into for years. For YEARS. And, the US military is not as smart as you think. You can buy cheap off the shelf equipment to access drone networks ..
sunchild 15y ago
Isn't it more likely that they have an inside man at a defense contractor?
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I don't believe this a drone, this is a drone mockup or its a drone we've not seen before. First off the colors are wrong, the coating on an RQ170 is black/grey its not painted because painting it changes its radar reflection signature. Second we don't see the bottom of the drone, if we did there would be either landing gear (if they managed to get it to actually land, or a scraped up bottom) According to Lockheed the drone lands when it runs out of gas and it does so with the landing gear retracted to avoid damage. We don't see any armaments, where are the two hellfire missiles it keeps in its belly? The shape of the motor nacelles is wrong. At least they aren't the same as every other photo of the RQ170. Not sure what the game here is, but what this video shows is not an RQ170, of that I am certain.

marshray 15y ago

Or perhaps they lured it to a known location, spotted it in the daytime with binoculars, intercepted it with an old-fashioned human pilot in a jet, who blasted it with turbulent jet exhaust until it went into an unrecoverable stall. Sure it's probably a long shot, but we don't know how many times they may have tried and it didn't work either.

bajsejohannes 15y ago

Agreed, it's a simple application of Occam's razor. The only possible scenario I see where they actually managed to take control of it is if they have good inside information. That's not impossible, of course, but then they wouldn't give it away like that.

9oliYQjP 15y ago
China was able to gain full access to an American satellite (or at least blamed for it [http://informationweek.com/news/government/security/231901900 http://informationweek.com/news/government/security/23190190... ]). I would bet that Russia has similar capabilities. Iran isn't working in isolation, and if either Russia or China decided to crack their knuckles in this situation, the likelihood of the craft being downed is higher than one might initially think.

joezydeco 15y ago

If you can jam the control signal long enough, does the plane go into some kind of failsafe mode where it tries to land? What happens if it runs out of fuel?

colanderman 15y ago
I'd say the most likely scenario is this: low-level engineer discovers the frequency the drone is on, jams it, it lands itself, then the (pleasantly surprised) engineer claims to his superior that he intercepted it and commanded it to land.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  This sounds about right. It probably just turned out that it was trivial to force the thing into landing mode for whatever reason.

gfaremil 15y ago

Here is one possible theory: * majority of technology in US is outsourced to China / India * China is a good friend of Iran and India has a very close relationship * some info about technology might be passed to Iran And joke is: when they open the drone, they will see "made in China" sign somewhere.

watmough 15y ago
Not sure why you are being downvoted, there are many worries about exactly this, compromise of components used in the US military, when imported from foreign countries. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058849/Chinese-counterfeit-electronic-parts-putting-U-S-military-risk.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058849/Chinese-coun... Also, it seems highly likely that most US secrets including drone control systems are likely to have been compromised by hackers. http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/chinese-hackers-took-control-of-nasa-satellite-for-11-minutes-20111119/ http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/chinese-hackers-took-... http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-21/us/pentagon.hacked_1_plane-s-production-hackers-lockheed-martin?_s=PM:US http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-21/us/pentagon.hacked_1_plan...
nosequel 15y ago
Despite all the conspiracy theories you read from news sites, black programs do not outsource to other countries.

equark 15y ago

I think you're potentially overestimating how competently the military protects these drones. Video from drones over Iraq were intercepted by insurgents using a $26 piece of software: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/middleeast/18drones.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/middleeast/18drones....

jsight 15y ago
Losing track of frequently shared video is a very different problem from losing track of never shared command & control.
- VladRussian 15y ago
  considering Iran's hacking of Diginotar certificate as a precedent, i don't think it is unimaginable. Similar possibility without actual hacking of C&C channel encryption is that the drone (or its windows command machines in Nevada) is just plain infected with a drone virus (like it was recently reported) which has a code "if (it is a steath drone flying over Iran) then (land)"
  - nosequel 15y ago
    Sigh, again, modern news gone bad. Computers in the same base and area as the control computers had a virus, but it could not affect the software used to control the planes.
    - VladRussian 15y ago
      >Sigh, again, modern news gone bad. Computers in the same base and area as the control computers had a virus, but it could not affect the software used to control the planes. so, operator behind windows machine can issue a command to the drone using keyboard/joystick/mouse attached to that machine, yet virus residing in the same machine can't? How come? Does the drone recognize received commands as issued by virus vs. issued by operator ? By smell or a smily at the end or the word "Please" at the start of the command :)

slug 15y ago

Pretend that 1. they jam the control signal and the drone goes into safe mode, tries to return to base. 2. Now, let's also jam the GPS signal with fake information to distort the earth's map so that it thinks that the base is somewhere inside Iran. 3. Show pretty pictures to the press with the intact drone. I think I saw some movie about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies

StavrosK 15y ago
How are you going to fake the GPS map? It sounds pretty hard to do. Is there an actual attack? I guess you could do it if you had actual atomic clocks sending precisely-calibrated signals made to look like the satellites were wherever you wanted them to be. Still, I guess it would be pretty hard to jam the actual satellites, since you'll also be jamming your own signal.
- ww520 15y ago
  You can just jam the GPS signal. The plane when lacking location info and C&C info would just land in wherever it is.
  - ppereira 15y ago
    That seems like a pretty silly design. Can you imagine if cold war era ICBMs did the same?
    - tomsaffell 15y ago
      Indeed. ICBMs perform a celestial fix in that case.
- slug 15y ago
  Well, if you ever tried to use a more powerful RF transmitter than your neighbor, you can overwhelm her signal, no need to "jam" with noise or mine for that matter. I should have used a different word than jamming for the GPS map distortion, since it might imply that I was referring to sending random gibberish, so wikipedia to the rescue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaconing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaconing Now, knowing that DGPS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DGPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DGPS) is pretty common, I don't see where's the difficulty on sending a fake signal in the GHz range, more powerful than the weak one coming from the km high satellites. Considering that some(most?) drones send their return video in the clear, I wouldn't be surprised if the GPS systems end up being not properly engineered to handle this scenario.

jfoutz 15y ago

I've got nothing to say about the encryption - that seems impossible to deal with. You can (apparently) get a developer kit for STANAG 4586 for the low low price of € 9 900.00. Not like the diy drone stuff, this is a kit based on the NATO spec for participating on a UAV's control network. This is like 5 minutes and google. an organization with the resources of a nation behind it could probably get farther.

ibisum 15y ago

Be sure you're not just discounting Iranian competence due to your own nationalistic pride. Its quite feasible that this drone was taken over - after all, drones in that area have been being hacked into for years. For YEARS. And, the US military is not as smart as you think. You can buy cheap off the shelf equipment to access drone networks ..

sunchild 15y ago

Isn't it more likely that they have an inside man at a defense contractor?

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I don't believe this a drone, this is a drone mockup or its a drone we've not seen before. First off the colors are wrong, the coating on an RQ170 is black/grey its not painted because painting it changes its radar reflection signature. Second we don't see the bottom of the drone, if we did there would be either landing gear (if they managed to get it to actually land, or a scraped up bottom) According to Lockheed the drone lands when it runs out of gas and it does so with the landing gear retracted to avoid damage. We don't see any armaments, where are the two hellfire missiles it keeps in its belly? The shape of the motor nacelles is wrong. At least they aren't the same as every other photo of the RQ170. Not sure what the game here is, but what this video shows is not an RQ170, of that I am certain.