Secure Sources Lacking for Weapons Electronics

Secure Sources Lacking for Weapons Electronics

www.nytimes.com

A 2007 Israeli Air Force attack on a suspected partly constructed Syrian nuclear reactor led to speculation about why the Syrian air defense system did not respond to the Israeli aircraft. Accounts of the event initially indicated that sophisticated jamming technology was used to blind the radars. Last December, however, a report in an American technical publication, IEEE Spectrum, cited a European industry source in raising the possibility that the Israelis might have used a built-in kill switch to shut down the radars.

Separately, an American semiconductor industry executive said in an in

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This is pretty disgusting in my opinion. Turning off a country's defenses before you come in and bomb... This has to be a violation of international law. This reminds me of the story a few years back about all the fake Cisco networking equipment that our military had in place, sent to us from China, and with built in back doors to give them access to our networks...

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reply to post by gopher mines


Its war. Either your men die or their men die. I think Israel chose to have their own men live.

What is the difference between hacking a computer system to turn off your enemy's air defense? Or sending a covert team to disable the air defense before your fighter-bombers enter enemy airspace?

You should read up on Latvia being cyber-attacked. One day, their gov't and bank systems were being attack at once. Suspicions pointed towards Russia. A few years later, Georgia and Russia were in a war. What happened? Georgia experienced similar cyber-attacks that Latvia was a victim years before.

Don't forget Chinese and Russian hackers are suspected for hacking into American utility facilities. Lets hope US develops their Echo Mirage team (Shadowrun RPG reference).

The article suggests that these "back doors" were put in place during the manufacturing of the electronics in their radar system. Imagine Microsoft had a back door into all computers running their operating systems and decided to sell it to the highest bidder...

I don't think what Israel did is wrong in a war scenario. In the commercial world, though, they are liable to be tried in court for sabotage, breach of contract etc, and maybe for actual damages