US official: Iran will find it hard to exploit captured drone because of US measures..

[-̮̮̃-̃ ̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾ ™Usenet Legends bobandcaяole ▲▲▲▲]

Well, well...looks like the lying towel-head LOSERS won't get a piece
of the pie after all. Seems the important data is ENCRYPTED, likely
using PGP encryption which, as we all know, is uncrackable, especially
for a tribe of towel wearing terrorists.

They LIED about taking control of the drone:

"Ted Beneigh, an expert on unmanned aircraft systems at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University in Florida, said it was “highly unlikely” that
the Iranians have a system that could interfere with the RQ-170’s GPS
navigation system"

"The U.S. drone, Beneigh wrote in an email, would have used “military
GPS frequencies, whose timing and code sequence is classified.
Commercial GPS repeaters operate on civilian frequencies.” b&c

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By Associated Press,

WASHINGTON — A U.S. official says Iran will find it hard to exploit
any data and technology aboard the captured CIA stealth drone because
of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating
over hostile territory.

The official also said Saturday that despite Iran’s latest claims to
have hijacked the RQ-170 Sentinel and brought it down near the eastern
Iranian city of Kashmar, the U.S. is convinced that the drone
malfunctioned.

“The Iranians had nothing to do with it,” the official said.

The official, who could speak about classified matters only on
condition of anonymity, did not provide details. But independent
experts say the data and communications of the unmanned aircraft are
heavily encrypted, making it difficult for Iran to harvest much
intelligence from them. U.S. officials previously have said the drones
have no self-destruct mechanism.

The RQ-170 was nicknamed “the Beast of Kandahar” because it was first
spotted over Afghanistan. It was used to conduct surveillance of Osama
bin Laden’s Pakistani compound before he was killed in a U.S. raid.

The Christian Science Monitor on Thursday quoted an unidentified
Iranian engineer as saying that Tehran seized control of the drone by
exploiting a key vulnerability in its navigation system, its reliance
on GPS technology to guide it home when it loses contact with U.S.
controllers.

The engineer said Iran’s electronic warfare specialists jammed the
RQ-170’s satellite communications link and tricked its autopilot into
thinking that it was landing at its base in Afghanistan when it
touched down in Iran.

“The GPS navigation is the weakest point,” the engineer was quoted as
saying. “By putting noise on the communications, you force the bird
into autopilot.”

U.S. officials say Iran merely picked up a drone — or large pieces of
one — that had lost contact with its controllers and landed inside
Iranian borders relatively intact.

What appears to be an Air Force Scientific Advisory Board report on
drone warfare, posted on a website, found that communications links
are a “primary target of the adversary” in robotic aircraft
operations.

The April 2011 report added: “Small, simple GPS noise jammers can be
easily constructed and employed by an unsophisticated adversary and
would be effective over a limited RPA (remotely piloted aircraft)
operating area,” the report said.

The website, Public Intelligence, describes itself as an international
consortium of independent researchers dedicated to providing access
open-source intelligence materials. Some independent U.S. experts
confirmed that the document accurately describes a well-known
potential vulnerability in drones.

But Ted Beneigh, an expert on unmanned aircraft systems at Embry-
Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, said it was “highly
unlikely” that the Iranians have a system that could interfere with
the RQ-170’s GPS navigation system.

The U.S. drone, Beneigh wrote in an email, would have used “military
GPS frequencies, whose timing and code sequence is classified.
Commercial GPS repeaters operate on civilian frequencies.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said this week that
even if Iran can reverse-engineer the captured technology by the time
they finish it may be obsolete.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Saturday told IRNA,
Iran’s official news agency, that Tehran had delayed announcement of
the captured drone, which it displayed on Iranian television Dec. 8,
to test U.S. reaction to the loss.

After initially saying only that it had lost a drone operating near
the Afghan-Iran border, U.S. officials eventually confirmed that Iran
had captured a drone sent to monitor Iran’s military and nuclear
programs.

President Barack Obama on Friday said the U.S. planned to keep up the
pressure on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“And that’s why, rest assured, we will take no options off the table,”
he said. “We have been clear.”

The phrase “no options off the table” is meant to signal that the U.S.
is prepared to take any measure up to and including a military strike
against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

While the U.S. and many other countries suspect Iran is engaged in a
clandestine effort to build nuclear weapons, Tehran insists that it is
interested only in the peaceful uses of atomic energy.