Live data from Hacker News

How to Hide from a Drone

theconversation.com

81–90 of 121 posts

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#81

The idea that we all live as future fugitives now seems like something worth changing. If your plan is to hide, does it really matter how well? The best way to defeat drones is to engage in culture and policy making, and to vote. The next best way is to use RF to triangulate their C2 location and either jam it or destroy it. "Hide." Kids today, no valour.

I have no faith in what my vote can do in regards to things like this.

Paying attention doesn't do much. If the government wants to pass something, especially in the name of national security, it will get passed.

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#82
post #12

> It’s smart to avoid using wireless devices like mobile phones or GPS systems, since they have digital signatures... Could someone explain how a GPS receiver (especially one which doesn't utilize DGPS of any sorts) would have any sort of digital signature which could be measured from a drone?

There's a few ways to detect radio receivers, some of them based on listening for incidentally radiated intermediate frequencies (which have to be a multiple of the received frequency) from the amplifier in the receiver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van It would be a heck of a trick to detect a GPS receiver that way, though. Probably be easier just to listen for the RF noise from the switching regulator…

Most of the methods listed there were listening for the EM of the TV being on, not the reciever antenna. Technically, it sounds like they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between pirated TV and watching a movie on the VCR.

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#83
post #2

"Stand over broken glass"? "Keep an umbrella handy"? Really?

The umbrella tip seems to have been adopted in Hong Kong.

There's also this great sci fi flick Empty Metal[0] where they hide their identities from drones using umbrellas

[0] https://letterboxd.com/film/empty-metal/

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#84

The idea that we all live as future fugitives now seems like something worth changing. If your plan is to hide, does it really matter how well? The best way to defeat drones is to engage in culture and policy making, and to vote. The next best way is to use RF to triangulate their C2 location and either jam it or destroy it. "Hide." Kids today, no valour.

> The next best way is to use RF to triangulate their C2 location and either jam it or destroy it. That doesn't do jack when the drone is autonomous.

If it's autonomous you can skip the triangulation step. The drone and C2 are co-located.

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) Having a large blinking marker draw attention to your area would already be highly noticeable. b) that IR LED would have to be extremely powerful to overwhelm a camera that is looking at a larger area

You could send something like the macrovision signal that hinders the automatic exposure correction.

The Macrovision signal was an out-of-image voltage change during the blanking interval. AGC circuits in VCRs that used the blanking interval to set the gain would be thrown off by it. So unfortunately it is not something that can be displayed meaningfully in visible light.

But, maybe you could find a different flaw in the exposure control. If not, you'll just have to be really bright.

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that most militaries have satellites with radars that can penetrate most ceilings to see planes in hangars etc. Most militaries also have access to some high orbit satellites that have 24x7 coverage of an area, and then some low orbit satellites which fly overhead every few hours and can grab high res shots. The combination makes it very hard to sneak a secret plane from one building to another between orbit…

You're going to have to define "most" I'm pretty sure "no" militaries have 24/7 coverage of any area on the planet.

Geostationary weather satellites have 24/7 coverage with low resolution. It's inconceivable that there isn't a single military with higher resolution 24/7 coverage.

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#87
post #2

"Stand over broken glass"? "Keep an umbrella handy"? Really?

Here's a video of some rioters using umbrellas as cover to mask their approach and launch an attack on police. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1VdhQbfSTY&feature=youtu.be Seems pretty effective on the ground, but the drone footage shows what they're actually up to.

Start at 2:30 - very interesting - although perhaps mostly to do with ground surveillance?

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#88

The idea that we all live as future fugitives now seems like something worth changing. If your plan is to hide, does it really matter how well? The best way to defeat drones is to engage in culture and policy making, and to vote. The next best way is to use RF to triangulate their C2 location and either jam it or destroy it. "Hide." Kids today, no valour.

I have no faith in what my vote can do in regards to things like this. Paying attention doesn't do much. If the government wants to pass something, especially in the name of national security, it will get passed.

Then what? If you can't vote to get the change that you want, what's the alternative? Violent revolution and hoping that the new boss is better than the old boss?

I'm so tired of this kind of useless cynicism. Voting matters, especially at the local level. You can get involved in your party at local levels, too. How do you think all these politicians get into the political class to begin with, in free societies?

Or should we overthrow our democratically elected government, because you believe cynically there's no point in voting, they're going to do whatever they want anyway, and install a dictatorship or Party and hope that we get a benevolent one?

Or are you suggesting that the Socialist Utopia is right around the bend, if we all just give up on voting and... I don't know, what's the point of your comment?

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no faith in what my vote can do in regards to things like this. Paying attention doesn't do much. If the government wants to pass something, especially in the name of national security, it will get passed.

Then what? If you can't vote to get the change that you want, what's the alternative? Violent revolution and hoping that the new boss is better than the old boss? I'm so tired of this kind of useless cynicism. Voting matters, especially at the local level. You can get involved in your party at local levels, too. How do you think all these politicians get into the political class to begin with, in free societies? Or s…

I think that I see a lot of “convenient delusions” posted.

Here’s my current theory...

I think people want to be seen as virtuous. Stuff is bad. People want positive change. Either they don’t know what to do or making change is too hard. So they say that change is impossible.

Based on the really high rates of obesity, I think more people know what to do, but it’s hard, and they don’t do it. I know what I should do (eat less, exercise) but I don’t.

Re: How to Hide from a Drone

#90
I think a better approach for these asymmetrical power scenarios is to come up with ways to very cheaply and anonymously destroy drones.

The approaches in this article seem like they would be quickly developed around. The visual cues only work temporarily until the software gets retrained and it’s dangerous to test if the drones are using updates to defeat the anti-AI t-shirts and whatnot.

Drones are pretty expensive (few thousand). So if they can be destroyed for $1, that’s probably the only way to really stop them.

Slingshots and shotguns are probably too easy to use and get away with it. But maybe some cheap drone, autonomous, that just flies into the expensive drones and crashes them.

Post reply on HN