[mnehring]

One thing I was told by someone in the know shed a new light on this.. with the exception of small arms, everything we have now is computer controlled and networked.. a tank can communicate with a fighter which can communicate with an APC.. and best of all, if fallen into the wrong hands, can be switched off with the flip of a switch at a command and control station.

This could be looked at as putting the Saudi’s on a very short leash.. basically, it gives us control to turn off or on their military equipment at will.

[Joe Boucher]

You stated this before to me. I don’t believe it in its entirety.
Personally I don’t think I’d send the double dealing Saudis anything more then a bucket of dog pooh.

[KarlInOhio]

Hopefully the Saudi version of the JDAM has areas where it won't work (i.e. Israel) and have an expiration date based on the GPS signal.

[untrained skeptic]

I simply wouldn't trust that any such restrictions couldn't be reverse engineered and removed.

We do control the GPS network, but short of turning it off over Israel, which might cause more difficulty for the Israeli's than it would help, I'm not sure how much control that gives us.

GPS is a one way communication. The satellites broadcast information which the GPS receiver uses to determine location.

The broadcast could be turned off, or made less accurate, but we can't selectively disable some weapons using it.

The weapons themselves could be programmed to not work in Israel, but that might be reverse engineered given time.

I don't think we could reliably prevent these weapons from being used against Israel, or even against us if they fell into the wrong hands.

[stuartcr]

It would seem easy to change the frequencies or IP addresses upon receipt of the weapons, making it difficult to communicate with these devices.