Does US install secret sensors in military equipment given to Pakistan?

[TruthSeeker]

^^^^^ I guess I have to repeat myself as to why this thread is funny:

"I think it is funny that Pakistanis see a conspiracy under every rock and behind every tree. Such constant worry over USA conspiracies is gonna cause the brains of the Pakistani nation to explode! Conspiracies against the USA may be going on constantly, also, but we Yanks are too laid back to worry (or too dumb?). Anyway, whatever floats your boat." --- Post # 58 above.

 

[Awesome]

"I guess the same is also true for military hardware; we don't have the money or the resources to waste on monitoring stuff we've sold to our customers."

That's because we don't worry about most of our customers. Some merit further monitoring. Like Pakistan.

It's common knowledge in certain circles that all PAK BLOCK-52 F-16s come with some very miniturized unique components which aren't readily identified as an aircraft feature.

There's an amazing amount of room in an F-16 fuselage once the engine is pulled.

Thanks.

Anything hardware based, would be picked apart by Pakistani engineers.

Software based protections would be better, since they may remain dormant till whenever needed.

Anyway, Pakistan's well being is in going all out Chinese till a local industry can sustain itself

 

[Awesome]

^^^^^ I guess I have to repeat myself as to why this thread is funny:

"I think it is funny that Pakistanis see a conspiracy under every rock and behind every tree. Such constant worry over USA conspiracies is gonna cause the brains of the Pakistani nation to explode! Conspiracies against the USA may be going on constantly, also, but we Yanks are too laid back to worry (or too dumb?). Anyway, whatever floats your boat." --- Post # 58 above.

Pakistan and the US have some very different problems. Just one 9/11 happened and you guys have dedicated movies, novels, and monuments to it. No one in Pakistan (and many other countries) would even get what the big deal is.

It's because you guys are at a very different stages of development compared to us. 7 CIA guys died and its still hot news, 7000 of our guys died and its forgotten in 7 hours . You guys do things very differently because you can. We've been through different experiences, experiences that enforce us to be cautious about everything.

With that said, Americans still top the list of conspiracy theorists that write against American governments. At best Pakistanis are just reading what they've written and getting worried about it now and then. I'd tell you this, none of Zaid Hamid's work is original. He plagiarizes stuff from American conspiracy theorists and sells them to Pakistanis "One American expert said this"

 

[TaimiKhan]

guys think of the mysterious heli crash of pres Zia-ul haqq,

heli crash ????

It was a C-130 and that was not due to the dead switches we are talking about.

 

[XYON]

^^^^^ I guess I have to repeat myself as to why this thread is funny:

"I think it is funny that Pakistanis see a conspiracy under every rock and behind every tree. Such constant worry over USA conspiracies is gonna cause the brains of the Pakistani nation to explode! Conspiracies against the USA may be going on constantly, also, but we Yanks are too laid back to worry (or too dumb?). Anyway, whatever floats your boat." --- Post # 58 above.

Yeah! and CIA, NSA, DIA have little fairies working in them making pies, cookies and candy!!

Actually you yanks are now terribly exposed which is the reason why the double spy blew away your CIA honks in the middle of Camp ''ABCD'' in Afghanistan. Your intel and national failings are obvious for the reason that despite having a multi-million dollars bounty on OBL and his co-horts, not a single person has come forward with any info. This is worse, even petty criminals & thieves do not trust you now let alone the good guys of the world!

 

[manglasiva]

Anything hardware based, would be picked apart by Pakistani engineers.

Software based protections would be better, since they may remain dormant till whenever needed.

Anyway, Pakistan's well being is in going all out Chinese till a local industry can sustain itself

Nobody can pick up a micro controller device on a COB platform to look inside,the source codes cannot even be copied..so how come ?

 

[KillBill]

Anything hardware based, would be picked apart by Pakistani engineers.

Software based protections would be better, since they may remain dormant till whenever needed.

Anyway, Pakistan's well being is in going all out Chinese till a local industry can sustain itself

I beg to differ.

Everything in hardware is not detectable. Not because I am doubting the capabilities of Pak engineers but because its simply not possible.

We know about the hardware only as much as is told in the Datasheet and user manual. As I said before if the spying device is inbuilt into a chip ( SoC) then its absolutely impossible for anyone to figure it out. There is simply no way.

On the contrary you can always capture the packets generated/sent/received by the system by a logic analyser and figure out if the software is generating any suspicious events. ( Again not easy but possible)

 

[manglasiva]

On the contrary you can always capture the packets generated/sent/received by the system by a logic analyser and figure out if the software is generating any suspicious events. ( Again not easy but possible)

good point...what if these signals only get activated only by a trigger signal sent by satellite or something only during conflict ?

 

[KillBill]

good point...what if these signals only get activated only by a trigger signal sent by satellite or something only during conflict ?

Well as I said, its tough but possible ( theoritically)

 

[gambit]

I beg to differ.

Everything in hardware is not detectable. Not because I am doubting the capabilities of Pak engineers but because its simply not possible.

We know about the hardware only as much as is told in the Datasheet and user manual. As I said before if the spying device is inbuilt into a chip ( SoC) then its absolutely impossible for anyone to figure it out. There is simply no way.

On the contrary you can always capture the packets generated/sent/received by the system by a logic analyser and figure out if the software is generating any suspicious events. ( Again not easy but possible)

But not if this embedded surveillance system is associative. Look at it this way -- If I was to do something like this to an F-16, before the system is active, I would require the entire avionics system to be intact and fully powered; weight off wheels; life support engaged, meaning anti-g and oxygen flow; communication active; pitot-static system active; etc...etc...In other words, the entire aircraft must be either flying or all factors be absolutely simulated on the ground somehow.

Hope I added another level of paranoia...

 

[KillBill]

But not if this embedded surveillance system is associative. Look at it this way -- If I was to do something like this to an F-16, before the system is active, I would require the entire avionics system to be intact and fully powered; weight off wheels; life support engaged, meaning anti-g and oxygen flow; communication active; pitot-static system active; etc...etc...In other words, the entire aircraft must be either flying or all factors be absolutely simulated on the ground somehow.

Hope I added another level of paranoia...

Yeah... as I said but still its theoritically possible, contrary to the stuff embedded in Hardware where its absolutely impossible.

Again, you are right, its usually tough to debug a production system, like the IO ports will be scrapped off and then installed.

Bottom line, no matter what we do, its still possible to sneak in a system to capture some secret data

 

[gambit]

Yeah... as I said but still its theoritically possible, contrary to the stuff embedded in Hardware where its absolutely impossible.

Again, you are right, its usually tough to debug a production system, like the IO ports will be scrapped off and then installed.

Bottom line, no matter what we do, its still possible to sneak in a system to capture some secret data

Here goes...

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...ns/csi-studies/studies/96unclass/farewell.htm

Vetrov was a 53-year-old engineer assigned to evaluate the intelligence collected by Directorate T, an ideal position for a defector in place. He had volunteered his services for ideological reasons. He supplied a list of Soviet organizations in scientific collection and summary reports from Directorate T on the goals, achievements, and unfilled objectives of the program. Farewell revealed the names of more than 200 Line X officers stationed in 10 KGB rezidents in the West, along with more than 100 leads to Line X recruitments.

So what Raygun did was kept the KGB's Line X agents in the US and led them on by their noses. The Line X agents' mission in the US was to steal US technology. Raygun had the CIA worked with US companies to create flawed components, everything from electronics to mechanical items, that would fail after a certain amount of time or use cycles or voltage threshold, and so on. The Line X agents were allowed to steal these flawed components along with the real ones.

Siberian pipeline sabotage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The pipeline, as planned, would have a level of complexity that would require advanced automated control software (SCADA). The pipeline utilized plans for a sophisticated control system and its software that had been stolen from a Canadian firm by the KGB. The CIA allegedly had the company insert a logic bomb in the program for sabotage purposes, eventually resulting in an explosion with the power of three kilotons of TNT.

The CIA was tipped off to the Soviet intentions to steal the control system plans in documents in the Farewell Dossier and, seeking to derail their efforts, CIA director William J. Casey followed the counsel of economist Gus Weiss and a disinformation strategy was initiated to sell the Soviets deliberately flawed designs for stealth technology and space defense. The operation proceeded to deny the Soviets the technology they desired to purchase to automate the pipeline management, then, a KGB operation to steal the software from a Canadian company was anticipated, and, in June 1982, flaws in the stolen software led to a massive explosion of part of the pipeline.

National Security Council staffer Thomas C. Reed documented the operation in his book, At The Abyss.[1] In 2004, Reed, a former Air Force secretary of the Reagan administration, wrote that they had added a Trojan horse to equipment that the Soviet Union obtained from a company in Canada. When the components were deployed on a Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, the Trojan horse lead to a huge explosion, according to Reed.[2] As Reed explained, "The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."

The explosion was, in fact, so large that the White House received warning from U.S. infrared satellites of a bizarre event in a remote area of the Soviet Union. NORAD had initially feared that the event was a missile launch from an area previously not known to have rockets.

As the explosion occurred in a remote area, no casualties are known to have resulted.

The Farewell Dossier - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

In our complex disinformation scheme, deliberately flawed designs for stealth technology and space defense sent Russian scientists down paths that wasted time and money.

The technology topping the Soviets' wish list was for computer control systems to automate the operation of the new trans-Siberian gas pipeline. When we turned down their overt purchase order, the K.G.B. sent a covert agent into a Canadian company to steal the software; tipped off by Farewell, we added what geeks call a ''Trojan Horse'' to the pirated product.

''The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire,'' writes Reed, ''to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space.''

Of course, the Soviets and later the Russians would deny they were so duped. But why should we care about what they say? The Soviets collapsed. We did not. And Russia is just a shadow of its former Soviet self.

Hope I increased the level of paranoia...

 

[Condor]

Good point rasied that requires a few corrections.

1. President Zia ul Haq died in a PAF C-130 crash and not a heli crash. This event was meticulously planned by the CIA around the demonstration of the M1A1 Abrams tank in Bahawalpur at the time (Pakistan eventually purchased the T-80UD).

2. The US had used an altitude explosive device that had released an extremely poisonous gas in the cockpit as soon as the aircraft had taken off from Bahawalpur. This gas knocked off the crew unconscious in the C-130 cockpit and blew off the windows of the cockpit too!

3. Some believe that the device was placed in a crate of mangoes placed last minute into the cockpit. We also have a recently written entire book about it called 'Exploding Mangoes' (the author's name skips my mind)

4. In order to keep the tabs off them the US had even sacrificed its own Ambassador to Pakistan at the time (Arnold Raphael) and one of its military attaches Brigadier Wassum. Until to-date no investigation has been carried out by the US FBI into the matter. This is the same FBI which comes running into a country even when an American 'Charsee' gets killed anywhere! In order to keep this operation under wraps the US has also continues to engage the then wife of Ambassador Raphael (Robin Raphael) in the Department of State as a Pakistan expert. This is to perhaps keep an 'eye' on madam Raphael. It is also rumored that both Brig Wassum and Arnold Raphael got an anonymous star on the infamous wall at CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia remembering the faceless fallen in the line of US duty.

Zia died because of a 'deal' of the US and USSR after the end of Afghan war. The details of this alleged 'deal' remains a mystery until todate.

This is also the prime reason that from that day onwards no top leader of Pakistan is allowed to take a 'special' VVIP flight. They all use civilian airlines or private jets for their mostly international trips.

Thank you for the detailed exposition on the subject.

Can someone enlighten us another VVIP crash - the Air Chief Mushaf Ali Mir accident.

 

[TaimiKhan]

Thank you for the detailed exposition on the subject.

Can someone enlighten us another VVIP crash - the Air Chief Mushaf Ali Mir accident.

That was pilot error, conspiracy theories were there but there was no logic behind those. Fog played the main role in that mishap and pilot error too.

 

[XYON]

Thank you for the detailed exposition on the subject.

Can someone enlighten us another VVIP crash - the Air Chief Mushaf Ali Mir accident.

AM Mushaf Ali Mir's Fokker crash was just unfortunate and mainly pilot error. The aircraft's tail had struck a rocky hill top on very low approach (owing mainly to foggy weather and pilots over confidence) to land and the rest was simply disaster with fatal consequences. No hanky panky was involved in this crash.