Hunting the hunter: Learning from Iran

The Tehran Times reported on December 9 about the warning by Iranian MP Esmaeil Kowsari that if the United States spy drone, which was recently downed by the Iranian armed forces in eastern country, had been a jet fighter, the conditions in the region would have changed by now. In an interview with the Fars News Agency on Friday, Kowsari, who is the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Deputy Chairman, said: In that case, Iran would have pounded all US military bases across the world. My dear, these are the voices of a free people; free from the hegemony of the West and tyranny of the Aristocrats of the Shahs Era. But it requires some guts and intelligence as well; mere babbling and bickering will not suffice. Iran has proved that they can not only defy the Western hegemony, but also display it by actions based on resolve and pragmatism; it is also a shut up call to the Western sponsored pseudo-intellectuals and fear-mongers, who keep reminding us of the doomsday scenario, even if you think of contesting the West based on principles. The Iranian security forces have been monitoring the US drone campaign in Pakistan very carefully, besides constantly monitoring the US spy drone flights violating their air space. A team of young experts (I will not call them cyber warriors, as they were defending their air space) had kept working for days and sleepless nights to develop a response that should give them an upper edge in case of a showdown with the US-led coalition of the unwilling. Iran Daily describes the whole saga as: The drone utilised the top technologies available to the US army and intelligence services. Those aware of hackers and their abilities know that hacking a website or network is like a raindrop compared to hacking satellites controlling this kind of spy planes. The plane was designed to fly on SAT orders from initiation base. If for any reason contact with the initiation base - in this case, Afghanistan - was lost it should respond to the orders given by another base in the US. If contact with both the bases is lost, then it should return immediately to the initial base. If it cannot, self-destruction is the ultimate choice. Despite this, the Iranian electronic war hackers were not only able to hack the SAT controlling the drone and sever contacts with the Afghanistan base, but they were also able to simulate their base as the US base for the plane and as the higher ranking base forced the plane to land without destroying itself, the artificial intelligent-based software did not even suspect that it is being controlled by the Iranian forces. For the information of those who are not acquainted with hacking, a website or network may require a hacker to pass through 1 to 16 gates at most for highly sophisticated financial networks. Opening each gate does not necessitate coming back to opening it again. However, hacking a stealth spy plane may need crossing about 255 gates, which will all be reset each time the opening of any of the previous gates fail. That means that a hacker should start all over again, if for any reason he fails to open one of the gates. This means hacking such a sophisticated system is nearly impossible. But the Iranian hackers did it. Hacking such an extremely sophisticated system, which until last week was considered impossible, means that the Iranians are able to enter all computer-based network systems in the US and Europe. Since the algorithm and logic behind other systems are much simpler, the Iranians may be able to control all radars, satellites, planes, ships, tanks, rockets, cruise missiles and so on of the US and NATO throughout the world. They may be able to even control American soldiers, who are driven to fight using satellite controlled infrared systems. Anytime and anywhere they wish. By taking control of this plane, the Iranians will be able to 'reverse engineer the drone and produce their own planes. That means the Iranians will be the next to have this kind of high sophisticated technology in the world. Proudly describing the role of Iranian military, the Iran Daily goes on: This plane was not detected by radar, but by intelligence agents, who informed the Iranian forces of the entry of the aircraft into their air space to gather information. This means that Iranian intelligence is powerful enough to intercept top US military and CIA intelligence services, which are capable of gathering vital information. In addition, the information was placed at the disposal of the Iranian military so swiftly that the IRGC had time to get ready to take control of the plane. In view of this, the US administration has to think twice and begin overhauling its intelligence services. Such a weak intelligence service could spell disaster for its soldiers in the area. If the Iranians are able to obtain highly-confidential information, they may be also able to access other secret information. This incident proves that the Americans have underestimated the capabilities of Iranian military and intelligence services. By penetrating the American systems, the Iranians have proved that they are also capable of accessing other systems, including those of the Israelis that may be much easier since even the Lebanese Hezbollah was able to infringe Israeli networks on many occasions. This means that if for any reason a scenario of attacking any base in Iran should be implemented, the weapons can be deflected back to the perpetrators simply by hacking their systems. Pakistan may learn from the Iranian example in dealing with the menace of drones, as well as the growing and threatening posture of the US-led Nato. The Iranians have hunted the hunter at the most appropriate time for Pakistan. If the Nato and US are becoming hostile towards Pakistan and Iran, then common sense calls for a strategic alliance between both targeted nations. Let the doomsday phobic experts and dollar fed intellectuals within Pakistan keep finding one reason after the other to support this godforsaken long war, and let the public decide what is good for Pakistan and Iran. The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: yalla_umar@yahoo.com