Email

We’ve all heard about the US Air Force drones, basically robot airplanes used during war.  What you may not have heard is that earlier this fall a computer virus attacked the computers officials used to control these drones at a Nevada Air Force base.  At the time, officials brushed off the importance of this virus, stating the incident was “more of a nuisance than an operational threat.”

If that’s the case, then how is it that three months later one of these drones was captured in Iran?  Some are saying the GPS system contained in the drone was most likely hacked.  If this is true, then everything we thought about the drones becomes uncertain.  After all, these unmanned aircrafts became heavily relied upon in our war against terror, not only tracking and spying on enemies but killing them as well.

Scientists in Iran are saying they duped the drone in question, an RQ-170 Sentinel and part of a CIA mission, into landing in their homeland.  Officials in the US, however, are vehemently denying these claims, although anonymously due to the sensitivity of information involved.  All finger pointing aside, does it really matter?  The point here is that it happened, and it’s time to look at how to make sure this doesn’t happen again.  The president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, Michael Toscano, breaks it down simply without having to point a finger: “A UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) did not perform the way it was supposed to, and the bad guys got it.”

As the Iranians see it, the presence of this drone in their country was unacceptable, and as Ali Akbar Salehi, Iranian Foreign Minister says, a “hostile and aggressive act.”  The United States stands behind their drones, while some citizens are questioning whether these machines are the perfect instruments of war they were purported to be.  Don’t Air Force officials realize that as new technology is introduced, our enemies will stop at nothing to figure out a way to stop them?  Only two years ago, video feeds were hacked into by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Many are also questioning just how secure the tracking devices truly are, especially after this incident in Iran.

Air Force and CIA officials aren’t talking specifically about issues they are having, but say that they are working to make their overseas operations like a well-oiled machine, and strangely enough say that everything is top notch. The press quoted Lt. Col. John Haynes as stating, “we’re obviously constantly looking to identify potential vulnerabilities and when we do see them, we take the most appropriate action.”

Researchers who know about drones say that the problems stem from the GPS devices contained within them, and not the actual drone itself.  They not only operate using encrypted GPS, but also have a civilian GPS in the event the encrypted system fails.  Researchers feel this may be exactly why the  Sentinel was captured.  Now, they just have to figure out how to stop this from happening again.  One solution is to stop relying on GPS at all, having the drone fly itself.  However, this is a major undertaking, which is the main reason the aircrafts have GPS devices in the first place.

Drone program supporters are looking for positives in this whole mess, like the fact we can learn from our mistakes and correct the problem, making sure it never happens gain.  As Missy Cummings, former Navy pilot says, “These problems with GPS are relatively trivial.  We will fix it.  That’s how innovation happens.  It is the natural course of technological development.” However, the Department of Energy’s Roger Johnston, who manages the Vulnerability Assessment Team, brought to the president’s desk years ago all of the flaws in the GPS devices after extensive testing, letting them know how very real the possibility of hacking the systems was.  “They just kind of went, ‘Oh.’ and then they said, ‘That’s not very likely.’”

The drones started to be used years later, and the majority of officials thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread.  That’s where Johnston feels the US went wrong.  “Falling in love with your own technology is always a mistake.  That’s what they did with the Titanic.” He says the love of the technology made them ignorant of its flaws, even when they were brought to their attention.  “If indeed it involves spoofing of civilian GPS, this is jaw-droppingly stupid.  I don’t buy the argument, ‘Oh, well who could have seen this?’  We did.”

Photo by Expertinfantry via Flickr Creative Commons