great chinese-iranian drone theft caper

Mike Harris, a Veterans Today writer, provides his take in article, "The Great Chinese-Iranian Stealth Reconnaissance Drone Theft Caper." Harris, technical adviser to a Congressman, who served on House Committee for Science and Technology during nineties, believes caper dates to time United States sent semiconductor manufacturing offshore.  During Clinton-Gore years, military electronics manufacturing standards were relaxed and off the shelf components found way into military equipment.  Harris observes semiconductors, are now, primarily manufactured by China and suspects a firmware backdoor planted in chips.

"In the case of the stolen CIA drone, the hardware with the backdoor was most likely embedded within the telemetry system, which is the multi-function brain of the drone, in fact every system within the drone is routed through the telemetry system, every sensor, every control, everything," writes Harris, "All the Iranians needed was to be able to emulate one of the multitudes of frequencies used for telemetry purposes to trigger the embedded hardware purchased from the Chinese and installed within a US secret drone." Harris calls for thorough review of systems manufactured since 1998!

Brooks Agnew, X-Squared Radio host, interviewed Harris recently, who calls drone theft "intelligence gift of century". Agnew and Harris discuss possibility, Iran hacked US spy satellite to first detect drone's location - interesting stuff!