@alex_p_roe @timo21 I hate to break it to you, but the OS inside a fighter jet's gubbins probably isn't anything consumer-visible: it'll be some exotic micro-kernel RTOS written for high reliability and security that none of us have ever heard of.
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@cstross F-35’s are at the command of Trump 24/7...ponder that.
@TENET_CDN Only the F-35s the US military operates. It was always designed as an F-16 successor, where international sales considerably exceed USAF usage. Trump has kneecapped that sales program already (IIRC Spain and Portugal dropped out, Netherlands are looking for an off-ramp, etc) …
@cstross @GinevraCat I'd be happy if we didn't fly with the F-35 anymore. I live near a military airfield, and the F-16s were kinda OK in moderation but the F-35s are loud as fuck.
@cstross I wonder if that violates the end-user certificate?
@cstross I suspect these customers have a bit more leverage. If they decide this is the last shipment they will receive from lockheed if lockheed doesn't pay ball they can actually stick it out.
@cstross Dutch defence minister really said if you all can't jail Trump we're gonna have to jailbreak your F-35s
@cstross This might be the only way those planes get fixed. They are notoriously awful have been reported to require "in-flight resets." I could post links, but you won't regret a self directed internet search.
@cstross Do pilots of the F-35 have to accept a EULA every time they get in?
This needs to be the response to trump's tariffs in violation of numerous trade agreements that include sections on respecting IP. If he's going to ignore the agreement I think every country in the world should ignore all IP rights of US companies and jailbreak an reverse engineer everything.
@cstross that might be the right moment to do, what @pluralistic argued in his " A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet" talk at #39C3 for - breaking free from the stranglehold of the anti-circumvention laws and all the trade agreement related issues and dependencies connected to them:
https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-internet
Transcript:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
Don't suppose they'll sell these at a swap meet though. Dag.
Wild guess:
They'll try to swap them for a batch of the U.S.A.'s modern ones that don't work in combat and that have a brick where the radar is supposed to be. (-:
@JdeBP Go googling for "blue circle airlines"; the RAF did the cement-instead-of-radar for a while with the Tornado ADV in the 80s.
@cstross Just as a reminder, a jailbreak is a security vulnerability. If Apple doesn't fix it, they've left a security vulnerability in their phone and I would not use any product that contains known security vulnerabilities.
@mattw Yep. "Kill switches" in weapon systems are almost invariably a supply chain lock (the supplier can cut off the supply of replacement consumable bits needed to keep it in service). An actual kill switch ("broadcast this code and F35s will fall out of the sky") is too vulnerable to espionage and an enemy actor using it during combat. Same reason ICBMs don't have a recall code once they're flying.
@cstross Like Apple clients, if we have a good enough reason, we will. What are they going to do, not send us any more spare parts?
@motorbike_sensei That's actually pretty much it. Also updated terrain/radar maps for navigation, without which the F35 is vastly less effective as a platform (stealth works best when it knows where radar installations are and can avoid them).
@cstross Lockheed bribed the then Dutch prince-consort to get the F-103 Starfighter AKA widow-maker sold to us, despite it being unfit for the role. They bloody owe us for that.
@cstross the analogy with Apple breaks down in that there is another party to the transaction; namely the US government which might literally go nuclear over this issue.
But the whole thing is rather moot at this point anyhow, fighter jets being on the verge of becoming obsolete. UAS will be built by new supply chains outside of the grasp of bellicose power.
