22h ago

The US may be able to remotely disable F-35 aircraft

www.defensemirror.com Germany May Refuse F-35 Purchase over ‘Emergency Switch;’ Consider Eurofighter Instead

According to reports, a software back-door switch will turn the aircraft off if the client state does not follow Washington’s diktat in the use of the F-35.

I haven't done adequate due diligence yet - could be inaccurate

I came across this article alleging that Germany is considering bailing on the F-35 aircraft because the US can remotely disable them.

If the US could do this to German F-35s, presumably they can do it to ours....

Additional reporting alleging concern in Canadian defence circles

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Not a fan of speculation and we're likely to never see any official documentation, considering it's a military aircraft.
But I will say: If it is true, it's probably the dumbest thing you could do to an advanced fighter like this. Just imagine that you're in a conflict, then the enemy hacks your command and control systems and disables/hijacks all of your aircraft. Yeah, that's pretty dumb.
Even the Star Trek writers realized this sort of thing is a bad idea.
- Just because you put kill switches in the ones you sell, doesn't mean you've got to put them in your own.
  But yeah, being able to remotely kill a fighter jet is incredibly stupid.
  
  Just because you put kill switches in the ones you sell
  That right there is what it is. I can almost guarantee this to be the case, as a Canadian I have always opposed the F-35's. We need twin engine for our Arctic climates and who cares about stealth when you are defending your territory. We aren't an aggressive country.
  
  You care about stealth when defending your country because stealth is how you win air to air combat now.
  Dogfighting is as meaningful to modern air combat as the horse and lance are to modern ground combat. Fighter planes work like submarines now; the goal is to detect and kill the enemy before they can detect and kill you. Kills happen from outside of visual range.
  A defensive aircraft without advanced stealth can be shot and killed by an aggressor before they ever have the ability to target that aggressor.
  To put it another way, do you think that our soldiers only wear camouflage when they're planning a sneak attack? Do our troops wear hazard vests and strap road flares to their helmets when they're defending a location to make sure the enemy knows exactly where they are? Or is it, in fact, always beneficial to see your enemy before they see you?
- While speculation, I don't doubt it one bit.
  It's unlikely you'd be able to fly these without US maintenance and supplies in the first place, but even if you could, I'd trust them as much as pagers from Israel.
  
  BAE Systems (in the UK) has full F-35 manufacturing capabilities. The Brits could tell them to toss it any day now and I wouldn't be surprised, with the way things are going.
- This is exactly what happens in the Battlestar Galactica reboot with all the fancy newer ships in the first couple episodes.
  
  I really need to re-watch that show. But I can't stand all of the useless bickering lol
  
  It's why I bailed on that show. I was rooting for a gamma-ray burst to sterilize that whole part of the galaxy by season 2.
- Are you telling me NSA is incapable of adding in a backdoor that would pass German/Canadian inspections? Zero day backdoors by definition are undiscovered
  
  That's not what I said, at all.
  PS - I work in InfoSec (CISSP). Please tell me more about what I've been doing for past 20 years lol
  
  for someone with two decades of infosec experience, it's alarming you'd overlook asymmetric cryptography. it's simple to build an unhackable kill switch using basic cryptographic primitives, unless you think the enemy has a quantum computer.
  
  You might want to give this a read, then re-read my original post. I never said there wasn't a backdoor, just that it would be stupid.
  
  right, you said it was stupid because:
  Just imagine that you're in a conflict, then the enemy hacks your command and control systems and disables/hijacks all of your aircraft. Yeah, that's pretty dumb.
  I'm saying that scenario wouldn't be possible. for the enemy to exploit a backdoor like this, they'd have to either:
  break the encryption (quantum computer, classical sub-exponential discrete log or factoring algorithm.)
  break the protocol or encryption (unlikely, since it'd be simple, the NSA is full of competent cryptographers, and they'd probably formally verify it to EAL-5.)
  steal the private key (most likely imo, but the government also safeguards the nuclear codes, and it's hard for me to imagine F-35 kill switch keys being more dangerous than those.)
  I don't think any of the above are very likely, or at least not likely enough to outweigh the strategic benefit of being able to ground your enemy's air force in the (hitherto unlikely) scenario one of the US's customers became its enemy. so I don't think it's stupid, and I don't think I straw-manned you.
  
  Just because I mentioned one scenario and didn't mention another, very specific scenario doesn't mean I ruled it out completely. And yes, that is a straw man, see Nutpicking.
  You're also giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the encryption is implemented properly. Which is something the NSA has botched before and could very well be used to ground allied aircraft during joint operations. Which, again, would be stupid.

52 comments