

RQ-170 Spy Drone impossible to bring down with electronic hijacking - jostmey

The Iranians claim to have captured a top secret US unmanned drone using electronic warfare. This represents a major loss of stealth and sensory technology for the U.S. However, if the aircraft is indeed stealth, it would have been impossible to "hack" into the airplanes controls and take it over remotely.<p>A stealth craft has to maintain radio silence to avoid detection. Therefore, the craft must fly completely on its own, guided merely by its AI. Thus, the aircraft has no need for ground control. It would be impossible to hijack from the ground using electronic interference.<p>More likely the craft suffered a mechanical failure or fuel loss and gently crashed.
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mikecsh
This seems like baseless speculation to me. Surely it listens for instructions
and I'd be very surprised if it didn't return communications in some manner,
perhaps using some spread spectrum technique to drop the transmit signal below
the noise floor to avoid detection without the CDMA codes.

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andyl
The drone may be guided by AI, and limit emissions to prevent detection, but
surely it listens for instructions.

I think its unlikely that the drone was hacked, but without insider knowledge,
how can you definitively rule out electronic hijacking?

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zoowar
The drone could be listening and reacting to radio transmissions without
transmitting (idk).

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ceejayoz
> A stealth craft has to maintain radio silence to avoid detection.

Radio silence means you don't transmit. There's no reason you can't passively
receive. I'd imagine transmitting a narrow beam transmission at a satellite
would be hard to detect with anything but dumb luck, too.

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kisom
These drones feature live video feeds. You can't have a live video feed
without a radio transmission.

