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IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARD said today that it has decoded all of the data from an advanced CIA spy drone captured last year.
The Guard’s aerospace chief, General Ami Ali Hajizadeh, told state-run Press TV that that the RQ-170 Sentinel craft had not carried out missions over nuclear facilities before it went down in December 2011 near the eastern border with Afghanistan.
Tehran had previously said it recovered information from the top-secret stealth aircraft, but Monday’s announcement suggests technicians may have broken encryptions.
“All data from the drone have been completely decoded. We know where it travelled step by step,” Hajizadeh was quoted as saying. “After decoding, our experts discovered that this drone had not carried out even a single nuclear mission over Iran.”
Hajizadeh said Iran had captured the drone and decoded its data without any assistance, including from its allies China and Russia. Iran has said it would reverse-engineer the drone and build its own version.
Last week, the Guard claimed it captured another US drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, showing an image of what it said was a Boeing-designed ScanEagle drone on state TV.
The Islamic Republic has been trumpeting its possession of the drones in an attempt to embarrass Washington over its alleged surveillance of Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
Hajizadeh said Iran had previously acquired a ScanEagle drone and produced a copy of that, but did not provide evidence to back up the claim.
Last month, Tehran claimed that a US drone violated its airspace. The Pentagon said an unmanned Predator aircraft came under fire at least twice while flying over international waters but was not hit.
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I believe the dedoded data says
10001100111100010001110000011111000010100010……
no…it said….123456789abcdef………memories of 1st year electronics class…lol
I love dedoding it’s great fun !!!
I thought B52s were the ultimate coward’s weapon, then came the drones. The implications of this kind of technology are frightening.
Petr, could you tell us what the Russians have for bombers?
Real men launch rockets from children’s playground and then run away into residential areas.
TU 60 introduced by the Russians in 1952 before the Americans introduced their bomber to counteract the Russians. It’s always the Americans with you petr.
I thought the ultimate coward’s weapon was a keyboard.
ZINGGG!
Petr, I have a simple question for you. Do you think that the revolutionary red guard are frightening? Simple question.
Cowards weapons? As opposed to heroes weapons? Like Knives? Rifles? IEDs? Sorry but that’s silly, weapons are tools for achieving an objective that requires killing people or destroying things. And people will use the most efficient ones at their disposal. Whether its suicide bombs, artillery, warplanes or good old fashioned rifles its all the same. The heroics of it usually come down to who’s side you’re on. Most people aren’t objective about these things.
I think the decoded message went something like this…”Petr…while known to be anti American and Western, enjoys a sneaky Big Mac or two on occasion….mmmmm…Love The Drone”
Decapitating prisoners with a kitchen knife whilst their hands and feet are cable-tied is far more noble I suppose?
Petr, your rolling on the red thumbs again.
To be honest I agree with Petr on this one. Although past methods of combat have been obviously horrible to live through, this new advancement in technology makes killing impersonal, easy and terrifying when considering what future wars may be like. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/03/mindless-killer-robots
Would you prefer WW2 style trenches?
We all know all war is bad, but as long as there are people, there will be war.
I’d much prefer anything that minimises civilian casualties.
No, I don’t know yet what my preference would be as we don’t yet know the effect this technology will have on future generations. With technological advancements these things could be mass produced. Add to this mounting pressure on governments to obtain what limited natural resources there are left and who knows what damage could be done. As for saying as long as there is man there will always be war – I don’t believe this.
Don’t mind them Petr, usual brain dead muppets giving u stick. Kids in the poorest shack in Afghanistan have a better knowledge of whats going on in the world.
Ok Derek, so anyone with a different opinion is a “brain dead muppet”.
Thanks for that contribution to the debate – your insight is enlightening…
Kids in the poorest shack in Afghanistan would love to have what you take for granted.
Doubt that. The poorest shack is probably in Taliban controlled territory where the girls aren’t allowed go to school and the boys go to the madrasah. I’d doubt they’re well up on current affairs!
#sarcasm
@ Gary Weir
It’d be nice if you were right about no more war. But nothing in our history points to you being right in your belief. We have been at war since biblical times and probably much much longer.
While most people are good, there will always be arseholes.
There is two ways to conquer a nation, through armies and through debt and both are wielded by the same people. Both are used to extract money and resources which are used as power. So i say, what do you think happened to Ireland and whose wielding it? Its not rocket science. Thats the way the world works, simple as that. You think people would have copped on by now but they would rather live in denial and cheer for their oppressors.Just make sure you have plenty of vaseline.
Declan: “Petr, could you tell us what the Russians have for bombers?”
Where’s the relevance? Do you think because I have a ‘Russian-sounding’ name I’m somehow on the ‘side’ of Russia?
We’re not all simpletons that see the world in terms of good guys/bad guys you know…
Petr, really? “Russian sounding name”. It is a Russian name. Besides I’m just curious when you are going to be critical of the other side. With you it’s always anti-west, anti-America.
The other side? The Cold War is over, Declan.
Please refrain from making assumptions about my name in future.
@manonthestreet – I agree there will always be arseholes. But the way I see it is, wars have always been fought due to religion, disturbing nationalism/patriotism for ones country/race, gaining of wealth for kings/queens or corporations. I believe people will eventually see through this charade and realise that it really has no benefit for them personally or the vast majority, after all we all all we are looking for in this life is to be content and happy. There are many political systems (libertarian anarchism, socialism etc) in which there would be no need for war it’s just they haven’t been tried yet. There has been no evidence to prove these systems aren’t viable and couldn’t work. So that is my reason for believing that war will eventually cease. Besides we have a lot of years ahead of us.
Why would you store any information on the drone?
Compared to transmitting it, you would get the information more slowly and you would carry extra weight on the drone.
While I agree with you, I think it should be pointed out that transmissions can be intercepted or jammed.
I’m sure the US military have 50tb solid state drives. That’s a lot of info in such a light package.
A 50TB SSD? No… A SAN with 50TB of SSD’s in their data centre sure, but a single 50TB SSD in a drone, certainly not.
It could be argued that drone technology provides a more accurate weapons platform and therefore safer to non-combatants on the ground. They fly slower, can linger longer and provide more time and information to decide whether to fire a weapon or not.
Civilian casualty rates are decreasing as the technology advances:
“The civilian casualty rate has been dropping sharply since 2008. The number of civilians, plus “unknowns,” those individuals whose precise status could not be determined from media reports, reported killed by drones in Pakistan during Obama’s tenure in office were 11% of fatalities. So far in 2012 it is close to 2%. Under President Bush it was 33%.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/05/opinion/bergen-obama-drone/index.html
Obama stated that no nation could stand by and watch its citizens killed by rocket attacks during recent Gaza carnage. Yet the US regularly kills Pakistanis citizens using rockets launched from drones. The Pakistanis Foreign Minister called these attacks unlawful and ex US President Carter is against these drone attacks. I say well done to the Iranians. Hopefully it gives them and the rest of the world a heads up on US terrorist attacks.
You forgot some key points. Rockets fired from Gaza are not guided weapons and are totally indiscriminate. A missile fired from a Predator is guided and normally very accurate. If non-combatants are killed by a missile fired from a Predator it would in all likelihood be the result of human error or simple bad luck.
“Referring to a recent drone strike in the tribal area that killed 60 militants, Zardari [President of Pakistan] reported that his military aide believed a Pakistani operation to take out this site would have resulted in the deaths of over 60 Pakistani soldiers.”
http://dawn.com/2011/05/20/zardari-asks-for-drone-technology-for-pak-army/
“Referring to the situation in Waziristan, Kayani [Pakistani Chief of Army] asked if Fallon could assist in providing continuous Predator coverage of the conflict area”
http://dawn.com/2011/05/20/kayani-asked-for-continuous-predator-coverage/
Reg, I’m sure if the U.S. were willing to send Hamas shed loads of laser guided missiles and train them in their use (as they do the Israelis), I’m sure they’d be more than happy to rain down precision death and mayhem on the heads of their enemy.
Until then they’re gonna have to do with what they can make themselves.
I think you’ll find that most of Hamas’s rockets are supplied by Iran, Syria and ultimately Russia, not home-made.
….@Belo..My man…reason for staying on this site be comments like your own…
Blowback.
…@Now is this report biased or what…”Trumpeting”..!?…
All your drone are belong to us
Will this mean that Iran will be able to use drones to kill opponents in other countries – just like US/Israel is doing?
Great bunch of lads
Outrageous, they should return the drone from whence it came immediately……oh! on seconds thoughts ……………
The sniper is the most cowardly b’stard in the world, the drone is a cowards weapon as is the keyboard
Stupid…
snipers are cowards, that comment is laughable, I would love to see you go up to a veteran of ww2 or Vietnam and tell them they are cowards. good luck with that
I’d have no problem telling a cowardly b’stard that he is in effect a coward……he’d probably shoot me in the back on the way home though…cowardly b’stards…
Says yer man with no photo on his profile…
AJ. Michael Caraher was claimed by a senior RUC officer to be an extremely brave man & he was a paramilitary sniper. Snipers are brave soldiers in most cases.
@mint..
There’s a big difference in being a sniper in Armagh and a sniper in Afghanistan, my original comment was not about snipers who were at war 10 or 20 or more years ago. The facts are that todays british and american snipers can kill from a distance of 1 mile. That is cowardly and these are the snipers that I was writing about.
Michael Caragher was a hero lauded by the British army and the RUC, he sniped from 50 metres at heavily armed patrols, he knew that if he was caught he would be shot, that’s heroism. Today’s british or yankee snipers have very little chance of being caught, sniping from a mile is cowardice.
AJ, does it matter how far away the sniper is? The job of a sniper is to take out a target with a single shot without being seen. Simple as that. Calling them cowardly is irrelevant.
I wish I had a drone. Or at least have the skills to “reverse engineer” one…
Aren’t they contravening patent law?
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