The Pentagon Denies the F-35 Has a Kill Switch, but Its Software Demands Amount to the Same Thing
The Pentagon Denies the F-35 Has a Kill Switch, but Its Software Demands Amount to the Same Thing
WaaS - War as a Service. Your subscription to peace is expiring soon.
I mean guys, stop freaking out. What possible could go wrong if we enshitify global geopolitics?
God, I'm so disgusted now. I never actually connected those two dots. F'ing Donald is turning into a mobster-netflix mash up demanding subscription fees or he'll break your legs.
Reminds me of horizon zero dawn.
There is no kill switch for the F-35, but the JPO’s statement points to the very real problems with the weapons system. In its own words, the jet “operates under well-established agreements,” its strength “lies in its global partnership,” and JPO “[remains] committed to providing all users with the full functionality and support they require.” In other words, the F-35 doesn’t fly unless JPO helps you, but don’t worry because it’s committed to helping.
The F-35 may not have a “kill switch” in the traditional sense, but the countries who bought it are locked into an irrevocable pact with Lockheed Martin and America. ALIS/ ODIN might not be able to turn off the F-35 remotely, but losing access to it can make it impossible to fly.
Only one country has escaped the F-35 software and logistics trap while still being able to fly the jet: Israel. The IDF’s contract for the jet allows it to operate its own software systems without ALIS/ ODIN and conduct its own maintenance.
I don't understand how Israel gets to be so special. I also don't get how any other nation would accept anything less, especially once the deal with Israel proved it (politically) can be done. Technical feasibility shouldn't even be in question.
Well, I guess it's nice that militaries get to "own nothing and be happy" too.
It's actually a very telling carve-out, and I have no idea what it's doing so far down in the article. It should have been front and center.
The only two logical conclusions I can see are:
I very much suspect that it's the second one. Which indicates that the lock-in was an intentional decision, and one that actually would make quite a bit of sense on reflection.
There is a certain group of people in the US that continue to give special treatment to Israel because they believe that helping Israel “restore” itself will more quickly bring the rapture and Armageddon. Interestingly enough this belief tends to include the idea that Jews and Muslims won’t survive the ensuing necessary war.
Israel has a very strong lobby here because the US is their only source of strength. Spain or France don’t have that kind of lobby because they aren’t entirely dependent on the US for survival.
Because the assumption is that if Canada ever goes against US wishes, it means Canada is an enemy, and the kill switch goes off, but if Israel ever goes against US wishes, it means some lefty pinko commie got into office, and we must protect Israel's role in the rapidly approaching rapture!
"The Pentagon Denies" means absolutely nothing. Their president lies 1000 times a day, and denies all kinds of wrongdoing where there are objective facts contradicting him.
Americans cannot be trusted, especially not when we are talking about military equipment that we may need to use to defend ourselves FROM THEM!
Just buy from the EU.
Just buy from the EU.
Yes, but...
The same could happen the the EU, as with any foreign power.
It's unlikely as the EU is fundamentally built differently. But it could, no doubt a country that wanted to push through their adjenda by exploiting loopholes that haven't been discovered/exploited because of "decorum" could still happen.
Buy source-provided.
So, you get everything you need to maintain the platform with the purchase cost.
If you want updates and improvements, they have additional cost.
Like so many software licencing models. 1 year of updates - except it's source provided.
It's more expensive, but you get what you pay for.
Renew your licence every year for another year.
Stop paying? You get to use the EJ69 fighter jet platform as it was in 2019 for as long as you can manufacture parts for it.
Or you could buy the cloud-hosted fighter jets. And risk the off-switch. But it's less upfront cost, higher long-term cost
Honestly, it doesn't matter if it's possible or not. The very fact that key replacement parts of the jet can only be built in the US means that the very moment they chose not to sell those parts to Canada, the F35 is on a strict time limit before becoming the world's most expensive paperweight.
And that time limit isn't even very long. Maybe two years of normal use outside of a war, as little as a month or two during a war or any sort of foreign deployment.
We're kinda locked in for the first few planes, but despite cancellation fees, we need to replace our aging fleet with something from someone that won't throw a tantrum and erase a key component of our national defense with the swipe of a pen.
During the 1960s, the Australian Army bought the Swedish 84mm Carl Gustaf rocket launchers. It was believed perfect for bunker busting. However, Sweden refused to sell us the necessary munitions because we wanted them for the Vietnam War.
If you don't own the supply chain, you don't own the weapon system.
I mean, having a few of the plane is going to be handy... it's rare that your enemies will sell you their equipment to dissect, normally you have to capture it
and it has ultra poor flight time such that maintenance, and part replacements, are ultra frequent. Wouldn't surprise me if 3 flights is a maximum without Lockheed consultant required word.
We should hack together a Canadian solution. The Canadian way is to replace the software with the one the Royal Canadian Navy was going to use for their warships, but planes and jets will be classified as upsidedown submarines with wheels capable of 500 knots.
You know you’ll end up putting skates on it.
Ice skates for winter landings
!
You call em "fin tails", we call em air skates.
Make the weapons bolt-action.
Long before Musk's true character became widely known, this was my primary reason not to get a Tesla. In fact, Tesla's focus on proprietary software and post-purchase access to vehicles marked the sharp end to my favorable opinion of both him and the company.
Back when he was selling his EV vision and struggling to get the roadster into production, it hadn't even occurred to me that someone with such ambitions would build a closed platform. It would just be so out of line with the values supposedly driving him.
Nowadays I think my best shot at getting the sort of EV I want is either doing my own conversion or finding some small operation producing kit cars. But I need a truck or at least something that can haul heavy trailer loads up long hills.
They’re absolutely right in that regard—technically, it’s more of a Deadman Switch.
This aligns exactly with what I expect is the real truth. I have doubts there's any actual killswitch because that'd be dumb - but a constant devouring of proprietary parts is absolutely the case.
I maintain that what actually happened is an airforce general bragged to Trump about how every F35 sold means decades of political dependence and service fees that would act like a kill switch to keep our allies in line and Trump heard the words kill switch and just ran with that.
Yeah, what's easier?
Probably 2.
Yup! Also, Chinese intelligence work is insane - the chances that America could keep a kill switch out of Chinese hands is so vanishingly thin that anyone with a brain would prefer that such a kill switch didn't exist so it couldn't be used against the US.
'The F-35 may not have a “kill switch” in the traditional sense, but the countries who bought it are locked into an irrevocable pact with Lockheed Martin and America. ALIS/ ODIN might not be able to turn off the F-35 remotely, but losing access to it can make it impossible to fly.
Only one country has escaped the F-35 software and logistics trap while still being able to fly the jet: Israel. The IDF’s contract for the jet allows it to operate its own software systems without ALIS/ ODIN and conduct its own maintenance.'
So apparently only Israel can operate these planes without their weird DRM.
How do they lock the systems out so much that it's so difficult to reverse engineer something to make the mechanics work? I guess you wouldn't want to try and fly something to test new software but surely ground testing is possible?
Honest question because I don't know: I thought the US could only afford F35 development and purchasing cost because its supply chain was internationalized.
If all the world would suddenly decide to stop working on F35, and stopped supplying parts, wouldn't the US fleet also disintegrate after some time?
The vast majority of the F-35 construction is actually done inside the US, and that's required for security requirements for things like this.
Now a bunch of countries (Canada, UK, Netherlands, and some others) did contribute to the development of the F-35 but I want to say it was only around ~10% of the total cost. And that also went towards the purchase price of their first block of airframes.
UK alone was 10%.
There are components made by the international partners
https://simpleflying.com/how-many-international-parts-us-f-35-fighter-jet/
I sincerely doubt any other than the UKs aren't easily replaceable by the US and for the UK piece BAE has US sites all of whom I'm sure have at the very least full access to the specs.
Time to give everyone nukes.
"Pentagon denies"
Lol
There is no kill switch, but there is a button we can press to disable it...
It's not a kill switch, but a "stay alive" switch that can only be pressed by the United States, and needs to be pressed every year.
Even if there isn't right now only an idiot would buy these things given how the US treats its former allies. Only Russia should have any at this point.
Killswitch, definitely not.
The ability to upload a software patch that bricks the plane, maybe. The critical question will be whether the owner of the F-35 can control (i.e. block) software updates, and also whether there's a software backdoor to allow access in.
I'd give it better than a 50% chance of being accessible.
lmao it absolutely has kill switches. And I all but guarantee they go beyond the already onerous ecosystem and software demands.
I'd wager some of the kill switches go below software and are hardwired in at the chip level.
Are you implying a massive company would collaborate with a government to build hidden backdoors into its computer hardware?!
Pshaw!
thanks for the link backing this up! I read about it in a book but got lazy and didn't want to try to hunt down a source lol.
The US is gaslighting us.
Oops, turns out your purchased 100 million dollar jet aircraft is uh, reliant on DRM to function, guess you should have read the fine print.
If you have any complaints, please contact our support line at 1800FUCKYOU.
Soon enough we will be torrenting cracked F35 software from TPB.
... It's probably a good thing the F35 is not in Warthunder.
Hey now. To my knowledge, Teslas do not fall apart in the rain.
“There is no killswitch” is exactly what I would expect the person who installed a killswitch to say.
"You see, there is no kill switch, but you do have to install this software license that expires every tree months. That's so we know you paid for the required service updates and software support."
"But if you don't give a license, the plane doesn't fly!"
"Well, yes, but we can't shut it down remotely so it's technically not a kill switch."
Every flight requires inputting a password from Lockheed to use their electronic systems mentioned in article.
Trust me bro... Just buy it, what can go wrong
There are 8 million lines of code in the F35 integrated computer system.
So, how the hell would anyone know one way or the other? Only Israel is permitted extensive independent testing and access to open custom design. All other countries must test systems on the US continent and have US oversight during testing.