Adversary Drones (not UFOs) Are Spying On The U.S. Military

originally posted by: stealthskater
Tyler Rogoway (The WarZone) published a fascinating essay about Drone Electronic Warfare and how the Pentagon (to save face) brushed them off as UFOs => www.thedrive.com... .

[scroll down past end-of-article to view interesting Reader Comments]

So the US uses RQ-170 level technology to spy on very sensitive nuclear facilities deep inside Iran, but China and Russia
are spying on US military assets with much, much more sophisticated platforms? Not likely. For one thing, there isn't provenance (R&D, programs, prototypes, adjacent technologies, budget or industrial base) for anything like that.

a reply to: Sublant

The source article describes in painstaking detail how easy it is to gather sensitive information with inexpensive, off-the-shelf technology and explains how overlooking the obvious poses a direct threat to national security. In other words, the exact opposite of what you appear to be responding to.

Not that I'm without sin: I post without reading source articles plenty myself (there's only so many hours in a day), the thread title is somewhat misleading (in my opinion) and Mr. Rogoway's magnum opus is longer than even my most bloated of posts, but if you haven't at least skimmed it, you won't appreciate just how off-base a response like this is.

Again, I'm not attempting to preach from on high or give you a hard time, because God knows I have no right to, but I urge you to at least scroll through the article before commenting further. It's definitely a very long read, but it's worth at look, loaded with useful information and necessary to understanding what is actually being discussed.

a reply to: Majic

That's always been the problem with the Pentagon. They would rather use a sledgehammer when something smaller would work just fine. And they ignore the smaller from other people. They've only just gotten serious about counter UAV systems. And, despite years of cyber attacks, they're still so far behind on network security in some places that it's not funny.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Majic

That's always been the problem with the Pentagon. They would rather use a sledgehammer when something smaller would work just fine. And they ignore the smaller from other people. They've only just gotten serious about counter UAV systems. And, despite years of cyber attacks, they're still so far behind on network security in some places that it's not funny.

I've asked this before, what would it take for these "big wigs" to see the big picture and actually act with a sense of urgency?

Aside from physically wiping the plate clean and starting from scratch, would an actual real world scenario that successfully plays out in Chinas favor, "be?" That would get these peoples off their collective arses???

I mean, some of us in the internet message boards can't be that woke, logical and reasonable to actually see a threat where others tasked with our safety remain ignorant of?

a reply to: Arnie123

Pay them more for saving money than the defense industry pays them to spend it.

a reply to: Arnie123

It's not that they're ignorant of it, they just put a low priority on them. Just about all the higher ups in the Pentagon have tunnel vision towards what they came up through. The Air Force guys are almost all fighter guys, so their priority is fighters. They'll wait until they have to before they push other programs. Until we break them out of that tunnel vision, not much is going to change, until you force them to.

a reply to: Zaphod58

But without tunnel vision, they won't be able to fight the last war.

Interesting theory but it does not fly (pun intended).

The physics of their maneuvering, we do not have, not any human on the planet, or they would certainly use it to dominate the world.

Drones or ships, whatever, we do not have the capabilities to make a 90d turn at thousands of miles an hour, go into space in seconds and then down to sea level or plunge into the ocean without disturbing the water.

I also think the higher ranks of the military and the DOD know a lot more than we will ever be told.

We need some fundamental answers. I think we can certainly handle it.... look what we have been through lately.

a reply to: charlyv

And they're not talking about those. They're discussing a very specific number of recent events, such as the destroyer off California that had a number of lights circle the ship. The events they're discussing didn't do any of those things.

a reply to: Zaphod58

You may be correct, however the sophistication of sensors on one of our battleships should be able to tell if they are being messed with using conventional technology.

Not only the radar and laser sensors, but deciphering the telemetry they would be using to control them.

Upon deciding that this was not like the other cases were fighters were dispatched, and that what was going on did not display those weird physics, they they could certainly bring a few of those down to check on them, I would think.

a reply to: charlyv

A lit up UAV is going to blot out night vision, so you aren't going to get good detail, and radar is only going to tell you that it's there. You can't decode telemetry if it's encrypted, you can only detect it, unless you have the encryption system. And that will only tell you signals are being broadcast. If they're directional, and you don't have a detector in the right place, you don't even get that much. They also have LPI signals, such as laser that you won't detect unless you're in the way of it. As for bringing them down, contrary to popular belief, as long as they aren't a direct threat to the ship, aircraft, even unmanned aircraft, have every right to fly near ships in international airspace.

a reply to: charlyv

Not only the radar and laser sensors, but deciphering the telemetry they would be using to control them.

If they are autonomous no telemetry is required.

"Fly over there and listen for a while. Do some tricks to get them to light up. Record it and bring it back."

Upon deciding that this was not like the other cases were fighters were dispatched, and that what was going on did not display those weird physics, they they could certainly bring a few of those down to check on them, I would think.

EW can create the illusion of weird physics.

Do you really think those are conventional drones messing with a big boy like that?
I dunno, but having spent a considerable time in the service and in air support for fleet exercises, it just seems they could tell the difference and would have had called in a request to have it checked out.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: charlyv

You can't decode telemetry if it's encrypted, you can only detect it, unless you have the encryption system. And that will only tell you signals are being broadcast. If they're directional, and you don't have a detector in the right place, you don't even get that much. They also have LPI signals, such as laser that you won't detect unless you're in the way of it.

With SpaceXs new internet satellites they would not even need to encrypt it just have a satellite transceiver in the drone, and you have a system that will blend in with all the other satellite internet background.

a reply to: ANNED

Well aware of that. You may not be able to decrypt it, however the communications specifics like frequency, carrier, bandwidth, signal strength, packet relays, framing, binary formats and other signaling should be able to tell you if it is a conventional messaging format or something totally new. These are the things that ECM equipment aboard warships are very good at.

a reply to: charlyv

Unless, as was suggested, they're autonomous. There are no signals to detect.

I think they can get much more intel and cheaper by using hackers. Whatever they think they would be spying on probably wouldn’t be anywhere as earth shattering than disclosing to your enemy that you have propulsion technology that advanced. An American fleet position or size wouldn’t be that big of an issue if you can fly around like those UFOs. It just doesn’t make sense to me that an enemy would show their hand like that in order to get visuals on what is probably benign tech compared to the UFO.

a reply to: DamianSicks6

What the electronic capabilities are is far more interesting than what the ships look like.The more is learned about how our systems work, the more our systems can be messed with.

The article in the OP:

These radar emissions, and the datalink communications that go along with them, underpin highly networked counter-air architectures that are unmatched anywhere on earth. By gathering comprehensive electronic intelligence information on these systems, countermeasures and electronic warfare tactics can be developed to disrupt or defeat them.

www.thedrive.com...

What propulsion technology are you talking about? Electronic warfare technology can produce things on radar that aren't actually there. It can make those things zip all over the place.

In essence, during the early 1960s, the CIA launched radar reflectors on balloons off Cuba's coastline via a U.S. Navy submarine and employed an electronic warfare system called PALLADIUM that would trick the latest Soviet radar systems into showing their operators that enemy aircraft were rushing toward Cuban shores or doing all types of crazy maneuvers.

originally posted by: Majic
a reply to: Sublant

The source article describes in painstaking detail how easy it is to gather sensitive information with inexpensive, off-the-shelf technology and explains how overlooking the obvious poses a direct threat to national security. In other words, the exact opposite of what you appear to be responding to.

Not that I'm without sin: I post without reading source articles plenty myself (there's only so many hours in a day), the thread title is somewhat misleading (in my opinion) and Mr. Rogoway's magnum opus is longer than even my most bloated of posts, but if you haven't at least skimmed it, you won't appreciate just how off-base a response like this is.

Again, I'm not attempting to preach from on high or give you a hard time, because God knows I have no right to, but I urge you to at least scroll through the article before commenting further. It's definitely a very long read, but it's worth at look, loaded with useful information and necessary to understanding what is actually being discussed.

Warzone claim both, high and low end, and quite frankly it is an insult to US military to think Russia and China are spying on frontline and even developmental assets with balloons and RC toys. On or near US soil even.

Or that Tic Tac is a chinese program. Although Warzone has been going back and forth with that one. Sometimes it is Chinese, sometimes it is US.

US is ahead, far ahead, in these technologies, both in actual operating platforms and theoretical applications.

This is a very lazy version of bomber/missile gap.

a reply to: Sublant

US is ahead, far ahead, in these technologies, both in actual operating platforms and theoretical applications.

Probably so.
That doesn't mean they aren't trying to catch up.