Have the Iranians managed to decode data from the US drone they got in late 2011?

[Skybird]

Iranian TV showed this clip with footage from US bases that they claim was stored aboard that drone from the incident back then, when the captured that US drone.

If that is true, it shows that any mechanisms to protect sensible technology and data in case of an emergency by deleting/destroying it, has failed. It also has given the Iranians close range visual data of US bases - Kandahar amongst them - where the drone apparently was operating from.



Taken from this German article: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/t...-a-882019.html

Is this another monkey in space and another superior stealth fighter, or is it real this time? The article refers to Western experts saying that it would be extremely difficult to forge material as being seen on the clip. If it is real, the remaining question is if it is material taken from that drone, or material the Iranians got their hands on by use of another source.

[fireftr18]

Looks computer generated to me.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by fireftr18

Looks computer generated to me.

Dunno why they would go through the trouble of producing such a high quality
CGI.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yes, the drone was decoded. It said, "Drink more Ovaltine."

[geetrue]

I saw this on the news just an hour ago ...
they left it up to us to decide if it was real or not

Good thing were not at war, yet

[fireftr18]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Yes, the drone was decoded. It said, "Drink more Ovaltine."

You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

[Catfish]

Sure it's fake ? :

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/t...-a-882019.html

The most idiotic thing would be the drone material is not encoded ?!
Experts say it is not.

[MH]

Even if those pics are real i don't suppose that it should be such a big deal.
Good for Iranian propaganda but totally useless.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by MH

Even if those pics are real i don't suppose that it should be such a big deal.
Good for Iranian propaganda but totally useless.

Maybe, maybe not. The point is another one: such drones would be expected to have automatic systems destroying sensible electronics and auto-deletion of data stored aboard, systems that for some reason have failed, if the footage shown is real. That is the news here, and it is of concern for other drone models, more modern and sophisticated ones as well. The German article quotes a high-ranking Iranian military saying the drone had data from several flights over Iranian territory aboard. For commando operations or planning a one-attempt bombing raid or missile strikes, such visual reference material can be interesting: how close to the runway are planes parked or devices installed? Spacing between buildings and aircraft = spacing between bomb ripples. Time needed for an agent or commando to run from here to there. Suspicious antennas over a building indicating presence of electronic high value targets. And so on.

The article also speaks in plural about American bases being filmed during landing approaches. The material obviously is clear enough to have enabled experts by the views of the pictures to identify at least one of these bases as Kandahar, which also gets mentioned in the article by name. Finally it refers to - namels unmentioned - experts saying it would be very difficult to forge video footage like this, to this visual quality degree.

Remember the American naval surveillance plane the Chinese got their hands on some years ago, ten years or how long is it now? The plane I think emergency-landed in China without the crew having been able to completely destroy sensible data/electronics. Not to mention that the Chinese no doubt have learned quite a lot from inspecting that bird.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Yes, the drone was decoded. It said, "Drink more Ovaltine."

BUMPESES!

[Subnuts]

Darn, I hope they don't get any good overhead images of themselves. We wouldn't want them to know what they're doing, after all.