Category Archives: Cyber War

ISIS has a New Industry, Stolen Passports

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ISIS Has Whole Fake Passport ‘Industry,’ Official Says

ABC: The terror group ISIS has created a whole “industry” out of the production of fake passports, a high-level French official said today.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that through ISIS’s operations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, the group has acquired blank passports and has now set up a “real fake document industry.” Cazeneuve made the statement following a meeting with top European officials where he proposed setting up a new task force to help nab people attempting to come into the European Union with fake papers.

Last month ABC News reported that U.S. intelligence suspected ISIS had acquired thousands of blank Syrian passports and at least one passport printing machine after taking over government offices in Syria. Officials from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said in a 17-page report that the terror group has likely been able to print legitimate-looking Syrian passports since at least last summer – and raised the possibility that people using the forged documents have snuck into America.

“Since more than 17 months [have] passed since Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour fell to ISIS, it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS-controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have traveled to the U.S.,” the HSI report says.

The report notes that the primary source for the information was rated at “moderate confidence,” the second-highest rating given for source assessments. Testifying before lawmakers days after the HSI report was circulated to American authorities, FBI Director James Comey first publicly revealed the nation’s top security officials’ very real anxiety over the problem.

“The intelligence community is concerned that they [ISIS] have the ability, the capability to manufacture fraudulent passports, which is a concern in any setting,” Comey said.

PHOTO: A passport that law enforcement says was issued from ISIS-controlled territory in 2015, obtained in Istanbul.Homeland Security Investigations Intelligence Report
A passport that law enforcement says was issued from ISIS-controlled territory in 2015, obtained in Istanbul.

Former Department of Homeland Security intelligence official and ABC News consultant John Cohen said in December, “If ISIS has been able to acquire legitimate passports or machines that create legitimate passports, this would represent a major security risk in the United States.”

Fake Syrian passports have already been discovered in Europe, most notably two used by suicide bombers in the horrific terrorist attack on Paris in November. The two men are believed to have slipped into Europe with a flood of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their homeland.

According to the source that provided the passport information to HSI, Syria is awash in fake documents.

“The source further stated that fake Syrian passports are so prevalent in Syria that Syrians do not even view possessing them as illegal,” the report says. “The source stated fake Syrian passports can be obtained in Syria for $200 to $400 and that backdated passport stamps to be placed in the passport cost the same.”

***

Meanwhile it is quite effective in Europe

ISIS ALREADY ESTABLISHED IN EU STATES, EUROPOL WARNS

Newsweek: Europe faces a greater militant threat from within its borders than from foreign fighters posing as refugees, the EU’s law enforcement agency has said.

“There is no concrete evidence that terrorist travelers systematically use the flow of refugees to enter Europe unnoticed,” according to research published on Monday by Europol, which also warned that domestic cells belonging to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS or IS) were operating within EU states and that the group has training camps within Europe in addition to its facilities in Syria.

The research says that “IS is preparing more terrorist attacks, including more ‘Mumbai-style’ attacks, to be executed in member states of the EU,” and adds that the group has developed an “external actions command” trained for “special forces-style” attacks worldwide. Speaking to reporters at the launch of the agency’s new European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC), Europol director Rob Wainwright said “the so-called Islamic State had developed a new combat-style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global stage, with a particular focus in Europe,” AFP reports.

Europol also says that “IS-incited attacks do not necessarily have to be coordinated from Syria. Central command in Syria is believed to map out a general strategy, but leaves tactical freedom to local leaders to adapt their actions to circumstances on the spot.”

But it warns that the refugee crisis does bring new threats: “A real and imminent danger…is the possibility of elements of the (Sunni Muslim) Syrian refugee diaspora becoming vulnerable to radicalization once in Europe.”

The ECTC is designed to act as an information hub, helping EU states to share information on counter-terrorism and coordinate joint operations.

“The wide range of possible targets in combination with an opportunistic approach of locally based groups creates a huge variety of possible scenarios for future terrorist events,” Europol says. “A regular exchange of strategic intelligence is essential to any up-to-date assessment of the situation to be shared amongst Member States.”

United Way was a Great Charity, Right?

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Yes, but everything is subject to power and money. When it comes to your child, take extreme caution, ask questions, research and don’t trust anyone. That includes Bill Gates and Common Core. You are the real watchdog for your children, regardless of age, take comfort however, there are people doing great work on your behalf. Use these tools.

   <<— Big and scary

Parents: Don’t Listen to the United Way. Don’t Sign Away Your Child’s Data and Give Up a Constitutional Right to Privacy.

The Family Education Rights Privacy Act (FERPA) has been a stumbling block in accessing data in education reformer plans for many years.  According to the ed reform talking points, it is imperative that personally identifiable information be available so that all federal agencies, state educational agencies and third party researchers have access to this information ostensibly to ‘help your child’.   The request for information and the need for this information has been requested repeatedly by education reformers needing that data for company/agency existence.  The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services need that information as well in order to ‘help your child and your family’ reach the goals the government (not the parents) has indicated is success.

From a previous 2013 article on escholar, a company wanting to use data to track students:

 

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Common Core and the revision of FERPA by the US Department of Education allows intensive data mining and sharing of student information to various federal agencies and private firms selected the the USDOEd.  The company eScholar is one education reform company eager and ready to data mine information on students.  From wsj.com and Education Data Companies Chosen, 08.13.2012:

 

New York state education officials Monday said they selected four companies to build a broad education database that will host students’ test scores, curriculum materials and education apps, paid for by up to $50 million in federal Race to the Top funds.

The state Education Department said that by fall 2013, school districts will be able to use one of the data systems created by either ConnectEDU, eScholar or Pearson PLC and its subsidiary Schoolnet.
The systems are supposed to store student test scores, student demographic information, curriculum materials, lesson plans and other items that teachers or parents can access. Companies will get paid, in part, based on how many school districts select their data system.

It’s financially lucrative for data mining companies to compile student data and advantageous for them to have start up funding provided by taxpayer money. eScholar has produced a video about “Bobby”, a hypothetical student the company is tracking.  From the eScholar website:

 

“Have you met Bobby yet?”

(access video here)

Meet Bobby, the newest member of the eScholar myTrack team. We think that educators have a lot of students like Bobby, students who have things that they want to do, but aren’t always sure how to get there. Check out the video to see how Bobby and his team of supporters use myTrack to help him reach his goals. What do you think? Do you have any students like Bobby?  

eScholar is a company that received federal stimulus dollars to track your child without your knowledge or permission.  Could such behavior and practice be considered not just data mining but stalking?

Should the tracking of student academic and non-academic information and sharing it with federal agencies and private organizations without parental/student knowledge/permission be allowed?  How is the difference in the dissemination of personal information about “Bobby” to others and monitoring “Bobby’s” computer usage via the relaxation of FERPA any different than the definition of how stalkers operate?

Here’s an example of what eScholar will gather on “Bobby” and why:

Enabling P-20 Data Warehousing

Today, a consensus has emerged amongst educators at all levels that there is a need to create an LDS that provides a comprehensive view of education from early childhood through postsecondary and beyond (P-20). This capability is essential to maximizing the effectiveness of our efforts to encourage every student to achieve his or her greatest potential. A key element of this LDS is a comprehensive data warehouse that supports the data requirements of the P-20 world. With the introduction of CDW-PS, which integrates with our eScholar Uniq-ID® products supporting unique identification and ID management of individuals from early childhood through postsecondary, eScholar now has a complete solution for a P-20 data warehouse. Thedata model for the CDW-PS product is specifically designed to integrate with the eScholar Complete Data Warehouse® for PK-12 product to create a comprehensive LDS of over 3,000 data elements encompassing student and teacher academic history from pre-K through higher education. This powerful combination enables SEAs to answer key P-20 questions through one software product solution. 

Should the tracking of student academic and non-academic information and sharing it with federal agencies and private organizations without parental/student knowledge/permission be allowed?  How is the difference in the dissemination of personal information about “Bobby” to others and monitoring “Bobby’s” computer usage via the relaxation of FERPA any different than the definition of how stalkers operate?

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The United Way Salt Lake City (a private NGO) is making a pitch to parents to sign away their children’s right to privacy by agreeing to waive their FERPA protections so that the organization can ‘help’ their child and agencies can then determine the ‘right’ services for their children.  Apparently the Salt Lake City United Way just can’t do its job without parents giving their human capital information to federal agencies, NGOs like The United Way and third party researchers.   Unlike escholar, United Way is making a pitch directly to parents to give away a right that has been constitutionally provided.  The United Way is asking parents to provide active permission to data mine students.  It doesn’t give information on exactly where that information is directed and other than promises that it will make United Way’s partners jobs easier, there is no indication on who has access to this data.

From Emily Talmage in United Way to Parents: Give Us Your Gold:

To get around this law, United Way of Salt Lake City, which has recently partnered with an organization called “StriveTogether” – a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks Foundation that has received millions from the Gates Foundation – is now encouraging parents to sign a form waiving their FERPA rights.

They’ve even put together a video to convince parents just how important it is that they give up their children’s personal information to just about any organization in the city that wants it – including the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce.

 

Here is The United Way’s video cajoling parents into giving their child’s data away.  It’s the same argument made by escholar, it’s because we want the best for your child.  Don’t fall for it.  It’s to have access to the dossier on your human capital.  Do a search on ‘United Way and FERPA’. The United Way is supportive of this administration’s educational reforms and ESSA and many United Way agencies are requesting parents give away their child’s constitutional right to privacy.

In 2015: 84 million

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Just imagine, the cyber espionage….industrial espionage….the hacking…..

Do you really want to continue to tell the world about everything you do and who you are connected with on Facebook?

Cybercriminals Making Computer Malware at a Record Rate: Researchers

NBC: Last year was a particularly bad year for hacks and computer intrusions, and it looks like 2016 will only get worse, Panda Security says.

The Spain-based Internet security company said its lab researchers detected and disabled more than 84 million new samples of malware in 2015 — 9 million more than the previous year. The figure means cybercriminals were churning out new malware samples at a rate of more than 230,000 a day throughout 2015.

In fact, more than a quarter (27 percent) of all malware samples ever recorded were produced in 2015, Panda Security said in a news release.

“We predict that the amount of malware created by cybercriminals will continue to grow,” said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs. “We also can’t forget that the creation of millions of Trojans and other threats corresponds to the cybercriminals’ needs to infect as many users as possible in order to get more money.”

Malware is any type of software that is designed to gain access to and damage or disable a computer.

Trojans, a type of malware disguised as legitimate software, accounted for more than half the malware detected in 2015, according to Panda Security.

China topped the list of countries with the highest rate of infected computers, followed by Taiwan and Turkey. At the other end of the spectrum, nine of the top 10 countries with the lowest rates of infection were in Europe, led by Finland, Norway and Sweden.

***

Barack Obama has been a big user of BIG DATA but he experienced a huge firestorm after the exposure of the NSA programs by Edward Snowden. Barack Obama enlisted John Podesta, at the time his chief of staff and now Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign architect to commission a study. Sheesh…but nonetheless, here is what you should read in the findings.

From the White House: Over the past several days, severe storms have battered Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and other states. Dozens of people have been killed and entire neighborhoods turned to rubble and debris as tornadoes have touched down across the region. Natural disasters like these present a host of challenges for first responders. How many people are affected, injured, or dead? Where can they find food, shelter, and medical attention? What critical infrastructure might have been damaged?

Drawing on open government data sources, including Census demographics and NOAA weather data, along with their own demographic databases, Esri, a geospatial technology company, has created a real-time map showing where the twisters have been spotted and how the storm systems are moving. They have also used these data to show how many people live in the affected area, and summarize potential impacts from the storms. It’s a powerful tool for emergency services and communities. And it’s driven by big data technology.

In January, President Obama asked me to lead a wide-ranging review of “big data” and privacy—to explore how these technologies are changing our economy, our government, and our society, and to consider their implications for our personal privacy. Together with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, the President’s Science Advisor John Holdren, the President’s Economic Advisor Jeff Zients, and other senior officials, our review sought to understand what is genuinely new and different about big data and to consider how best to encourage the potential of these technologies while minimizing risks to privacy and core American values.

Over the course of 90 days, we met with academic researchers and privacy advocates, with regulators and the technology industry, with advertisers and civil rights groups. The President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology conducted a parallel study of the technological trends underpinning big data. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy jointly organized three university conferences at MIT, NYU, and U.C. Berkeley. We issued a formal Request for Information seeking public comment, and hosted a survey to generate even more public input.

Today, we presented our findings to the President. We knew better than to try to answer every question about big data in three months. But we are able to draw important conclusions and make concrete recommendations for Administration attention and policy development in a few key areas.

There are a few technological trends that bear drawing out. The declining cost of collection, storage, and processing of data, combined with new sources of data like sensors, cameras, and geospatial technologies, mean that we live in a world of near-ubiquitous data collection. All this data is being crunched at a speed that is increasingly approaching real-time, meaning that big data algorithms could soon have immediate effects on decisions being made about our lives.

The big data revolution presents incredible opportunities in virtually every sector of the economy and every corner of society.

Big data is saving lives. Infections are dangerous—even deadly—for many babies born prematurely. By collecting and analyzing millions of data points from a NICU, one study was able to identify factors, like slight increases in body temperature and heart rate, that serve as early warning signs an infection may be taking root—subtle changes that even the most experienced doctors wouldn’t have noticed on their own.

Big data is making the economy work better. Jet engines and delivery trucks now come outfitted with sensors that continuously monitor hundreds of data points and send automatic alerts when maintenance is needed. Utility companies are starting to use big data to predict periods of peak electric demand, adjusting the grid to be more efficient and potentially averting brown-outs.

Big data is making government work better and saving taxpayer dollars. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have begun using predictive analytics—a big data technique—to flag likely instances of reimbursement fraud before claims are paid. The Fraud Prevention System helps identify the highest-risk health care providers for waste, fraud, and abuse in real time and has already stopped, prevented, or identified $115 million in fraudulent payments.

But big data raises serious questions, too, about how we protect our privacy and other values in a world where data collection is increasingly ubiquitous and where analysis is conducted at speeds approaching real time. In particular, our review raised the question of whether the “notice and consent” framework, in which a user grants permission for a service to collect and use information about them, still allows us to meaningfully control our privacy as data about us is increasingly used and reused in ways that could not have been anticipated when it was collected.

Big data raises other concerns, as well. One significant finding of our review was the potential for big data analytics to lead to discriminatory outcomes and to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections in housing, employment, credit, and the consumer marketplace.

No matter how quickly technology advances, it remains within our power to ensure that we both encourage innovation and protect our values through law, policy, and the practices we encourage in the public and private sector. To that end, we make six actionable policy recommendations in our report to the President:

Advance the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. Consumers deserve clear, understandable, reasonable standards for how their personal information is used in the big data era. We recommend the Department of Commerce take appropriate consultative steps to seek stakeholder and public comment on what changes, if any, are needed to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, first proposed by the President in 2012, and to prepare draft legislative text for consideration by stakeholders and submission by the President to Congress.

Pass National Data Breach Legislation. Big data technologies make it possible to store significantly more data, and further derive intimate insights into a person’s character, habits, preferences, and activities. That makes the potential impacts of data breaches at businesses or other organizations even more serious. A patchwork of state laws currently governs requirements for reporting data breaches. Congress should pass legislation that provides for a single national data breach standard, along the lines of the Administration’s 2011 Cybersecurity legislative proposal.

Extend Privacy Protections to non-U.S. Persons. Privacy is a worldwide value that should be reflected in how the federal government handles personally identifiable information about non-U.S. citizens. The Office of Management and Budget should work with departments and agencies to apply the Privacy Act of 1974 to non-U.S. persons where practicable, or to establish alternative privacy policies that apply appropriate and meaningful protections to personal information regardless of a person’s nationality.

Ensure Data Collected on Students in School is used for Educational Purposes. Big data and other technological innovations, including new online course platforms that provide students real time feedback, promise to transform education by personalizing learning. At the same time, the federal government must ensure educational data linked to individual students gathered in school is used for educational purposes, and protect students against their data being shared or used inappropriately.

Expand Technical Expertise to Stop Discrimination. The detailed personal profiles held about many consumers, combined with automated, algorithm-driven decision-making, could lead—intentionally or inadvertently—to discriminatory outcomes, or what some are already calling “digital redlining.” The federal government’s lead civil rights and consumer protection agencies should expand their technical expertise to be able to identify practices and outcomes facilitated by big data analytics that have a discriminatory impact on protected classes, and develop a plan for investigating and resolving violations of law.

Amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The laws that govern protections afforded to our communications were written before email, the internet, and cloud computing came into wide use. Congress should amend ECPA to ensure the standard of protection for online, digital content is consistent with that afforded in the physical world—including by removing archaic distinctions between email left unread or over a certain age.

We also identify several broader areas ripe for further study, debate, and public engagement that, collectively, we hope will spark a national conversation about how to harness big data for the public good. We conclude that we must find a way to preserve our privacy values in both the domestic and international marketplace. We urgently need to build capacity in the federal government to identify and prevent new modes of discrimination that could be enabled by big data. We must ensure that law enforcement agencies using big data technologies do so responsibly, and that our fundamental privacy rights remain protected. Finally, we recognize that data is a valuable public resource, and call for continuing the Administration’s efforts to open more government data sources and make investments in research and technology.

While big data presents new challenges, it also presents immense opportunities to improve lives, the United States is perhaps better suited to lead this conversation than any other nation on earth. Our innovative spirit, technological know-how, and deep commitment to values of privacy, fairness, non-discrimination, and self-determination will help us harness the benefits of the big data revolution and encourage the free flow of information while working with our international partners to protect personal privacy. This review is but one piece of that effort, and we hope it spurs a conversation about big data across the country and around the world.

Read the Big Data Report.

See the fact sheet from today’s announcement.

‘Putin is corrupt’ says US Treasury

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But like Iran, John Kerry and the White House are protecting Russia and never want to upset the Kremlin.

Syria’s leading opposition coalition is to decide Tuesday whether to attend peace talks in Geneva, following a tense meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a member told AFP on Monday.

The member of the so-called High Negotiations Committee said Kerry applied “pressure” during a weekend meeting in Saudi Arabia, warning the opposition risked “losing friends” if they failed to attend the talks.

Fuad Aliko said the Committee would meet Tuesday to make a final decision on whether to attend the Geneva talks.

The Saturday meeting with Kerry was “neither comfortable, nor positive”, said Aliko, a member of the Committee’s designated delegation for the talks.

Kerry told the Committee’s chief Riad Hijab that they risked “losing friends”, Aliko said.

“This talk means a halt to political and military support to the opposition,” he added.

Syria’s warring parties were scheduled to begin the latest round of talks aimed at ending the country’s conflict on Monday in Geneva.

But they have been delayed at least in part by a dispute over who will represent the opposition.

The High Negotiations Committee, a coalition of opposition bodies formed last year in Riyadh, insists it should send a sole opposition delegation to the talks.

But the Committee excludes Syria’s main Kurdish force and other opposition figures, and Russia has branded some of its components as “terrorist” organizations.

Moscow reportedly wants to see excluded members allowed to participate in the talks either as part of the Committee’s delegation or in a second opposition delegation.

But the Committee has roundly rejected either option and threatened to boycott the talks altogether if other opposition figures are included.

Aliko said Kerry applied “pressure” during the Saturday talks, though he stopped short of saying the U.S. diplomat had used threats.

“He tried with all his efforts to insist on the necessity of us attending, saying we’d be able to do whatever we want there, but he was not able to reassure us that we are going into negotiations, rather than nothing more than a dialogue,” he said.

“We want negotiations that revolve around a political transition,” Aliko said.

The Geneva talks have also been held up by a dispute about some of the members of the negotiating team chosen by the Committee.

The Committee has selected Mohammed Alloush of the Islamist rebel group Army of Islam as its chief negotiator, drawing the ire of some of its other members.

Russia said last week it continues to consider the Army of Islam a “terrorist” organization.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura is expected to hold a press conference in Geneva later on Monday to discuss preparations for the talks.

‘Putin is corrupt’ says US Treasury

BBC: The US Treasury has told a BBC investigation that it considers Russian President Vladimir Putin to be corrupt.

The US government has already imposed sanctions on Mr Putin’s aides, but it is thought to be the first time it has directly accused him of corruption.

His spokesman told the BBC that “none of these questions or issues needs to be answered, as they are pure fiction”.

Last week a UK public inquiry said Mr Putin had “probably” approved the murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.

The broadcast is available here.

Secret wealth

Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent and fierce critic of Mr Putin, was poisoned in London with radioactive polonium in 2006.

Adam Szubin, who oversees US Treasury sanctions, has told BBC Panorama that the Russian president is corrupt and that the US government has known this for “many, many years”.

He said: “We’ve seen him enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalising those who he doesn’t view as friends using state assets. Whether that’s Russia’s energy wealth, whether it’s other state contracts, he directs those to whom he believes will serve him and excludes those who don’t. To me, that is a picture of corruption.”

The US government imposed sanctions against a number of Kremlin insiders in 2014 and stated that Vladimir Putin had secret investments in the energy sector. However, the Americans did not directly accuse him of corruption at the time.

The sanctions – later expanded to include more individuals and organisations – coincided with similar EU measures against Russia. The trigger for them was Russia’s annexation of Crimea, during political turmoil in Ukraine.

Adam Szubin, who oversees US Treasury sanctions
Image caption The US Treasury’s Adam Szubin speaks of a “picture of corruption”

US government officials have been reluctant to be interviewed about President Putin’s wealth, but Mr Szubin agreed to take part in a BBC Panorama programme investigating the issue.

Mr Szubin would not comment on a secret CIA report from 2007 that put Mr Putin’s wealth at around $40bn (£28bn). But he said the Russian president had been amassing secret wealth.

“He supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year. That is not an accurate statement of the man’s wealth, and he has long time training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth.”

The Kremlin denies such allegations. In 2008, President Putin personally addressed claims that he was the richest man in Europe, saying: “It’s simply rubbish. They just picked all of it out of someone’s nose and smeared it across their little papers.”

Offshore company

But Panorama has spoken to former Russian insiders who say they have first-hand knowledge of Vladimir Putin’s secret riches.

Dmitry Skarga, who used to run the state shipping company Sovcomflot, says he oversaw the transfer of a $35m yacht to Mr Putin. Mr Skarga says the 57m-long Olympia was a gift from Britain’s most famous Russian – the Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.

The Kremlin, Moscow
Image caption The Kremlin says the allegations against President Putin are “pure fiction”

“It’s a fact that Mr Abramovich, through his employee, transferred a yacht to Mr Putin,” he said. “I was on board of this yacht at the end of March 2002, in Amsterdam. And there was a representative of Mr Abramovich… He said that Roman is the owner of this yacht.”

Mr Skarga says the Olympia was then given to the Russian president via an offshore company. He then oversaw the management of the yacht for Vladimir Putin and prepared reports on the boat’s running costs.

He said: “This yacht was maintained and paid for running costs from the state budget.”

Mr Skarga says the yacht was kept secret because it belonged personally to Vladimir Putin, rather than the state.

Panorama asked Mr Abramovich about the yacht. His lawyers dismissed claims about him as speculation and rumour.

President Putin declined to be interviewed for Panorama.

Spoofing the GPS, Navy Sailors Arrested

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My first conclusion was Iran hacked the GPS and described this with evidence on January 14th.

Story You Aren’t Being Told About Iran Capturing Two American Vessels

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/20/2016

Zerohedge The airwaves in the United States were filled with images of sailors on their knees while a US Navy vessel was searched. Unjustified outrage swept the nation. The US Secretary of Defense blamed the incident on a simple navigation error, however a chain of events leading back to 2009 demonstrates the facts are a little more complicated than first appear. The chain of events leads defense analysts to one unmistakable conclusion: Iran has the ability to disrupt US GPS systems. For western military analysts, the thought is terrifying. The West uses GPS for much more than replacing a compass and a map.

In 2009, Lockheed Martin’s RQ-170 Sentinel showed up on a runway in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The aircraft entered service two years earlier, but the public was unaware. The bat wing styled drone is reminiscent of the Stealth Bomber. The similarities extend beyond the cosmetic, and the RQ-170 is the premier spy drone in the US fleet. This was the drone used to map out Bin Laden’s compound. It was tasked with keeping an eye on Iran’s nuclear program. That’s when things got interesting.

On December 4, 2011 a RQ-170 Sentinel crashed into the Iranian countryside. Iran claimed its electronic warfare unit brought the plane down. The US Department of Defense stated the aircraft was flying over western Afghanistan and crashed near or in Iran. The aircraft was 140 miles inside Iran’s borders. The west laughed at the idea of Iran’s military obtaining the capability to down one the most sophisticated drones in the world. One military official remarked it was like:

“dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.”

They probably shouldn’t have been so quick to laugh. It appears the Iranians didn’t just down the aircraft, they took control of it mid-flight. Dailytech.com explained:

“Using its knowledge of the frequency, the engineer claims, Iran intiated its ‘electronic ambush’ by jamming the bird’s communications frequencies, forcing it into auto-pilot.  States the source, ‘By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.’

 

“The team then use a technique known as ‘spoofing’ — sending a false signal for the purposes of obfuscation or other gain.  In this case the signal in questions was the GPS feed, which the drone commonly acquires from several satellites.  By spoofing the GPS feed, Iranian officials were able to convince it that it was in Afghanistan, close to its home base.  At that point the drone’s autopilot functionality kicked in and triggered the landing.  But rather than landing at a U.S. military base, the drone victim instead found itself captured at an Iranian military landing zone.

 

“Spoofing the GPS is a clever method, as it allows hackers to ‘land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the [encrypted] remote-control signals and communications.’

 

“While the technique did not require sophistication from a cryptography perspective, it was not entirely trivial, either, as it required precise calculations to be made to give the drone the proper forged distance and find and fine an appropriate altitude landing strip to make sure the drone landed as it did in Afghanistan.

 

The Iranian engineers knew the details of the landing site, because the drone had been confirmed in grainy photos to be landing at a base in Khandar, Afghanistan.

 

“Despite the careful calculations, the drone still sustained a dent in its wing and underbody (though it did not have the usual signs of a high-speed collision).  During its press conferences, the Iranian military covered this damage with anti-American banners.

 

“The engineer explained this damage commenting, ‘If you look at the location where we made it land and the bird’s home base, they both have [almost] the same altitude.  There was a problem [of a few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird’s underbelly was damaged in landing; that’s why it was covered in the broadcast footage.’The approach echoes an October security conference presentation [PDF] in Chicago, in which ETH Zurich researchers laid out how to use interference and GPS spoofing to more gently down a drone.”

The Aviationist agreed and suggested the US “reconsider their drones’ equipment, countermeasures and combat operation procedures as well as Iran’s electronic and cyberwarfare capabilities.” It should be noted the “ox-cart technology culture” has since reverse engineered the drone.

The gross underestimation of the Iranian military led to the recent incident in the Persian Gulf. The story being repeated in the western press is one of ten sailors getting lost and ending up in Iranian territorial waters (if the outlet mentions that part). According to Secretary of Defense Carter, “All the contributing factors to that we don’t know yet, and we’re still talking to those folks, and we’ll find out more … but they were clearly out of the position that they intended to be in.”

Two boats lost their GPS abilities at the same time, and the Secretary of Defense isn’t sure what happened? A few US outlets, such as the L.A. Times, reported on the other malfunctions during the incident. Both boats lost radio communication and all other communication during the incident. A single vehicle losing its GPS abilities can happen. It’s rare, but it can happen. Two vehicles losing the systems at the same time borders on implausible, but there is still a possibility of it occurring through Murphy’s Law. The loss of all communication equipment and GPS systems on two boats at the same time means one thing: electronic warfare.

The unwillingness to admit the US military has spent billions on a system that has apparently been defeated by Iran is the most likely culprit behind the western media’s attempt to focus on the “ill treatment” of US sailors. Even the L.A. Times, which was willing to report on the communications failures, placed the following quote in a bold offset in the same article:

“The way those sailors were treated was entirely inappropriate. … The U.S. Navy would never demand Iranian sailors hold their hands on their heads and coerce a confession.– James Stavridis, retired U.S. admiral”

The U.S. Navy’s installation at Guantanamo Bay has been the scene of the worst treatment of detainees by the US government in decades. The sailors captured by Iran were not waterboarded, deprived of sleep or food, sexually abused, or otherwise tortured. The United States does not have the moral authority to object to how another nation treats detainees.

The burning question now relates to whether or not Iran’s actions constitute an attack on the U.S. It’s not a simple question. Electronic warfare and cyber warfare have become common place. It is also worth noting the two US vessels were within just a few miles of Farsi Island. Farsi Island is the home of the Revolutionary Guards’ Navy (RGN). The RGN is Iran’s maritime unconventional warfare force. For comparison, imagine a scenario in which a nation that has attacked a US civilian airliner and whose political leaders have constantly threatened war sent two boats to  pass extraordinarily close to the home base of a U.S. Seal Team. The reader can decide if Iran’s actions were appropriate.

The most important takeaway from this incident is to remember the high-tech military of the United States has an exposed vulnerability. It’s a vulnerability that was exploited by Iran. Iran is not a nation many in military circles would see as technologically advanced. The drone warfare system has a fatal flaw. If Iran can exploit it, China and Russia certainly can. Even North Korea has been able to successfully disrupt the GPS system. Beyond simple navigation, the U.S. employs the GPS system to guide missiles. If the Iranians can jam and spoof their way into controlling a drone, it isn’t a huge leap to believe have the ability, or will soon have the ability, to do the same thing with guided missiles.

It should be noted that GPS jammers are available on the civilian market and have been detected in use inside the United Kingdom. This revelation may also be the reasoning behind the U.S. decision to require drone operators to register their aircraft.