MastanKhan
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If a country buys fighter jets from the US, how likely is it that the jets come installed with "backdoor" software that can disable them?
Alexandre Kouyoumdjian, Have been reading about aircraft since I could read.
Answered Mon
I once had a conversation about this with a procurement official in the French Ministry of Defence, in charge of coordinating with his British peers. He told me that the latter were rather dismayed by a recent development in their F-35 procurement process.
See, jet fighters do not have ignition keys, but some (F-35 included) need a security code to be launched. In the F-35’s case, those codes are only valid 24 hours, and there is a dedicated generator for those codes. Essentially, you press a button on the generator, get a code, and you can use your plane that day (this may be somewhat simplified and slightly inaccurate as it is a second-hand account, but that would be the gist of it).
So far, so good. The only problem is that late in the negotiation process, the American side decided that it would keep those generators and supply the British with security codes as they were required.
As you can imagine, the British were enraged at this, as it simply means that the US can basically ground the entire F-35 fleet, just by refusing to provide the security codes for that day. In effect, this means that the UK cannot launch air operations without (at least reluctant) US approval.
I would imagine that many more such security measures are in place, in the F-35 and many other weapons systems alike ".
Alexandre Kouyoumdjian, Have been reading about aircraft since I could read.
Answered Mon
I once had a conversation about this with a procurement official in the French Ministry of Defence, in charge of coordinating with his British peers. He told me that the latter were rather dismayed by a recent development in their F-35 procurement process.
See, jet fighters do not have ignition keys, but some (F-35 included) need a security code to be launched. In the F-35’s case, those codes are only valid 24 hours, and there is a dedicated generator for those codes. Essentially, you press a button on the generator, get a code, and you can use your plane that day (this may be somewhat simplified and slightly inaccurate as it is a second-hand account, but that would be the gist of it).
So far, so good. The only problem is that late in the negotiation process, the American side decided that it would keep those generators and supply the British with security codes as they were required.
As you can imagine, the British were enraged at this, as it simply means that the US can basically ground the entire F-35 fleet, just by refusing to provide the security codes for that day. In effect, this means that the UK cannot launch air operations without (at least reluctant) US approval.
I would imagine that many more such security measures are in place, in the F-35 and many other weapons systems alike ".
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