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'It's Possible to jailbreak F-35 like iPhone', Says Dutch State Secretary of Defense Tuinman (www.bnr.nl)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A widespread concern is what would happen to Dutch weapon systems if the Americans were to withdraw completely as an ally. For example, Dutch F-35 aircraft are dependent on American software updates. Yet, Tuinman isn't particularly worried about this.

"The F-35 is truly a shared product. The British make the Rolls-Royce engines, and the Americans simply need them too." And even if this mutual dependency doesn't result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighters.

If you still want to upgrade despite everything, I'm going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone. (Crack it with your own software, ed.)

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[–] -4 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Except the US has killswitches hard wired in. A fusible link, irreversibly bricking it based on signal from the mother ship.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Yes, but it can be wired-out

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    The way I heard it, it's like hard wired it is thought, not like a part of the software per se, something physical in there they can trigger with a message that makes a circuit that bricks the unit.

    We don't actually know though, I bet if someone did find out lockheed would have their head and the news wouldn't touch it.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    Do you honestly think that all the countries buying these planes havent inspected them? Even if they were incredibly well disguised the chance of them being discovered would essentially stop the US from selling military hardware abroad again as it would be hard proof that they couldnt be trusted.

    There is no reason to do that when, as others have pointed out, they can just restrict access to parts, updates and mission planning software.

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    You are misunderstanding the nature of these kill switches that are thought to be in there. It's not going to be labeled, and it's not going to be visible to inspection, but something no one would ever know if it never gets tripped. Thought to be a one time fusible link. Idk if it's true, but I believe it.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    Im not misunderstanding at all, but do you really think governments make multi-billion dollar purchaces without having technical experts go over things with a fine tooth comb. Again if only one customer nation, of which there are dozens, found something like this or if it was ever used, it would wipe out the entire export market for US high tech weapons, why would they do that when they have effective soft power ways of achiving the same thing?

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Where is the support for this? I believe they would but as I understand it they cut cloud services, not core functionality.

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    It is a long standing rumour. Not just in these in a lot of their gear. I believe it.

    It's also rumoured, going way back over 20 years, that the us has kill switches in a majority of the world's computers.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    I remember working with an old dude 10 years ago who pointed at the CPU in a computer and said "the government can turn that off whenever they want". He died of COVID so take his quote with what value you want.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    I lean towards discounting both rumors. I think the temptation to use said kill-switches would prove too great to resist, particularly for the authoritarian types involved.

    We saw this a lot with provisions of the "PATRIOT Act". It was championed as tools needed to combat terrorists and claimed to be reserved for such cases. In actuality, it was used to go after people running fan sites for sci-fi tv shows, among other things.

    If such a kill switch existed in computer hardware, I'm sure it would have been used already. I'm less sure about a kill switch in the planes. On one hand, that's a pretty situational tool, and you wouldn't want to play that card until you really needed it.

    OTOH, we didn't hear about threats to throw the kill switch during the bluster over Greenland. If they had one, I think it would have been part of that bluster.

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