Comments on: Question about that drone

By: Wm Lawrence

Wm Lawrence — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:45:08 +0000

I am not much for conspiracy theories, but I have to wonder if a small amount of Iranian and/or Chinese money might not have found it’s way into Obama’s campaign chest…

Seems there were similar questions during Slick Willy’s administration. Something about missile guidance technology… Just a thought.

By: foxmarks

foxmarks — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:51:05 +0000

blert gets it. The USA’s drone control software has been breached. The craft never thought it was in trouble, so no failsafes were activated. That’s the scenario which the evidence supports best.

All the fretting about reverse-engineering the hardware is a second-order problem. We keep building the machines, and the enemies just commandeer them when convenient. And what else in our national defense has been hacked?

Herman Cain made a point about software integrity as essential to defense. He suggested that Chinese and other hackers were the most underestimated threat to the US. But all y’all thought he wasn’t well-studied and/or didn’t care about foreign policy.

By: F

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:17:57 +0000

Mike Mc:

Even voting him out doesn’t solve he problem. My greatest fear is what Obama will do, if he loses the election, between early November when the votes are counted and mid January when the inauguration takes place. That’s a period of a little more than 2 months when he can do an incredible amount of damage by presidential declaration alone. Watch out America!

By: Mike Mc.

Mike Mc. — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:10:48 +0000

The only important question is whether the U.S.A. can survive as America until January 2013 when Obama is put out.

Every day until then has the potential of more harm and damage.

It’s like a race to the finish line: Can he destroy America – which I believe his his overall intention, calling fundamental transformation is just a euphemism for saying wrecking it – enough before 2013 to make the next election an exercise in futility….or not.

Are there any other questions?

Drones? Like a mosquito in size relative to the other one.

By: Mr. Frank

Mr. Frank — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:27:03 +0000

As I understand it, the big advantage of drones is loiter time. Satellites have periods of non coverage. Another advantage is you are not putting a pilot in harms way who could then become a hostage.

By: Yackums

Yackums — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:23:05 +0000

Or maybe I’ve been watching too much “Chuck.”

By: Yackums

Yackums — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:22:07 +0000

Maybe it’s a black op whose objective is to infect and incapacitate whatever (probably military) system they connect the drone’s technology to in order to reverse-engineer it.

Heh. Black op.

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:01:32 +0000

Just speaking out of my hat, but how much intelligence can be gleaned from an unmanned drone? Surely it is little more than a radio controlled airplane with camera and bombs attached. Perhaps it just isn’t worth the hassle.

By: Surellin

Surellin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:18:55 +0000

Sounds to me like bad planning. If we’re sending drones into enemy countries, we really need to have established in advance how to deal with this stuff. No kicking the problem upstairs and taking hours for the cookie pushers to decide.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:40:53 +0000

I can’t cite the source anymore, but my understanding came from a military spokesman who said that the drone lost it’s tether and landed BY DESIGN.

The “by design” part is suspicious since a valid assumption would be that the aircraft would be over enemy territory if it lost it’s tether. Nonetheless, that would explain the intact nature of the craft.

I doubt that it was intentionally snatched by the Iranians because it took a couple of days for them to get out there and secure the thing, did it not? If they were jamming and taking over the aircraft they would have had teams in place to secure it as soon as possible.