@shakobe:
that's because the USN deals with military intelligence and doesn't know jack about real information science. I'm going to trust the NSA and other dedicated security researchers to determine who the real threats are when it comes to cyber security.

@leo:
Interesting point about them likely having only stolen the export tech. Do we know how much worse the export version is than the US version exactly? In any case, it doesn't bode well for U.S. allies who are buying the F-35, some of whom primarily did so to counter threats from China.

We're getting ripped off because the concurrent development model that Lockheed got us to agree to puts the burden of cost overruns on us (though I understand we may finally be reworking that part of the deal and sharing costs more sanely). The program is wildly overbudget and even the most optimistic estimates peg the final procurement cost of each airframe much more than was originally promised — not even including r&d costs, which are also ridiculously higher than anticipated. (In my fantasy-land opinion, we should've just used that R&D to advance the F-22's avionics and acquire some more of those bad boys. But the F-22 is politically toxic and that would never happen.)

Lockheed's clever political maneuvering has also ensured that the program is un-cancelable and shielded from any competition that may reduce the number of planes procured (anyone remember that airforce brass who told his subordinates that saying good things about the A-10 would be considered treason?). In the end, we'll probably get the aircraft we were promised, more or less, but it will be because is too big to fail and we will have been compelled to keep paying for cost overruns and additional R&D to fix issues that Lockheed should've figured out before they overpromised and under-delivered. And it won't arrive anywhere near the original price point that was promised. I don't think it would be exaggerating to say that, in any other industry, the sort of procurement mishandling seen throughout this program would be grounds for a lawsuit for breach of contract.

When it comes to being considered white, you Israelis are in an interesting position. On one hand, you are the evil Joos who control the banks and media and who crucified Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Amen. On the other hand, you are white enough for the purposes of finding someone to rally behind when it comes to fighting those even eviler Islamo-Fascist terror people. So in the discussion of kick-ass military hardware used for killing brown people, y'all are white enough.

Regarding that drone, your suggestion that "If they had the ability to bring it down, you'd hear a a much, much higher number of them going down, as opposed to the one" does not make any sense. With that line of thinking, the U.S. and Israel couldn't have possibly had the capability to destroy those iranian nuclear centrifuges with the Stuxnet program because then you'd hear about a much higher number of centrifuges being destroyed as opposed to that one incident. Cybersecurity simply doesn't work that way. Abundant computational power + knowledge of cryptography is a great equalizer and allows actors to achieve results disproportionate to the amount of capital and industrial output they put behind their effort. Putting more money will indeed get you more consequential and wide-reaching results, but outspending your adversaries, even significantly, is not going to guarantee that your systems are safe from being exploited by them. It only reduces the probabilities. The capturing of this drone, likely by cyber means, may have been that 1 in X chance where the odds came up unfavorably.

Using my brains, I can imagine numerous scenarios where Iran may have had the capability to take over control of the drone this one time, but may not be able to do so repeatedly or reliably to ensure that a much, much higher number of them would be going down regularly. One such scenario would be that, as you suggested, it takes a lot of time and effort. And they may have been putting all (or at least a significant amount) of their intelligence resources into monitoring this and other drone's flight patterns and signals for a long time, looking for some vulnerability to exploit. A vulnerability may have been found, as such vulnerabilities are ALWAYS eventually found in networked computer systems, no matter how careful and sophisticated the operator is (on that note, if anyone ever tells you that they have a system that is completely secure from malicious exploit, they are a fucking charlatan and you should treat any other claims that come from their mouth as extremely suspect). The window for exploiting said vulnerability may have been very narrow, and once exploited would not be readily exploitable in the future since the operator is now aware of the vulnerability and then takes steps to patch it or develop countermeasures against future exploits of that nature.

This is just one plausible scenario, and it makes me wonder why you're still having such a hard time imagining how a nation state with enough capital and an educated populace, even with an apparent gap in technological sophistication, might have been able to possibly pull off a feat like this just this one time. Is it because you weren't using your brain? or maybe my brain is just superior to yours? The second one Tongue

But it's ok. Keep abiding by your cognitive dissonance, saying things like "No one's underestimating the adversaries - no one with any wit in them, anyway" if that gives you comfort.