DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights • Hacker News Board

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#21

Post by dba7dba » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:22 AM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #7

Am I the only one getting heebie-jeebies over the prospect of drones being used for purposes of terrorism? It sounds like these guys (in the article) are just jack-asses but it doesn't seem hard to imagine bad actors doing quite a bit worse. I'm also scared of the prospect that autonomous drones might be considerably harder to stop and/or catch the perpetrators before or afterwards. It also seems likely that this wil…

Out of Syria, there is video clip of a drone dropping a small grenade, which explodes near the open hatch of a tank. This killed or severely wounded the commander of the tank whose upper body was exposed as he was trying to scan the surrounding area. A small drone worth a few hundred bucks and some home made mechanism for dropping a grenade effectively took a main battle tank out of action.

The grenade drop was pretty lucky but these drones definitely are being explored actively by all sides for use in armed conflict.

It seems a lot of ground based measures are being explored but imho, we will see drones with small guns/nets/missiles that will be used to hunt other drones. It often comes to this. Tank is often the best countermeasure against another tank. And a jet fighter against another jet fighter.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#22

Post by glangdale » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:27 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #17

glangdale wrote: post #7

Am I the only one getting heebie-jeebies over the prospect of drones being used for purposes of terrorism? It sounds like these guys (in the article) are just jack-asses but it doesn't seem hard to imagine bad actors doing quite a bit worse. I'm also scared of the prospect that autonomous drones might be considerably harder to stop and/or catch the perpetrators before or afterwards. It also seems likely that this wil…

It doesn't seem like much of a threat at the margin, given how easy it is to get much more practical and effective weapons like firearms and automobiles. For a relatively sophisticated group that needs aerial reconnaissance, drones certainly slash costs, but for actual terrorist attacks on citizen targets I'm not particularly worried.

Sure, there are already all sorts of ways for some fruitcake to attack and kill a number of civilians. However, what disturbs me about the citizen target scenario that it expands the scope (locations and timing) of what can be targeted and reduces the requirement that the attacker has to be willing to accept a near-certainty of death or capture during the attack.

If someone wants to drive a truck through a farmers market or the like, it's pretty hard to stop them. What worries me is that this sort of technology allows that someone to instead to choose to attack something like a concert, public rally or political event with a greater symbolic significance despite a (2D) police perimeter, fences, bollards, etc. It may not increase the casualty risk but it may certainly increase the "theater" potential (which has traditionally been a big part of terrorism - witness the fixation of airports/airlines).

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#23

Post by dzhiurgis » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:31 AM UTC

_coldfire wrote: post #18

nullnilvoid wrote: post #6

> Let’s not forget that DJI has software which limits the abilities of the drones based on the pilot’s location. For example, DJI has established that airports are no-fly zones. However, there are some ways that drone pilots can bypass this measure and fly without restriction from DJI. DJI is going really far on this. They already have pre-installed software which restricts drones in no-fly zones. Even more, they are…

Signal-jacking and gps spoofing is the only cost-efficient and scalable way to bring these things down. The word gun really mangles the reality of counter-drone solutions

I don't think it's very viable around aiports.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#24

Post by refresh99 » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:35 AM UTC

When people start getting jail time for flying in restricted airspace the events will drop. Idiots pointing laser pointers at aircraft used to be pretty common until people started landing in jail because of it. Trying to say drones need transponders and such is non-starter because the same people who will be so ignorant to warrant them wouldn't bother to spend the money on one in the first place and follow those regs.

Once a few people get the book thrown at them word will spread and people will start using their brains a bit more before they take off.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#25

Post by cyberferret » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:38 AM UTC

nullnilvoid wrote: post #6

> Let’s not forget that DJI has software which limits the abilities of the drones based on the pilot’s location. For example, DJI has established that airports are no-fly zones. However, there are some ways that drone pilots can bypass this measure and fly without restriction from DJI. DJI is going really far on this. They already have pre-installed software which restricts drones in no-fly zones. Even more, they are…

I don't know - the idea of someone who has done a week's "security training" running around all that expensive, critical ground and airborne communications & navigation equipment with a weapon capable of blasting out EMP signals makes me more than a little nervous...

No matter how expensive the "gun" is, you cannot really direct an EMP wave and restrict it like a traditional borescope weapon. All it will take is for someone firing it across an ILS transmitter array at a drone on the other side, and the airport loses their Cat II landing capability just as the airport gets socked in.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#26

Post by est » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:39 AM UTC

zkms wrote: post #19

The solution is simple: allow low-power ADS-B to be radiated from drones and encourage/require its use: see http://www.uavionix.com/blog/the-case-for-low-power-ads-b/ Add a penalty for flying anywhere that could interfere any sort of crewed aircraft operations (including airports and flight paths, of course) without an operational and registered ADS-B transceiver. You fly next to big iron, you broadcast and listen to…

The Chengdu case DJI was facing was something totally different. I try my best to describe

1. the so called "drone" was witnessed by pilots from 1km away with bare eye. DJI products were very tiny and I doubt pilots could see that.

2. Yesterday evening it was raining and pretty dark outside, there's still a "drone" interrupting airport.

3. Lots of online speculation say it's not as simple as "DJI drone accident". It's rumoured there was a responder onboard the unknown drone.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#27

Post by zkms » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:52 AM UTC

knz wrote: post #15

nullnilvoid wrote: post #6

> Let’s not forget that DJI has software which limits the abilities of the drones based on the pilot’s location. For example, DJI has established that airports are no-fly zones. However, there are some ways that drone pilots can bypass this measure and fly without restriction from DJI. DJI is going really far on this. They already have pre-installed software which restricts drones in no-fly zones. Even more, they are…

> I heard that there are some special electrical guns which can shoot down drones. It might be useful to deploy these in no-fly zones. The issue is scale. These guns can likely be deployed for big events etc but how do you effectively protect the airspace around airports, powerplants, or other critical infrastructure with such devices?

> how do you effectively protect the airspace around airports, powerplants, or other critical infrastructure with such devices?

Use cameras, acoustic sensors, and RF receivers to detect a drone's presence, and use a phased array antenna to shit some appropriate jamming signals in its general direction.

Your local electronic warfare military contractor should be able to set you up with all the equipment you need for such a system.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#28

Post by astrodust » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:54 AM UTC

Drones are nothing of not noisy, and that noise is unlike almost any other piece of machinery.

It shouldn't be too hard to set up towers around the airport with sensitive speakers that can triangulate the location of a drone flying within a restricted area. From that point it can sound an alarm and/or deploy counter-measures.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#29

Post by astrodust » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:54 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #4

ohashi wrote: post #3

Is this a problem just in China or what about airports around the world?

Some fool flew a drone just prior to embarkation at Schiphol airport a while ago right in front of the terminal building. Drone confiscated, fined on the spot. https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2017/maart/20/11-dronevlieger-... He still made his plane.

Doesn't help that they often sell drones in airport stores.

Re: DJI Puts $145K Bounty on the Drone Pilots Who Were Disrupting Flights

#30

Post by bitmapbrother » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 6:05 AM UTC

Good on DJI, but China should be instilling fear on anyone who even thinks about doing this in the future. I can only imagine the penalty they would impose for causing a crash that took lives.