
Iranian Hackers Post Images Over JFK Airport From UAV That Was Hijacked In March - ToothlessJake
http://rce.ir/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=173&start=20#p1716
======
JeremyMorgan
I'm not sure what we're looking at there, but it's something I probably
shouldn't have clicked on.

~~~
kybernetyk
Last time I checked reverse engineering forums weren't forbidden by the
thought police.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
He actually has a point, sadly. Visiting a "Jihadist" website, based on some
arbitrary definition and interpretation from some cyber freedom fighter in DC,
VA, or MD, is enough to get your "metadata" added to their graphs. You think
Iranian sites with posts about hacking the US aren't on that list? I don't.

It's not enough to get you a visit from the feds or anything, but it's almost
certain that any competent intelligence agency is storing _anything_ that
touches that website. Whoever posted it likely has links in their social graph
to very high value targets.

~~~
summerdown2
Is this really the point we've reached? Where people with no intention of
being a terrorist are bothered about visiting a site because they know
everything they do is being observed?

If we've reached the point of self censoring behaviour, then we're definitely
in the Panopticon.

The harder it becomes to break out of our filter bubbles, the more foreigners
will look alien, strange and scary :(

~~~
jeena
Isn't this self censoring one of the main goals of a Orwellian society?

~~~
achughes
Yes, but to be Orwellian the self-censorship must be borne out of government
intimidation. In this case the government hasn't intimidated anyone, we were
just leaked information.

Unless you want to argue that Snowden intentionally leaked the PRISM slides so
that society would be intimidated by the governments reach, thus giving way to
society censoring itself without them having to publicly punish people that
were guilty of thought crimes. But that's getting into Alex Jones territory.

~~~
monkeynotes
>In this case the government hasn't intimidated anyone...

I disagree, with the government having the 'you're with us or against us'
polarizing attitude since 9/11 along with Gitmo and an official kill list I
think the U.S. gov't is pretty intimidating for anyone who doesn't fall into
line.

Just look at what happened in Boston. A whole city shut down, house to house
searches, an unprecedented reaction in the west for a bombing. No where else
has that kind of reaction been seen, even in the UK when the IRA was blowing
shit up, at no time was a curfew imposed and houses illegally searched by a
militarised police.

The US is an incredibly intimidating place at times.

~~~
achughes
Sorry, instead of anyone, I should have said "average citizens".

Yes after 9/11 the government has a "your with us or your against us"
attitude, promoted by Bush. However, your examples of Gitmo and kill lists are
not evidence that this has continued. Those two examples only pertain to the
ongoing war effort, not an intimidation campaign aimed at the average citizen,
and the Americans that were involved were in the current warzone, not shipped
off to Gitmo from the US.

I would address the Boston situation, but I don't think it is relevant. Sure
shutting down the city is intimidating, but so is any other active shooter
situation like a school shooting. You might feel intimidated by the police
presence but ultimately the police are not focused on you.

But more to the point, of course the US is an intimidating place at times,
everywhere is, but the key is that the intimidation is not focused on citizen
self-censorship, which I think is the key to saying that we live in an
Orwellian society.

Whether or not the US is an intimidating place, or debates about the validity
of the Boston searches and curfew is a different discussion. They are not
forms of intimidation aimed at self-censorship, and thus not valid reasons
that we should assume that we live in an Orwellian surveillance state.

If you would like to have a debate about the role, or non-role of self-
censorship in an Orwellian society, and you believe that some other form of
intimidation is a valid criteria then I am all ears, but the discussion isn't
about intimidation in general, only intimidation whose ultimate goal is self-
censorship.

~~~
monkeynotes
> not an intimidation campaign aimed at the average citizen... > but
> ultimately the police are not focused on you.

This is exactly what is wrong. As long as these massive injustices don't
affect the 'average' middle class unit it's all ok. As long as the military
police thrashing through your house on their latest manhunt aren't actually
after you, that's ok. It all seems pretty Orwellian to me, right down to the
citizens actually justifying it all.

Anyway to be more on point: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-
spray_incident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident)

This seems pretty intimidating to me. It would certainly make me think twice
about attending even the most peaceful of protests. Pepper spray and tazing is
a common response to people objecting to the status quo. Hell, if you want to
protest a political rally you have to actually go to a 'free speech zone', if
that isn't Orwellian enough for you I don't know what is. Than again, the
'average' citizen probably is ok with a two party 'choice' and so doesn't need
free speech.

And then you have Obama's HR347 'anti protest' bill which could potentially be
used to lock people up for many years for protesting in an area which the
Secret Service/DHS etc. has _secretly_ declared a heightened area of security.

It's really frightening how much potential leeway there currently is for
arbitrarily locking U.S. citizens up. All these loosely defined laws are
sitting around just waiting for someone to come in and abuse them. While
things are quiet and everyone is behaving it all seems ok, but as soon as
there is a bit of trouble, another Occupy protest for example it will be a
different story.

Watch how you see your right to due process being eroded away next, it's
already not needed when hunting down suspects on foreign soil. You watch as
language is changed, terms subtly augmented to make it ok to execute US
citizens with a drone - you know, for your protection. Maybe you, the average
citizen, aren't intimidated yet, but perhaps tomorrow you might be.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-08/obama-s-drone-
attac...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-08/obama-s-drone-attack-on-
your-due-process.html) [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-usa-
security-dr...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-usa-security-
drones-idUSBRE95I1NW20130619)

~~~
achughes
Again... the key thing that makes it an Orwellian society is self-censorship,
not just intimidation.

~~~
monkeynotes
Ok, here's a real life example then. My parents were on Skype to me today, and
my Dad was talking about some controversial topic or another - a couple of
times my mum said "you can't say that over the internet, people are
listening".

Furthermore I actually disagree that self censorship is _the_ key component of
an Orwellian society. I think surveillance itself is the key component.
Reading the interpretation below I challenge you to deny that the US and many
other governments aren't well on their way to the dystopia described by
Orwell.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian#Meanings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian#Meanings)

Police charging through your house without permission whist you sit back and
say 'they are just doing their job' is the epitome of an Orwellian society.

------
blhack
This thread seems to be pretty chock full of some tinfoil hats.

1) You're not going to be added to "a list" because you clicked a link on
hacker news. Remember that the NSA employs some of the smartest people in the
world. Would it be meaningful to add a bunch of curious silicon valleyists to
a list of "possible terrorists"? Probably not.

2) If you think that an aircraft that is anything bigger than a small pigeon
could get anywhere _near_ a major airport without getting itself a nice
escort, then you're nuts.

Here is a map of the airspace near JFK:
[http://www.aeroplanner.com/notams/airspace.cfm?apt=jfk](http://www.aeroplanner.com/notams/airspace.cfm?apt=jfk)

This is all "Class b" or "bravo" airspace. It's all heavily controlled,
heavily monitored with radar, and you have to ask permission to enter it.

It's _incredibly_ unlikely that there was a "drone" in bravo airspace.
Possibly a UAV, definitely not the boogey man Iranians.

3) This website doesn't even say anything. It's some pictures that could have
easily been photoshopped together. Google translate isn't giving me anything
interesting, and unless HN is a LOT more diverse than I realized, you're all
going nuts over a couple of grainy photos.

Finally, here is what the drone that Iran supposedly "captured" last year
looks like: [http://i.imgur.com/ALveZWi.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/ALveZWi.jpg)

It isn't a toy. It's huge. There is no way that is getting anywhere near a
RADAR without everybody knowing about it. Yes, it is [possibly...meant to be,
rumored to be] stealth. That doesn't mean it's going to go undetected into a
major airport like that.

Relax. Go have a beer.

~~~
jnbiche
1\. You have a lot more confidence in our government's ability to accurately
compile lists than I do, particularly in light of the failures of the no-fly
list:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#False_positives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#False_positives)

2\. Based on commentary from native Persian speakers on this thread, it would
appear that no one is claiming that the drone was remotely piloted by Iranians
into US Airspace, but rather the one that was shot down in Iran several months
ago (confirmed by the US Government __) had these photos on it.

3\. See above, there are at least 2 Persian speakers on this thread. HN _is_ a
LOT more diverse than you realize.

__[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident‎](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident‎)

~~~
s_q_b
"2\. Based on commentary from native Persian speakers on this thread, it would
appear that no one is claiming that the drone was remotely piloted by Iranians
into US Airspace, but rather the one that was shot down in Iran several months
ago (confirmed by the US Government) had these photos on it."

If this is true it means the Iranians compromised the encryption on the UAV's
drive, which would be seriously not good.

~~~
javert
The Iranians outsmarting NSA encryption? Not likely. Possible in theory and a
huge deal, but not likely. If they decrpyted something from a military
aircraft, it's much more likely that shoddy engineering work was done on that
aspect of said aircraft because it was decided that security wasn't a top
concern. (And, indeed, having pictures of JFK _isn't_ a big deal.)

~~~
s_q_b
Totally possible the imaging equipment retains data in an insecure fashion.

However, milspec != NSA, and its highly likely the Russians would help the
Iranians in such an endeavor in exchange for intelligence sharing.

~~~
javert
> milspec != NSA

What exactly is "milspec"? I was under the impression that military security
standards in the US _are_ produced by the NSA.

> highly likely the Russians would help the Iranians in such an endeavor in
> exchange for intelligence sharing.

I must be missing something... yes, but what do Russians have to do with it? I
thought this was a US drone captured by Iranians. Genuine question here.

~~~
s_q_b
MIL-SPEC means encryption built to military specifications. It includes, but
does not equate to, NSA Suite B cryptography. As you can imagine, using crypto
designed by a paranoid spook agency would not be appropriate for all military
applications, for example a near-real-time flight application. As a result,
there are a variety of encryption standards used by the military, some of
which would be approved by the NSA, others which wouldn't.

It's a good question about the Russians. The ties between Russia and Iran are
much tighter than most in the US realize, especially when it comes to national
security, and particularly with regard to US-related issues. If we used
industrial grade crypto on a system, it would be in line with past behaviors
for the Russians to help the Iranians with it.

~~~
javert
Thanks.

Regarding the Russians: Oh, I see, now. Yes, you're right that if country X
cracks our encryption, we can't assume that they didn't get help from <insert
China or Russia here>.

> for example a near-real-time flight application.

Wait, why do you say such a system wouldn't use NSA-grade encryption?

~~~
s_q_b
> for example a near-real-time flight application.

Primarily latency. Now, ideally you'd like the entire subsystem moved off disk
into volatile memory, but for some things you're going to have to read from
disk. I can imagine cases where that wouldn't be easily feasible if the drive
had NSA crypto.

"Regarding the Russians: Oh, I see, now. Yes, you're right that if country X
cracks our encryption, we can't assume that they didn't get help from <insert
China or Russia here>."

Right, but its more than that in the case of the Iranians. The Russians have a
long and documented history of assistance to the Iranians and the Syrians.

~~~
javert
> for some things you're going to have to read from disk.

I'm not sure I follow. For some things you're going to have to _write_ to
disk... like captured video. (I wouldn't consider that to be the "real-time"
part of the software, though.) And you might have to read from disk
occasionally... maybe you have map information stored there... but that
probably doesn't need to be real-time. Can you tell me an example where you
would need to read from disk in real-time? (Which I think should anyway be
impossible, regardless of whether or not heavy crypto is being used.)

> The Russians have a long and documented history of assistance to the
> Iranians and the Syrians.

Yeah, very true, I have noticed that, too.

~~~
s_q_b
Sure! Man I love when people on hn ask genuine questions rather than trying to
one up one another. It's one of the reasons I was so reluctant to stop lurking
for so long.

Much like the Mars rovers, the navigation system is loaded in a modular
fashion, with complex algorithms for each scenario loaded on the fly. So for
example, imagine a UAV goes into a stall. Likely the aircraft needs a whole
new set of algorithms to recover. It's very likely I this case you'd need low
latency disk reads. Now again, this is just a guess based upon my experience
with similar systems. I've never developed a UAV system.

~~~
javert
> Man I love when people on hn ask genuine questions rather than trying to one
> up one another. It's one of the reasons I was so reluctant to stop lurking
> for so long.

Well then, you're exactly the kind of person we need to stop lurking and start
participating, so welcome aboard. But yeah, I totally understand you.

> this is just a guess based upon my experience with similar systems

You mean planetary rovers? If not, can you be more specific? I realize it's
not necessarily wise to divulge too much industrial information. I actually
have worked on UAVs... not to the point that I can say the scenario you're
presenting is incorrect (I wasn't involved in that kind of stuff), but I don't
think it's very plausible. I could see that strategy being more reasonable on
a super memory-constrained device where the system is radiation hardened, like
space equipment. I would think for a normal UAV, you'd just keep all the code
(algorithms) you might need in memory.

~~~
s_q_b
Its possible I'm wrong. I've never designed a UAV flight system, so I was
speculating as to reasons why a lower level of encryption might be needed. Its
possible that's not a realistic constraint for atmospheric craft.

------
wtvanhest
My take on this is that someone is claiming that the UAV that crashed in Iran
(supposedly hacked) had images on its hard drive of the JFK airport.

That person is basically claiming that the UAV was at one point flown over JFK
airport at some previous time before the US moved the UAV to the middle east.

~~~
ToothlessJake
The person does not claim that. Where did you draw this from?

~~~
wtvanhest
I said "my take" because i, like other hn readers have no idea what I am
looking at so I made a guess. You are the poster, you can explain what is
going on here.

------
johnhess
What kind of list did I just get myself on for that little visit?

~~~
philmcc
Depends. At the bottom of the page did it have a "Like" icon, and the words
"432 of your friends like this page, you should too?"

If it did, you're already on that list.

~~~
stefap2
It's a No-fly list!

------
marshray
All I see are two images of nondescript buildings and cars labeled "FLIR
Systems". Would an actual drone image used for reconnaissance over hostile
territory waste a bunch of screen area on the manufacturer name of the camera?

Also, there's some censored text in the upper left. I suspect that's the date
and time.

My guess is these pictures were lifted from promotional material like the
"MicroSTAR" sheet just below it.

~~~
D9u
I thought "FLIR" meant "Forward Looking InfraRed?"

~~~
marshray
Yes, it's also a brand name of a prominent manufacturer.

------
kevin818
Excuse the ignorance but can someone explain to me what it is I'm looking at?

------
TaylorAlexander
So... this is really interesting and I have no idea what any of it says. I
haven't tried google translate yet but there's also text on the images...

Anyway, can someone (perhaps the original poster) explain what specifically is
happening? :)

~~~
ToothlessJake
A user/group named "Parastoo" has been hacking targets like IHS Janes:
[http://cryptome.org/2013/02/parastoo-janes-
cbrn.htm](http://cryptome.org/2013/02/parastoo-janes-cbrn.htm)

Recently has started making statements about hijacking drones:
[http://cryptome.org/2013/07/parastoo-uav-
launch2.htm](http://cryptome.org/2013/07/parastoo-uav-launch2.htm)

TLDR: Iranian chap(s) have been on a hacking spree and seem to be honing in on
what they like to target. In this case US drones over US skies/assets.

~~~
weinzierl

        US drones over US skies
    

Are you saying the US uses drones on their own territory? If yes, what for?
Spying their own people comes to my mind, but maybe I read to much spy stories
lately and there are legitimate reasons.

~~~
celwell
of course we do

~~~
weinzierl
I'm sorry, I don't believe that. I mean, all this Internet and
telecommunication surveillance is one thing - and a bad thing for sure, but
spying drones is in another ballpark.

I'll just leave this here from Orwell's 1984:

    
    
        In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs,
        hovered for an instant like a bluebottle,
        and darted away again with a curving flight.
        It was the police patrol, snooping in people's windows.

~~~
LoganCale
Border Patrol has 10 Predators in operation along the U.S. border. They're
supposed to only be used within 30 miles of the border, but they loan them out
to other agencies for more internal purposes all the time, including detecting
fishing violations.

> According to the documents, CBP already appears to be flying drones well
> within the Southern and Northern US borders, and for a wide variety of non-
> border patrol reasons. What’s more — the agency is planning to increase its
> Predator drone fleet to 24 and its drone surveillance to 24 hours per day /
> 7 days per week by 2016.

There appear to be no privacy controls for citizens currently, but they may
add them… eventually.

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130705/17154023725/borde...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130705/17154023725/border-
patrol-drone-fleet-straying-far-from-borders-when-not-being-loaned-out-to-
whatever-agency-comes-asking.shtml)

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/customs-border-
protect...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/customs-border-protection-
significantly-increases-drone-surveillance-other)

------
lostlogin
That page is so incredibly foreign to me - right justified, stuff from right
appears on left, things from top on bottom etc. I'm surprised how striking I
found it.

~~~
msoad
What if I tell you all your favorite website has right-to-left layout for
right-to-left languages like Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi?

~~~
lostlogin
Which site are you meaning? Thinks like Google? Its made me realise how much I
depend on so-called normal layouts for things like next page buttons etc.
something I had never thought about really. Obviously I don't frequent many
sites that are primarily in another language, Der Speigel is the only one I
think. That site is left to right reading so it can follow the same formatting
styles as English. I haven't noticed any German language related layout quirks
there.

~~~
msoad
Yeah, Google ([http://www.google.com/?hl=fa](http://www.google.com/?hl=fa))
Facebook. Basically any international website. If you ask UI developers of
those companies they will tell you pains of making a UI that works both RTL
and LTR

------
msoad
Just yo let you know those text on photos are basically mystic poems. One of
the tools Iranian propaganda uses

~~~
msoad
Translating this forum is hard. They uses a specific language that has tons of
reference to the way Iranian government sees the world. For example they never
say "Israel", they would say instead "Usurper Regime". Because they never
recognize Israel as a country.

What we have here is a forum by Iranian semi-military force "Basij". They
bluff all the time and you never know what is truth. They have no shame in
photoshoping and manipulating the truth.

~~~
jnbiche
If you recall the Iranian uprising a few years ago, the Basij were the jack-
booted thugs who were beating the shit out of innocent civilians. It was a
member of the Basij who killed Neda:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Neda_Agha-
Soltan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Neda_Agha-Soltan)

------
davenull
I call bullshit. There are numerous "funny bits" in this thread, number one,
they display the info page for a "UAV Imager system" which in no way offers
control of a drone. Second, the very generalized schematic for a nuclear power
station, most likely a mid-60's design BWR, means nothing to anyone.

------
soheil
Just because you can use MSPaint to draw some text on some images doesn't mean
you're a hacker. Get it right HN!

------
scottmcleod
Look at OP's submissions..

~~~
zxcdw
What about them, exactly?

------
frozenport
Because I can't read moon runes, what is this this about? Its bad enough when
people drop technical posts without context, but seriously what is this
saying? Perhaps we should actively encourage posts in English so that anybody
from Bangkok, Baghdad, Beijing and Boston and could understand these posts.

------
rogerthis
Hey, iranian coming here, how are you doing?

------
ToothlessJake
The incident reported back in March via LATimes:
[http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/05/nation/la-na-nn-
faa-...](http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/05/nation/la-na-nn-faa-drone-
jfk-airport-20130305)

Back-story on the series of on-going hacks by Iranians against US
entities/corporations: [http://cryptome.org/2013/07/ir-hack-
forum.htm](http://cryptome.org/2013/07/ir-hack-forum.htm)

~~~
stefap2
This is the recording (needs a login)
[http://www.liveatc.net/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topi...](http://www.liveatc.net/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=10676.0;attach=7169)

Drone sighting at JFK

~~~
celwell
can someone post their login info here please?

------
ToothlessJake
I made a brief timeline of Parastoo hacks when submitting the Cryptome.org
article on this topic. The hacker(s) referenced VSATs and drone hijacking
after hacking IHS Janes, pre-JFK drone incident. They then started to
reference the JFK incident in further releases about hijacking US drones over
US skies/assets:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6038657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6038657)

------
thezach
If you look at OP's submissions you can see that well, this person posts
iranian hacking stuff, and thats it. Makes you wonder about OP's motives.

I'm also okay if the NSA targets OP looking at his submission list.

~~~
betawolf33
I looked at his submission history. I see four items.

The first, dated four days ago (and the only I see one preceeding this), is a
title making some sort of claim about Booz Hamilton based on a whois lookup.
Not exactly a quality submission, but it has nothing to do with Iran or
hacking.

The other three submissions are all about what seems to be some news he's
stumbled on about hacking/reverse engineering claims from Iran.

Considering this is 'Hacker' news, you can understand why he might think we'd
be interested in this. Of course, it would be better form for him to write up
an article explaining the separation or link between these items rather than
posting lots of direct evidence.

None of that means he should expect to have his privacy breached by a US
intelligence agency, and frankly your support for that on the basis of such a
flimsy characterisation is blood-chilling.

A lot of people seem to have become alarmed because they've seen persian text
and heard that it's about hacking. That's equally chilling.

Is this all it takes?

