Australia 'cracked top-secret US jet fighter codes'

[t-birds]

Australia 'cracked top-secret US jet fighter codes'

Refreshing News: Australia 'cracked top-secret US jet fighter codes'

"We spied on them and we extracted the codes," Mr Beazley told Parliament during his valedictory speech today.
Mr Beazley, who was defence minister from 1984 to 1990, said that when he took over the job he soon learned that the radar on Australia's Hornets could not identify most potentially hostile aircraft in the region.


In other words, Australia's frontline fighter could not shoot down enemies in the region.
Mr Beazley said he was greatly tempted to "belt" the Liberals with this and lay to rest their claim to be best at managing defence.
"I shut up, I said nothing," Mr Beazley said.


"I went to the US and for five years, up hill and down dale, with one knock-down, drag-out after another, with Cap Weinberger, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, I tried to get the codes of that blasted radar out of them.
"In the end we spied on them and we extracted the codes ourselves and we got another radar that could identify (enemy planes).


Mr Beazley said the Americans were Australia's most important ally.
"But they are a bunch of people you have to have a fight with every now and then to get what you actually need out of them," he said.
Mr Beazley said that the story of getting the Hornet codes was well known within Defence, but not beyond it.


He said the problem was that the old codes related to Warsaw Pact aircraft, rather than ones in Australia's region.
The Americans kept saying they'd provide the codes, but never did.
"So we tried to crack the codes so we could enhance them," Mr Beazley said.
"And we made a lot of progress."


Mr Beazley said the Americans knew what the Australians were doing and were intrigued by the progress they made.

 

[xdrive]

I don't trust this. It's a random post from a random blog. Not reputable or trustworthy at all.

 

[Cheetah786]

I don't trust this. It's a random post from a random blog. Not reputable or trustworthy at all.

They must have not called for your permission before they went ahead and cracked it.

 

[VCheng]

Good for them, IF it is true.

 

[Tshering22]

Why do they need to crack it?

US will gladly give it to them as Australia doesn't have a competing aerospace program that threatens competition to the US companies.

 

[Solomon2]

Why do they need to crack it?

US will gladly give it to them as Australia doesn't have a competing aerospace program that threatens competition to the US companies.

Sure the U.S. will - when it's got a minute or two of time to give the Australians. I'm afraid the Aussies all too often get short shrift around Washington.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Why do they need to crack it?

US will gladly give it to them as Australia doesn't have a competing aerospace program that threatens competition to the US companies.

Not because of competing aerospace program, but because of security. Once you have the radar codes, it can be jammed at will.

 

[Tshering22]

Not because of competing aerospace program, but because of security. Once you have the radar codes, it can be jammed at will.

Like Aussies are going to ever do it. They're their biggest allies in Asia Pacific (after Japan & Korea).

 

[Skull and Bones]

Like Aussies are going to ever do it. They're their biggest allies in Asia Pacific (after Japan & Korea).

Think about some defectors leaking the code to China or others, as i say, possibilities are endless.

 

[Cheetah786]

Think about some defectors leaking the code to China or others, as i say, possibilities are endless.

Correct me if i am wrong but isn't china one of the biggest customers of Aussies mining products that when china coughs they get cold.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Correct me if i am wrong but isn't china one of the biggest customers of Aussies mining products that when china coughs they get cold.

You're not realizing that leaking Aussie F-18SH/Growler codes will jeopardize US F-18s security too.

 

[VCheng]

You're not realizing that leaking Aussie F-18SH/Growler codes will jeopardize US F-18s security too.

No it won't.

 

[Skull and Bones]

No it won't.

Same radar bro, surely it'd.

 

[VCheng]

Same radar bro, surely it'd.

The IFF subsystem and its codes are quite different than the radar subsystem, and not the same between the two versions of the aircraft.

 

[jhungary]

Did anyone actually know how IFF work??

I need to say this first, i very much doubt the authenticity of this article at first as IFF code is a very straight up thing, you cannot actually sell a fighter aircraft to a country with wrong IFF. You probably need to upgrade it yourselve or have the fighter returned. As a matter of National Pride. (We already have the Seaking incident so making a media fuzz is something Australian will certainly do to our American Brothers..........)

That being said. Even if Aussie did break the code of IFF and they were leaked to China, there is not a big deal. That is if you know how IFF works.

Basically IFF works on 2 way, one the 1 side a Fighter Aircraft interrogate the other aircraft (Bogey) and on the other side the Bogey response with a "Squawk" code. And IFF are 4-way encrypted (Hence you have a encrypted encryption and an encrypted Decryption)

When an Initial Aircraft send out a radar signal (Encrypted) to challenge the Bogey the initial aircraft was targetting. Then the bogey will squawk a encrypted response (Transponder Code) to reply the nature of the aircraft. Basical Squawk code is to determined the validity of target and match the signal to any intel.

Squawk code 1,2,4,5 are used explicitly to Military Traffic (While 4,5 are exclusively used in US Military) and 7 are used exclusively tocivilian traffic while 3 are shared

If what the article say is true, the aussie is only given 1 key and 1 lock to the program. (Which you need 2 keys and 2 locks to fully understand the system coding) which is the encryption code for sending a signal and decryption code for receiving a Squawk. Which alone is useless as if China do know how an American planes encode, they still need to use it to figure out the encryption code of their own Squawk (ie How you squawk your transponder to make sense to a US Aircraft?) and their own decryption method of the initial interrgoation radar signal (How your aircraft make sense to an US Aircraft challenge).

If you failed to crack either case, you either cannot read an American Challenge or You Cannot Squawk a code that make sense to an US Aircraft. Which will result in unknown response in both case.

Furthermore, US IFF Code change every now and then, when they did they midlife upgrade to the C3 system, they change the code, and you are talking about a code that was broken 20 years ago, it may not be the same since then.