The Crashed American RQ-170 Drone May Have Had All Its Data Onboard

Some new information has surfaced following the 10-week investigation into that RQ-170 Sentinel drone that went down in Iran back in December.

American RQ-170 Sentinel drone shot down by Iran on display

Catherine Herridge at Fox reports that a former intelligence official says investigators believe "one of the drone's three major "data streams" began sending back bad information to its U.S.-based operator." The the on board data is encrypted, it's rife with information about hardware and materials, the report adds.

Only time will tell whether this latest press release is a cover up to downplay reports that the Iranians jammed the drone or based on facts.

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What next for the US Drones after Homecoming

Brace yourself for for seeing Predators and Global Hawks flying overhead if you happen to be living in USA as the US military intends 'training' new operators for the military drone being relieved after Iraq.

After killing scores of innocent civilians and less of actual targets, US drones are coming home 

It may be added that the past decade has seen unprecedented growth in the number of U.S. drones flying the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan. With unfettered access to the air space and rapidly advancing technology, the American UAV fleet has swelled beyond what was imagined before the wars.

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U.S. lost another Drone In Afghanistan

[ via Business Insider ] 27 Dec

After the loss of two drones recently in Iran and Seychelles, now Afghan officials say an American reconnaissance drone has crashed in Afghanistan's southeastern province of Paktia, Press TV reports. 

Debris of Predator drone near Paktia, Afghanistan (Photo: BBC Pashto)

Spokesman for the Taliban Zabiullah Mujahid claims his group shot the drone from the sky, saying the Taliban have shot down several aircraft over Afghanistan this year.Although NATO claims the loss due to 'technical fault.'

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Iran Hacked GPS Signals To Capture U.S. Drone

[ via Information Week ] 16 Dec

Iran recently captured a CIA batwing stealth drone by spoofing the GPS signals it received, fooling the drone into thinking it was landing at its home base.

American RQ-170 Sentinel drone shot down by Iran on display

The Christian Science Monitor, broke that news Thursday, after interviewing an Iranian engineer who's been reviewing the systems of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which was downed by Iranian forces on December 4 near Kashmar, which is about 140 miles inside northeast Iran.

"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the engineer told theMonitor. Indeed, numerous researchers have warned that GPS signals are relatively easy to spoof, given that the related signal broadcast by satellites is relatively weak. Accordingly, the Iranians focused on spoofing the GPS data being received by the drone.

To make the drone rely only on GPS, however, first the Iranians jammed the remote-control communications channel used to guide the drone from its control center. "By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain," said the engineer. Notably, it's also much easier than trying to crack the encrypted remote-control communications channel.

With the drone relying solely on GPS to determine its latitude, longitude, altitude, and velocity, the Iranians then broadcast carefully spoofed GPS coordinates, which allowed the drone to land at what it believed was its home base. In reality, it landed well inside Iranian borders. The altitude of the spoofed location was slightly different, however, which ended up denting the drone's underbelly, as can be seen in video footage released by Iran.

The revelations over Iran's GPS jamming capabilities mean that the country could be able to divert any GPS-guided missiles launched at targets inside its borders.

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