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Comment by daenz | Hacker News Reader

This again highlights the fact that source code is a vulnerability. Here it is suggesting that known and unknown flaws in the Iron Dome code can render the defense potentially useless.

Our military is correct in not purchasing something that they cannot fully vet. The shocking part to me is that Israel truly thought they could make the deal work without providing something that could be vetted.

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>This again highlights the fact that source code is a vulnerability.

it's a weapon. Even if the logic that was running it was flawless, you'd still want to see whether or not someone else has access to a function to give them control, or self destruct, or whatever.

In other words : I don't think that it has to suggest a flawed system, it could also suggest other 'government subversion', like hidden functionalities.

Nah. That puts you in "trusting trust" territory. Any such function would be easy to hide.

I am shocked by the shock. Israel depends on the Iron Dome, and doesn't trust our cybersecurity for shit. I wouldn't release life-or-death code to the US Gov't either, funding be damned.

It could be more than simply obsecurity. Maybe they left a backdoor for themselves?

Maybe they don't trust the US to keep it safe. That's not a dig at US, just the risk assessment any vendor has to deal with.

After recent stories on the F-35, maybe not entirely without reason.

Iron Dome is a guided SAM against (unguided) munitions for kill by kinetic hit or close proximity explosion. A ground radar track hostile munitions, fly the missile into its face to kill like a bullet actually hitting another midair.

So they wouldn't like designers of its adversaries to know how to fly shells to avoid it.

I don't think the US would benefit much from understanding iron dome, as you can likely beat the 14% success rate of Qassam with ramjets, multiple angles of attack, or more than 20 missiles... Not much of a stretch for the US.

To be fair, I'm more surprised that they shunned Israel when the US has been an incredibly staunch supporter and probably one of their strongest allies. I suppose they found their limit with this one.

Its rather funny that the US did this to the UK over the chinook fiasco years ago.

Pretty sure the US did something similar to Australia. Pretty normal.

After selling Australia the F/A-18 Hornet, the US refused to give Australia access to its friend-or-foe identification system, making it essentially useless for its role as the country's front-line fighter. Australia had to resort to subterfuge to make it work. This was revealed by the then-defence minister, Kim Beazley, in his valedictory speech to Parliament[0]:

> The radar of our Hornet could not identify most of the aircraft in this region as hostile—in other words, our front-line fighter could not shoot down people who would be the enemies in this region.

> I went to the United States and, for five years, it was up hill, down dale and one knock-down drag-out after another with Cap Weinberger, Dick Cheney and 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

[0]: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....

So basically the conversation went we will sell you f18 so long as you use them against the Chinese or Russians, the Australians said no worries we will take 20 ? How strange

> Our military is correct in not purchasing something that they cannot fully vet. The shocking part to me is that Israel truly thought they could make the deal work without providing something that could be vetted.

But US doesn't provide source code too. Many defense deals with India could not proceed because of US denying transfer of technology [1]. Especially with F-16s. Which is why India decided to buy Rafale. I am sure this is how every country would like to operate anyways.

[1]: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2016/09/08/us-air-force-tech...

[2]: https://theprint.in/opinion/f-16-never-stood-a-chance-to-be-...

> But US doesn't provide source code too. Many defense deals with India could not proceed because of US denying transfer of technology.

SAAB understands this. They are offering source code with their Gripen deal for the upcoming India fighter jet procurement. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm assuming that neither Boeing nor Lockheed Martin are planning to offer that.

I hear this was a key reason for why Brazil went with SAAB Gripen rather than Boeing F-18. (The "official reason" was that Snowden revealed US spying on Brazil, as if that was news to Brazil...)

The price tag also likely also a factor.

Certainly. Also, the Gripen is so much more economical to operate, just by the way it's designed...that it's stupid.

(Basically, it's designed with that as a top goal. Be simple/cheap to work on.)

Traditionally, I think the primary reason to buy US fighter jets at very high prices compared to the non-US competition has been that you also expect to get some amount of military protection back from the US worth much more (like 5-10x more) than that investment. Trump has turned this scheme upside down. We thank him for this.

(I also happen to think it may end up being a good thing for the US. It's cutting off a lot of the money supply to the US military complex. Isn't that a good thing?)

Any country that assumes buying US military hardware comes with some kind of US shield is an idiot. The balancing act inside and outside of NATO is interoperability and reliance

Protection money by any other name.

One of the better side effects of Trump is that the world has gained by finally stepping away from US reliance... American hegemony is no longer.

Can you please provide the citation that Trump has made less money in Arms deals compared to Obama in one term ? Usually, the media just complains that he is a prolific and excessive arms dealer. He just came back from India with yet another arms deal.

> He just came back from India with yet another arms deal.

Yes he did. No doubt about that. 3 Billion USD worth arms deal is definitely not the true potential of the Indo-US Strategic Defense Partnership though. It can be so much more! But it is a good start. It can be sped up if US can relax its norms in relation to transfer of technology.

The Rafale deal which India signed was a 7.87 Billion Euro deal [1]. India is going to modernize its defense capabilities this decade and this is the right time for the United States to relax its norms if it wants to be a major player. Especially with Make in India being given a thrust in Defense sector.

[1]: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/et-explains/rafale...

Well, if you mean the perception that the EU should buy less US and more internal to up % military investments.

I think Trump succeeded in that. Other than that, I don't think he succeeded at anything, if you can call that a win ;)

The US prevents Pakistan's F-16s from carrying nuclear weapons. According to the article above, the planes won't allow any unrecognized weapons, and the sale stipulations permit surprise inspections and round the clock video surveillance of the aircraft.

So it's really not hard to understand why countries would be interested in the Gripen because they can own it outright and do with it what they please even if it's inferior to US weapons because the US weapons they'd be going up against aren't flown by the US but by other countries with similar restrictions on them.

Who cares? Beggars don't get to be choosers. The social landscape of the USA has had a lot of shifts over time but in parallel to this is our military apparatus which has operated with a long running philosophy of self sufficiency and pre-emptive readiness. If Israel won't play ball we'll go elsewhere or roll our own, if anything this makes them less valuable since their biggest contribution is as a test bed and not sharing source code might indicate a desire to shop the product around.

The point being that apparently it is standard practice to not provide the source code, in many cases.

Thou I doubt it, I’ll ask , France is provide source code ? Which is the conclusion of your assertion

>The shocking part to me is that Israel truly thought they could make the deal work without providing something that could be vetted.

Not shocking at all imo. The Israelis have shown an extraordinary amount of chutzpah over the decades in their dealings with the US. They are of the belief the US is the real benefactor in this "special relationship".

>But US doesn't provide source code too

The US is effectively paying for the development of Iron Dome [1]. Requesting source code is completely warranted, in fact I would go further and demand the source code if Israel wants the US to continue funding the program

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-approves-225-million-in-...

I find it very strange that Israel flew the first (known) F35 combat mission. Why do we give them such priority technology access compared to, say, the UK or other close, Five Eyes allies?

The UK is the only tier 1 partner on the F-35 program. They have more access to source code than Israel or any other nation outside the USA.

Democratic governments in the Middle East aren’t exactly everywhere.

Israel has a special relationship with the developed world.

Why should US lives and dollars go to the Middle East? I couldn’t care less what happens there.

Given the way US economic life blood flows from there, lots of people do care. We've been trying to reduce our dependence on that, but a lot of the world economy still lives and dies on oil prices.

AIPAC

Israel has a particularly close relationship with the United States via a decades long lobbying effort. Israeli media often debates whether or not the nickname "the 51st state" is accurate or not, and whether they are too dependent on the US. Israel has a program to fly Americans to Israel for free for two weeks as part of a cultural exchange program to build ties. They're heavily invested in this.

The UK and Australia are close allies too, but Israel is quite small (geographically the size of New Jersey) and only about 8 million - the total population of California's bay area, and surrounded by countries that often times are at best neutral. Israel has a strong incentive to win and maintain US friendship.

I’m okay with our current partnership, where we provide the money and another country provides the “testing”.

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