There is a world of difference between reverse engineering some of the software to decipher some logs and understanding everything there is to understand to build a fac-similé.

While Persians are clearly clever and educated, I submit they lack the industrial infrastructure to build a drone.

Let's keep in mind they currently have trouble properly refining their oil...

To give you an idea about us (Iran) have a look here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Iranian_Americans , you can skip to Business/Technology section if you like, we survived a devastating war and more than 30 years of crippling sanctions that continues today. and I have to say we have pretty good infrastructure that you have no idea about it, which is good.

  There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered
  them by the grace of God

Excuse me if I doubt any of the claims in this article.

Well they reveal a bunch of specific dates and locations of missions that they say they pulled from logs.

I don't know if the information is accurate, and probably neither do most people here on HN. Only a small number of people in the world know if it is. Most of those people who know whether or not that information is correct are at the Pentagon.

If the log entry information is correct, then the claims they were able to read the logs becomes more credible. And it's the folks at the Pentagon that this news release is directed to, and I'm sure they have received and understood the significance of it.

So apparently, God is on everybody's side and has the set of all encryption keys.

The oldest MITM trick in the book.

He is omnipresent, after all.

During the cold war it was common to segment data so that the compromise of a single agent wouldn't cause too much damage. I doubt there's too much concern over the data the drone contains, but the hardware is state-of-the-art and perhaps it should also have an accident (maybe the centrifuges could teach it how to self destruct ... Or a North Korean rocket will accidentally fall on it).

I guess I'm waiting to see how much of this information is verified by someone outside the Iranian government (hmmm ... And the U.S. Government).

Would it have been better for Iran to have said nothing or is this only to provoke the US & alies?

I believe it was and it was a clear signal from a certain influential clique in the US defense establishment -- where [did] Leon work before? -- to the Israelis that USA will not allow any nation to dictate its strategic posture or present it a fait accompli.

Could you explain your reasoning? How is the US purposefully losing a drone in Iran somehow a signal to the Israelis? Surely Israel already knew that we were capable of / already flying drone over Iran considering their use in two of Iran's neighbors (Iraq and Afghanistan).

I don't get it.

don't take it personally, you decrypt someone else code , we decrypt yours, so there will be one to decrypt ours again. is all about decryption ;)

Perhaps they'll build it out of oil drums like their SAM systems? I don't think Iran is capable of putting together a decent steel drum band much less stealth drones.

I was under the impression that Iran has a pretty decent higher education system. And that it includes female students as well - with a noticably high percentage of female students in fields that are male-dominated in the west, like computer science.

No idea how they are doing in mechanical/aeronautical engineering though.

Iran is under an international embargo on military supplies, thought. The GP might be overstating the case or trolling, but I suppose getting the materials to build a replica, communication gear and fuel will be difficult for the iranians. Specially when some western country with the biggest military-industrial complex of the world is angry at you because you broke one of their toys.

Wow. Will it kill civilians and crash like the original?

They better watch out before they insert their USB cable into the drone's port. The last time they inserted without protection, they caught Stuxnet.