Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by swader999 1528 days ago
I think we'll have to wait a few years to see what impact this has on civilian air travel.
1 comments

Good point, I just thought on the impact of the weapons in overall low-level criminality or regional conflicts, but I guess if enough Stingers [1] spill around it could have serious consequences on the safety of air travel all around.

[1] https://science.howstuffworks.com/stinger.htm

The IFF system of the Stinger weapon system is surprisingly robust, and non-trivial to circumvent. It essentially prevents you from locking on to any vehicle equipped with an IFF transmitter (meaning if you point a western-made Stinger at a western commercial aircraft, it won't let you fire at it). As such, I doubt there will be any significant impact from "unsecured" Stinger systems floating around, though that does not negate similar consequences from non-IFF-equipped weapon systems.