A widespread concern is what would happen to Dutch weapon systems if the Americans were to withdraw completely as an ally. For example, Dutch F-35 aircraft are dependent on American software updates. Yet, Tuinman isn’t particularly worried about this.
“The F-35 is truly a shared product. The British make the Rolls-Royce engines, and the Americans simply need them too.” And even if this mutual dependency doesn’t result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighters.
If you still want to upgrade despite everything, I’m going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone. (Crack it with your own software, ed.)
Please keep buying our jets bro
We spent $1 trillion to make them bro, we need these to work bro
We’ll iron out all he bugs, trust us bro
It’s the best jet ever made bro, it’s killed so many Palestinians and Iranians bro
I didn’t know our state secretary was a Warthunder enthousiast.
Upon hearing this news I ordered a F-35 from Ali Express but they sent me a J-35 instead. Does the jailbreak still work on this device or am I stuck with the stock software? What’s the character for landing gear again?
What about replacement parts? Just cut your losses & get something not made by fascists.
I don’t want to be the guy to tell my boss I’ve bricked the F-35
Even broke the warranty seal over the USB port.
Rolls Royce only makes the engines for the F35B STOVL version.
imagine flying a jailbroken fighter plane that gets an over-the-air update that bricks the controls
just get the gripen
“ATTENTION! Your jet has been hacked by MilitaryGod Tech Team[LOL]. Your radios and controls have been disabled. Do not attempt to eject. Please send 10 bitcoin to wallet 214d93120cd3192ea019ab03928f1fa03 immediately to unlock your controls. If we do not receive payment in 15 minutes, all weapons onboard will be launched at nearby friendly targets. Thank you for your prompt attention to this urgent matter. Have a nice day!”
Something tells me fighter planes don’t get updates from anything other than a computer plugged directly into them.
That would seem like an awful idea that would be a dangerous security risk to the fighter.
So they probably did it anyway.
Well, let me be the one to surprise you and tell you that this is exactly how software and encryption keys are loaded onto the aircraft.
At no time would any combat aircraft have an operating system which even has the capability to receive software updates wirelessly, that would be an incredible vulnerability during wartime.
It requires a specific device that looks like it was made in the 1980s and deletes itself if it is bumped too hard and this device has to be directly connected to NSA controlled infrastructure in order to be loaded with any updates. The resulting material is loaded onto the device and physically carried by an Airman in the wing’s comm squadron and they are escorted by at least one other service member from the secure terminal where it was loaded directly to the aircraft.
It’s uploaded via internal connections (which may or may not look to be from the 80s) which are accessed by a maintenance hatch on the belly of the plane. Once the hatch is closed, if it is opened again at any point the aircraft will dump all of the key material and the resulting party will have a lot of paperwork and counseling to deal with and some other set of airmen will have to repeat the entire process all over again.
This has to be done for pretty much every flight, the aircraft cannot even start without this package of key materials and software. This process is fairly standard and used on a lot of equipment, as most equipment needs keying materials to function due to all of the datalink and/or telemetry systems.
It is likely that the Secretary of Defense was referring to their understanding of how this system operates and how they have scientists and engineers and the resources to reverse engineer any components. They have intact and working copies that they can tear apart and none of these systems are magic, they’re just secret and obtaining an intact war plane to reverse engineer is incredibly difficult in normal times. The Dutch have plenty of intact war planes to study.
In production since 2006 and of course they were designing the things earlier than that, so…
Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s like some cars of the late 90’s and early 00’s and you need a computer with an RS-232 port to connect to a multiplexer of some sort that connects to the plane
E.g to get full dealer level access to old Mercedes cars, you’d need one of these:
And a laptop with RS-232 running Windows XP (can be on a VM)
tbf, that can happen without jailbreaking
Can you elaborate on the Gripen?
Edit: my ore-coffee dyslexic ass read just like the Gripen.
I fully support Canada getting manufacturing here…
It’s a fighter jet. It’s made in Sweden. It costs about 80% in purchase price and 50% per flight hour compared to the f35. It’s not dependent on constant software updates.
It’s not dependent on constant software updates.
I bet every modern fighter jet is. “Dependent” might not be the best word, but if you can make your existing jet better just by optimizing the software, then of course they should.
It’s probably true to say that F-35 is objectively better than a Gripen, but it’s way more expensive too. More Gripens might actually be better than fewer F-35s. My understanding is they’re more focused on electronic warfare.
Constant software updates is like one of the main features SAAB boasts on it lol
These mainly aren’t actually “engineer changes two lines of code” updates. These are actually more like internal database updates. Every time an F-35 or Gripen is flown, it generates data about itself and I believe also about the other planes it’s up against. This gets synced to other F-35s (or Gripens) for their future missions.
Nah bro. Just run clawedbot on the thing and sell the compute on it. Imagine a server farm made of f35s making the most devastating memes with gemini bananas
Can it run doom?
In the most literal sense.
Next F35-frimware-dump on Piratebay:
[ RELEASE INFORMATION ] ------------------------------------------------------------------- NAME......: F-35_Series_FW_Utility VERSION...: v2.4.0-OPEN DATE......: 2026-05-04 PLATFORM..: Embedded Linux / RTOS TYPE......: Firmware Dump & Tools SIZE .....: 14.2 GB (840x50MB) ORIGIN....: Internal Flash (SPI/NAND) [ DESCRIPTION ] ------------------------------------------------------------------- This package contains a jailbreaked binary dump of the flight controller. Included are scripts for: * Hex-signature verification * Partition table analysis * File system extraction and flashing [ INSTALLATION / USAGE ] ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Ensure your Fighter jet is in USB-Debugging mode. 2. Run 'python3 F35_jailbreak_flash.py --check-signatures' 3. Take Off CAUTION: Modifying firmware can result in a bricked device or "Fly-Away" scenarios. Use at your own risk. [ GREETS ] ------------------------------------------------------------------- To the researchers, the tinkerer community, and all those who believe in the right to repair and modify their hardware. ------------------------------------------------------------------- "Information wants to be free."```I was picturing more like a custom ROM on XDA: “Bugs? You tell me.”
Flashing failed 5 minutes in, and now an upside down jet with a big yellow ! coming out of the belly is on the screen. Did I brick my F-35 or is it recoverable?
Depends on your altitude…
Depends. You did schedule backups, right? Right?
Yes, but I can’t get to them as they are on the jet.
Don’t worry, fighterjetstockroms.xyz has you coverd. Just download the the ROM for your locale and start over again. One short warning, US versions on EU hardware could lead to unexpected behavior as the binary blops expect altitudes and speed measured in USCS and not in meters as the EU model sensors do.
I put the US fw on and it started to bomb brown people for oil. Is that intentional or a bug?
Help, how do I unlock the bootloader
During startup, press the fire missile and eject buttons at the same time for 20 seconds
I’m having issues with this step, I can’t seem to hold the eject button for the full 20 seconds I keep getting forcefully ejected to the boot screen.
What??? In earlier versions, we had to lift a couple of legs on the chips, a 50cm bodge wire, and finally shorting a capacitor while booting. Finally the write protection disabled, which allowed one to flash an older BIOS that allowed usb booting. The major downside was that it was a tethered jailbreak. But we made it work…except for the fly-aways.
tell me more about the “Fly-Away” scenarios
Just open the fracking door for the cylons why don’t you
Right to repair my F-35!
And here I thought the military would want their stuff to work without software updates and be open source.
The military wants the best equipment, and currently in terms of specs that is the F-35.
That comes with a dependence on the United States, which at the time of purchasing these jets was not considered to be a particular concern because America is a good ally and a part of NATO.
Following Trump’s re-election and antics over Greenland, that calculation is now different. It might not be worth it to buy new F-35s at this point (though Germany seems to be considering it still), but the Dutch army has pre-existing F-35s which we should be able to use even if America doesn’t want us to for whatever reason.
At this point for the purchase of new jets we really should be looking at the new Eurofighter though, imo
With F-35’s costs, is it really the best equipment? I suspect the real reason is that replacing it is a gigantic undertaking that might be far more expensive short-term.
The components dependency part in fighter jets, though, is something they really should be able to solve. Those are very complex systems, but designed with integration and customization in mind. That’s one of the reasons they are so expensive. Slowly replacing everything in them with components from more reliable producers is normal for militaries. Well, for militaries with actual RnD and production, of course Uzbekistan or Colombia can’t do that, but Netherlands can.
With F-35’s costs, is it really the best equipment?
Name another stealth jet that you can buy right now in significant numbers.
Do Netherlands need a stealth jet at all? Perhaps a fleet of cheap drones is better.
I mean, in some “global power projection” context like USA or thinking of readiness for total war like Israel, those jets are not optional.
But the threat model of Netherlands is which? Considering it doesn’t even have mandatory military training.
The question was about the best equipment, and in it’s class F-35 is (so far) the best, considering the price. I’m sure everyone and their grandma would want 100M worth of cheap anti-drone tech too but a contract’s a contract, and they get cool planes out of it. Planes that will get a shitload of upgrades in the near future, wingman uavs for example.
It’s not just about defending the Netherlands but all of NATO, which involves deploying Dutch planes to eastern Europe, close to Russian AA systems for example.
It was Dutch F-35s that shot down the Russian drones over Poland. It could’ve just as well been a Russian fighter jet they scrambled to intercept.
Yeah, they do need a stealth jet. Stealth is what lets you fire your missiles before the enemy even knows you’re there.
It was Dutch F-35s that shot down the Russian drones over Poland.
The dirt cheap drones, those of them that diverted by error or malfunction from their intended targets, that is, inside margin of error.
Using F-35s to shoot down that in an actual war with waves of those drones seems inefficient. Paying more than the attack costs. Raising a jet costs fuel and maintenance. It’s purely a very expensive peacetime solution near a conflict. Those drones should have been intercepted by ground AD batteries. Which in case of being a war participant and not a neighbor you will need.
Yeah, they do need a stealth jet. Stealth is what lets you fire your missiles before the enemy even knows you’re there.
As a strategic weapon yes.
OK, as part of common European defense yes, it’s just that it’s still not unified enough it seems. Perhaps a common European military with mandatory training and reserve enlistment for citizens, standardized equipment and procedures (OK, that already exists), united command and proscription and budget, would be better. Because when it’s decided by separate governments, you end up with F-35s shooting down random drones being used as a proof that the system works.
That would mean, of course, turning the EU into a confederation from a union.
Firstly, it’s not just about the price of the drones being shot down - it’s also about the price of whatever they were going to hit if you didn’t stop them.
And secondly, that’s entirely beside the point anyway. The Dutch need stealth fighters just as much as anyone else would.
You call F35 the best ? The thing cannot fly well on a rainy day & it has shit landing-gear.
Get Sukhois, Eurofighter, Migs or Gripen (Rafales are good too)
I can forget about stealth capabilities for a sec, but Migs, really? Enjoy your 6 mig29++++ ever built and wooden mockups of fifth gen planes.
edit: also why would they want rafales if they don’t have carriers and they’d never carry nukes?
For a modern military, in a general sense, yes, the F35 is the best currently. Mostly due to it’s software and sensor suite which have a much larger impact on mission performance. It’s built to an assumption of US support, which means good runways and resilient supply lines. Russian fighters are out for the same reason US fighters should be out right now (can’t trust the government).
Canada is looking for new fighters, where I think the Gripen is actually better than the F35 for our specific use case (almost entirely defensive, rough runways in arctic conditions that the F35 struggles with, need for lower maintenance requirements due to manpower and budget issues). The Swedes deal with the same conditions we need a fighter for, plus they offered a full tech transfer to revitalize our aerospace industry and help achieve autonomy for operation of the Gripen.
Relevant video: https://youtu.be/4X9ww6FtUhE
Tl;dw is that sure, the US could withhold software updates and sure, NL could do their own software thing, but there is a whole intelligence software thing too that makes it harder. And ultimately if the US stops supplying new parts the existing planes are quickly dead in the water anyway. So it’s a short-term solution at best.
Possible sure, easy unlikely, knowing you got all the backdoors (for allies), nigh impossible. Only way to be sure is to clean room it from the ground up, not jailbreak.
Plus it’s strongly suspected, and rumoured, to have kill switches, a fusible link that bricks the whole thing. I believe it.
I mean every country that takes delivery of them gets to inspect it really closely. The “kill switch” is that they stop providing you the software for mission planning and shit.
If you say so, don’t say no one warned you.
I’m not buying any, don’t worry.
But there’s several countries involved in building them and they also have schematics. You’d think at least one would have raised alarms by now if there was truly a kill switch.
The real real kill switch is ALIS access and parts availability. Those two things can ground the planes until a replacement system is developed and parts manufactured.
Why wouldn’t they?
