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The Military Japan Robotics Hardware Technology

The Secret To Iranian Drone Technology? Just Add Photoshop 183

garymortimer writes "Earlier this month, Iran's news agency provided visual evidence that its government had figured out to make a fancy new drone that could take off and land vertically. What they didn't tell us is that they used Photoshop to make it stop taking off from the roof of Japan's Chiba University, which built the aircraft and never had anything to do with Iran's alleged version of it."
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The Secret To Iranian Drone Technology? Just Add Photoshop

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  • by crazyjj ( 2598719 ) * on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:33AM (#42129481)

    Though none of them are gay or drink alcohol, of course.

    But seriously, everything Iran does these days is done with one thing in mind: sending the message that they're strong and won't be invaded easily. Their military bragging, their nuclear program, etc. are all aimed at this. That's why I don't worry about them nuking Israel of any of that nonsense. They're not crazy, they just want to make it clear that they're not going to be an easy pushover the way Saddamn Hussein was.

    Look at it from their perspective. George W. Bush includes them as part of the "Axis of Evil" (and that speech one of the worst diplomatic blunders in the 21st century IMHO). Then he proceeds to invade one of the three members of said Axis, right next door. And this was just after the U.S. had invaded the country on the OTHER SIDE of them. It's little surprise that they went a little nuts and elected hardliners in the next election and really started ramping up their nuke program immediately following (or that North Korea followed suite). Let's face it, about the only way to ensure that the U.S. can't invade you is to have nukes.

    Their nukes, their saber rattling, even their Photoshopping of fictional weapons--those aren't about Israel, they're about the U.S.

    • by zeroryoko1974 ( 2634611 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:40AM (#42129535)
      Could have been shopped by the Chinese for them.
      • Could have been shopped by the Chinese for them.

        Sure, but they farmed the actual work out to Korea.

    • by FriendlyLurker ( 50431 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:42AM (#42129547)
      They "they went a little nuts" and hardliners took power right after we brutally ransacked the country [wikipedia.org] via a violent puppet regime.
      • by AntiBasic ( 83586 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @10:21AM (#42129927)

        Oh yes, The shah was sooooo horrible compared to mossadegh who was friendly with the USSR. The islamists took power in 1979, not the decades prior. Your ilk is merely a cabal of useful idiots without a shred of historical perspective. Look at how the idiot liberals in Iran got "betrayed" by Khomeini right after taking power.

        Stop blaming America for everything. Try to understand that history is more complicated than your cute little wikipedia articles.

        • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29, 2012 @10:33AM (#42130049)

          What give the United States the right to decide who rules a country?

          • by interval1066 ( 668936 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @10:39AM (#42130121) Journal
            Being a player in geopolitics does, as it did the Soviet Union at the time. You have to remember during the Shah the US was embroiled in a deadly cold war with the SU. Every move in that war, including Iran, was a counter to some move the SU made. You can't look at the US as some lone power-hungry king maker in a vacuum, at least at that time.
            • by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @11:54AM (#42131205) Homepage Journal

              Being a player in geopolitics [give the US the right to decide who rules a country],

              No. You're confusing the willingness to arbitrarily use power in service of one's own goals with the right to do so, which can only come from consent of the governed, which the US most assuredly did not get from Iranians, or pretty much anyone else it has interfered with.

              Please stop doing that.

              Aside from being wrong, it blinds you to why other countries resent the US, and why they feel they have legitimate reasons to act against US interests.

              Our rights-free meddling has almost entirely stripped the legitimacy from our foreign policy.

              • No. You're confusing the willingness to arbitrarily use power in service of one's own goals with the right to do so, which can only come from consent of the governed, which the US most assuredly did not get from Iranians, or pretty much anyone else it has interfered with. Please stop doing that.

                No. Your confusing national will with the reality of the geopolitical situation, which to a certain extent is dictated by the reality of the situation, not the players, per se.

                Please stop doing that.

                For example, what would have been the real outcome of Neville Chamberlain's claim that he had obtained "Peace in our time" if he had instead proclaimed "Hitler is a rabid mongrel bent on world destruction?" A world war that had started a year earlier. In other words, the same outcome.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Their military might?
          • by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @11:32AM (#42130875) Journal

            This is the kind of thinking that allows evil to triumph; good men doing nothing. What right does a good man have in dictating to any other man? No right, except when dictators, tyrants and despots rule. There is a fine line between good and evil, and it is waged on the line of wants to verse has to. I don't want to be in a fight, I don't go looking for a fight, but I will kick the living shit out of bullies who are threatening me or my loved ones. And while I am kicking the shit out of the poor sod, I look exactly like them, if you go by appearances and results.

            And if it is a choice between a dictator that is friendly to us, or one that is not friendly to us, I'll support the one who is. Shaw of Iran was NOT a nice guys, but he was a thousand times better than the idiots running the place since, although it is not saying much. Some places need a dictator to rule, because the people and culture expect it.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Anonymous Coward

              Right. We're on the Good Guy Team and they're on the Bad Guy Team! It's all black and white, and we're the Holy Crusaders of this world!

            • The Shah of Iran was a low life scumbag, who wasn't worthy of licking the boots of the men and women the United States threw under the bus with Operation Ajax.

              Don't compare the Shah with what came after. Compare him with what we destroyed for the sake of having our own puppet ruling that country. The destruction of Iran's democratic government is probably the grandest and most heinous of our sins.

            • Why are you comparing the Shah to mullahs that came after him, rather than to the democratic government that preceded him (and was overthrown with US assistance, as GP pointed out). The people and the culture of Iran mst definitely don't need or expect a dictator to rule them, and they have shown it already.

          • by dywolf ( 2673597 )

            Why shouldn't we support someone favorable to our interests over someone favorable to our enemies?

            • by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @12:00PM (#42131283) Homepage Journal

              Why shouldn't we support someone favorable to our interests over someone favorable to our enemies?

              There's a significant difference between "support" and "install by force."

              As to why, once you really annoy them by imposing your will by force, they tend to respond. Not necessarily in ways you will see as reasonable or balanced. Like flying into buildings, killing thousands of people. At which point tertiary consequences arise, such as your own government going dumb-fuck-insane, stomping all over your constitutional rights, impeding travel, and generally fucking up life for everyone.

          • The Yalta conference.

          • there's no such thing as the right to do something; its about whether you can or can not do it.
            nearly every country that's ever been formed, was do so at the expense of those that came before it.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          'Can't we all just get along'

        • It is you who suffers from a lack of historical perspective, especially when you think you're so cute and intelligent for calling other people useful idiots. You imply the Mossadegh was a bad guy because he was friendly with the USSR, but you miss the fucking point that him being friendly with the USSR might be bad for the US, but it might have been good for Iran, you know, the country that he was leading.

          The Shah was propped up by the United States, and his regime was brutal and corrupt. The Iranians supported Khomeini because of his anti-Western sentiment, which was there because, you know, we propped up a brutal and corrupt regime that had screwed their country over.

          • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @11:46AM (#42131073) Journal

            The Iranians supported Khomeini because they thought he would just fade into the background, which is basically what he promised. When he arrived in Iran, he used his influence to squash any notion of a democratic and modern state and used the same kinds of goons the Shah had used to continue, and in fact deepen the oppression.

            One can say a helluva lot of bad things against the Shah, but at least the man had a progressive vision. Khomeini, on the other hand, was a power hungry religious fanatic determined to turn back the clock. I doubt there are many Iranians of the Revolution generation who probably feel inviting Khomeini back to Iran was a very good idea.

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Anonymous Coward
              You totally ignore the fact that Iran had modern democratic republic before the Shah was installed by the US/British. Everything else since then has been blowback [wikipedia.org] to the detriment of both the Iranians and the west:

              The coup d'état was "a critical event in post-war world history" that destroyed Iran's secular parliamentary democracy, by re-installing the monarchy of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as an authoritarian ruler.[110] The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the "pro-Western" Shah and replaced the monarchy with an "anti-Western" Islamic Republic.[23]

            • The shah had a progressive vision? You simply don't understand - he went BACKWARDS in time! Progressive? Sure, if you call it progress to abandon the cities to move into caves.

              The only visions the shah may have ever had, were induced by bad drugs.

              • I don't recall the Shah's vision being everyone abandoning the cities. His goals were laudable. His methods were evil. He is the perfect example of how a leader's path can be paved with good intentions and still end up leading straight to Hell.

                And what exactly did Khomeini and his heirs accomplish? A broken Iran that frittered away its oil wealth on religious and ideological navel-gazing, that allowed its infrastructure to crumble as much of its learned and professional class fled the country so they're chi

            • So your argument is Shah is better than Khomeini, so the US was right to bring Shah to power? Strange I thought the US overthrew Mosaddegh to get Shah into power and not Khomeini.

              • I never said any such thing. Restoring the Shah was a horrific error that stunted Iran's attempt to become a democratic state. I'm not defending the US's activities; it's mindless support of the Shah, what I'm saying is that the Shah was a tyrant who believed the end justified the means. It's just that the end; a modern secykar Iranian state with a substantial, well-educated and productive middle class was a good goal, but that Khomeini's goal was far worse.

                To my mind the Shah and Khomeini were pretty much

          • by dywolf ( 2673597 )

            Diplomacy and foreign policy are not about what's good for the other guy.
            We don't go to a place and talk and persuade them in order to make their lives easier and give them things.

            You go there to get things favorable to you, not the other guy.

            If that results in their lives being easier or them getting things in return, so be it. If not, so be it.
            Sometimes they make the decision to shortchange a long term benefit in favor of a short term one. Sometimes they make a decision because of an overriding demand ( s

            • WFT. Idiots love to assume that the US had the power to somehow create a better regime than the shah's when in reality our choice was bad or worse. We chose bad, what we have now is worse.

              The photochop is just a way for them to control the news of the day. Any day that doesn't include stories about their nuclear program is a good one for them.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          US and UK did not overthrow anyone in 1953. First of all, the government was not elected. Mossadegh was appointed to become PM by the Shah of Iran according to the Iranian constitution from 1906.

          The origin of this whole story is from CIA. Since when does CIA count as a reliable source? Do you believe everything CIA says? Everytime there is article about governments, CIA, NSA or anything similiar on Slashdot the majority of the people who comment are against these and always write bad things about them. But

        • by Isao ( 153092 )
          The SAVAK were a lot of fun for the population. And they had help from the CIA. The educated and wealthy classes liked the Shah, as their life was good under him (at least until the country ran out of jobs for them). The poorer, less educated citizens mainly got the boot, if they interacted with the regime at all. Since the US and Britain put the Shah on the throne, those countries weren't loved by the rebellion. And yes, I think Khomeini made a mistake letting the student rebels put the embassy hostag
        • by Runaway1956 ( 1322357 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @12:25PM (#42131641) Homepage Journal

          Stop blaming America?

          I'm an American, and I've studied Operation Ajax. An awful damned lot of what is wrong in Iran is our fault. And, it was all done for the sake of saving a few cents on oil. Not dollars, but cents. Ajax happened just a little before I was born. Gasoline was selling for about twenty cents per gallon. Quarts of oil were little more than a gallon of gas - maybe a quarter. Crude was cheap, cheap, cheap back then.

          And, we destroyed a legitimate democracy for the sake of the company that is now known as British Petroleum, or BP.

          Profits before anything.

          Capitalists can mock Iran, Iranian culture, camel jockeys, and anything else they care to mock. But, we murdered a legitimate democracy for the sake of oil profits, then we installed that puppet who eventually caused the revolution.

          Go ahead, put the blame on the rag heads - no good capitalist is ever to blame for anything.

      • by rahvin112 ( 446269 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @10:35AM (#42130083)

        Define "they". The US had a role in the Shah, primarily as an attempt to combat what they saw as a communist friendly regime, but the primary instigators of the Shah were the British who were trying to protect British Petroleum (formerly the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) oil rights and revenues. Most of the worlds present conflicts tie back to historical meddling by European powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. US meddling started with the attempt to control the spread of communism and has persisted in various forms since but the primary conflicts of the present day are due to the former European actions.

    • by Stickerboy ( 61554 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:52AM (#42129663) Homepage

      Well, they're doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing, then.

      Iraq under Saddam Hussein did the same shtick, bluffing for years that they had weapons stockpiles that really didn't exist (anymore). The US military went into the Iraq War expecting that chemical and/or biological weapons would be used against their soldiers on the ground. Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...

      The problem with Iran's government is they're being run by two opposing camps; the religious right-wing extremists pitted against the military nationalist right-wing extremists. Buffoonery and penis length comparing naturally comes with *right-wing extremists of any sort, it seems to be a universal truth.

      • Iraq under Saddam Hussein did the same shtick, bluffing for years that they had weapons stockpiles that really didn't exist (anymore). The US military went into the Iraq War expecting that chemical and/or biological weapons would be used against their soldiers on the ground. Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...

        Whoever rated this insightful should go back and read a bit about the alleged claims of WMDs. All knew the claims were false, Powell later admitted that the p

        • Whoever rated this insightful should go back and read a bit about the alleged claims of WMDs. All knew the claims were false...

          Which is why the countries that opposed military intervention in Iraq (mostly because their leaders were being bribed by Saddam Hussein) all said, "Yes, they have WMDs, but lets give sanctions more time."

      • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...

        The above is precisely why Iran feels the need to develop actual nuclear weapons -- because a nuclear deterrent is the only sure way to keep the US from invading Iran.

    • Right... but surely somebody over there has got to consider the fact that despite this showmanship, if they actually do get invaded and they don't have said drones / nukes to protect them, they will go the way of Iraq even quicker.

      Why not just fall in line with the rest of the world and let the nuclear inspectors inspect their facilities when asked? Nuclear technology affects the world, not just Iran, so it's important to regulate it. Then again it sounds like a bunch of clowns are trying to run Iran a
    • "Though none of them are gay or drink alcohol, of course."

      they are all gay, and heroin is a giant problem.

      Don't let a regimes stated morales let blind you to reality.

      Hyper strict religeous morales are seldom followed anywhere, almost as a rule
    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      "It's little surprise that they went a little nuts and elected hardliners in the next election", you mean after all the reformist candidates were "disqualified" by the mullahs and their sycophantic followers?

    • They're not crazy, they just want to make it clear that they're not going to be an easy pushover the way Saddamn Hussein was.

      Ya, if only Hussein had exhibited a bit more bluster and defiance or bragged more about (imaginary) weapons...

  • by Revotron ( 1115029 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:42AM (#42129555)
    Nonsense, that photo isn't doctored. I heard that in building their new drone, Iran licensed the same technology that China used to build levitating engineers [smashinghub.com].
  • I call BS (Score:5, Funny)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:43AM (#42129565)
    Pics or it didn't happen! Oh wait...
  • by dryriver ( 1010635 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:44AM (#42129573)
    Iran's press service was probably given instructions to report on a new VTOL drone, without having been given actual images of said drone. So the press agency went online, found a drone image it liked, photoshopped out some wind turbines in the image, and ran the story that way... The "digital deed" in question may even be the handywork of a young intern at Iran's press agency, told to illustrate a story for which no real images exist. ---- Either way, I don't see why this is "big news" in any way. Its not as if the U.S. releases pictures of all its new military toys. Like the mysterious stealth chopper that crashed during the Abbottabad raid...
    • Iran's press service was probably given instructions to report on a new VTOL drone, without having been given actual images of said drone.

      This is exactly what happened. The Chinese did the same thing with their use of Top Gun footage in promoting some propaganda recently.

      In fact, your breakfast cereal provider does this, McDonalds does this, anybody who puts out promotion materials includes photos "for demonstration only, may not represent actual product". Do you think that's milk and not glue in the cereal on the box cover?

      • It's well known that product photos are usually a mock-up, but this is completely different. The big idea there is that they start from a finished product and recreate it in a more predictable, yet still visually accurate way.

        How many times did you buy a box of Fruit Loops, only to open the box to find a bag full of Raisin Bran?

        I'd say this is more akin to a fast food restaurant taking a picture of the actual food, and then when you order one, they serve you a plastic mock-up cheeseburger covered in A
      • In fact, your breakfast cereal provider does this, McDonalds does this, anybody who puts out promotion materials includes photos "for demonstration only, may not represent actual product". Do you think that's milk and not glue in the cereal on the box cover?

        So the next time my kids ask for their cereal to be made just like on the box....

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29, 2012 @10:05AM (#42129771)

      The USSR bluffed up its military by having dramatic parades of missile launchers (where the parade was just long enough that it could circle around 4 times to impress the spies in the crowd).

      Iran bluffs up it military with photoshop.

      North Korea skips the whole idea of bluffing up the military, but the Dear Leader is an excellent dancer.

      China bluffs down their military, because some of them actually read "The Art of War." (makes sense, their ancestors wrote it)

      The USA bluffs up, down and sideways its military without any effort by telling various press and blog factions "I am unable to confirm or deny that claim."

      Japan just builds the giant robots "for peaceful purposes only."

    • When the US has a military toy they want to talk about and advertise, there are all kinds of pictures of it. Take the F-22A for example. You can find pictures n' video n' all sorts of stuff from the government itself and from other sources. They couldn't shut up about the thing and how cool they thought it was.

      Then on the other side there is something like this chopper. Not only did they never release any pictures, they never even said they had such a thing. It was completely secret. Even after the fact the

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @09:44AM (#42129577)

    in soviet russia they did stuff like that by hand

  • TinEye (Score:5, Informative)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @10:09AM (#42129787) Journal

    So, basically the secret to uncovering this is http://www.tineye.com/ [tineye.com]

  • by Bieeanda ( 961632 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @10:14AM (#42129855)
    Don't tell me no-one else remembers the doctored artillery rocket photos the Iranians released back in 2008? They sparked a lot of (intentionally, this time) funny copycats.
  • Honestly I'm not one to take anything a journalist says at it's face value. Even within the article linked it never specifically says the picture was purposefully meant as an illustration of what they built. Nor does it say anything about any claims that it is an Iranian design, all it says is Iran built it's first VTOL drone.

    You know how sometimes people say here's what I'm building and show you the photo from the model car box?

    Just seems like more of the same stupid propaganda that's always going on, ha

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