178
The US may be able to remotely disable F-35 aircraft
(www.defensemirror.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
178 points (97.3% liked)
Canada
8817 readers
1604 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Related Communities
๐ Meta
๐บ๏ธ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
๐๏ธ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Guelph (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Windsor (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
Sorted alphabetically by city name.
๐ Sports
Hockey
- Main: c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Montrรฉal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL): incomplete
Football (CFL): incomplete
Baseball
Basketball
Soccer
- Main: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
๐ป Schools / Universities
- BC | UBC (U of British Columbia)
- BC | SFU (Simon Fraser U)
- BC | VIU (Vancouver Island U)
- BC | TWU (Trinity Western U)
- ON | UofT (U of Toronto)
- ON | UWO (U of Western Ontario)
- ON | UWaterloo (U of Waterloo)
- ON | UofG (U of Guelph)
- ON | OTU (Ontario Tech U)
- QC | McGill (McGill U)
Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.
๐ต Finance, Shopping, Sales
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
๐ฃ๏ธ Politics
- General:
- Federal Parties (alphabetical):
- By Province (alphabetical):
๐ Social / Culture
Rules
- Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Try to think about what you're actually describing. It's one year from now. Tensions between the US and Canada have steadily and rapidly escalated. US troops are massing on the Canadian border under the guise of "training exercises"... And some guy in the RCAF is like "Shit, better not forget to run that new firmware update that the Americans pushed for us, and absolutely no one else." Is that the scenario we're envisioning here?
No, in that situation we just wouldn't do an update. I'd be more worried about a backdoor that's triggered by not updating for an extended period, maybe along along with a few other hints, and was actually made with the possibility of the Iranians capturing an F-35 in mind.
More like, it's a year from now and Trump decides to take his ball and go home, so he directs the NSA and DIA to build an update that will brick planes which aren't parked in one of his favoured countries, after a delay of about a month to ensure he gets as many as possible.
At which point you would roll back to the previous firmware, because of course we're going to keep copies. This sounds like a horrifically ineffective plan. We're certainly better off having fifth gen fighters with that incredibly minimal risk attached than we are with fourth gen fighters that are completely outclassed.
And again, if we're at the point where potential hostilities are close enough that a one month timebomb could matter then we're at the point where we're not loading any software the US sends us.
The far more meaningful risk here is that they can simply stop giving us new parts and software updates. That's actually a real and valid concern.
Alright, well, I think I've defended the idea enough for most readers, so I'll just drop it.
Parts are actually made all over the place, which is kind of surprising, but also kind of not when you consider how multilateral the development was. Japan alone has domestic sources for most of the whole plane, apparently. In the long term, we could develop our own software for it. I don't know if there's anything besides that that the US has a monopoly on.