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Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

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Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#51

Post by qxcv »

nyellin wrote: post #4

Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us. This seems to be exaggerated. Wouldn't you need a drone on American soil, already right next to the target, in order to crash it by sending falsified GPS coordinates?

You can't control altitude or velocity, either (unless the system uses a GPS altimeter instead of a barometric one), so "potential missile" is indeed a massive exaggeration. To be honest, it would be cheaper, easier and more dangerous for a hypothetical bad guy to buy an actual missile like the Qassam for around $800[0] than it would to try and "hijack" a real UAS.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket

Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#52

Post by MichaelGG »

ricardobeat wrote: post #38
asynchronous13 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primarily because commercial airliners do not use GPS.

Don't they? AFAIK they are used for navigation, they just can't transmit back - but that's set to be implemented in the coming years. Would love to hear more on that.

What do you mean by "can't transmit back"?

Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#53

Post by Jach »

MichaelGG wrote: post #52
ricardobeat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they? AFAIK they are used for navigation, they just can't transmit back - but that's set to be implemented in the coming years. Would love to hear more on that.

What do you mean by "can't transmit back"?

I think he may mean that airliners transmit their GPS coordinates (which I've heard an ordinary citizen can pick up cheaply) but can't receive commands that way.

Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#55

Post by jjwiseman »

Video of spoofing an iPhone's GPS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShRPXkpW1mM

Note that they are able to quite precisely control the spoofed location--there is no hard banking or veering. The phone thinks it's moving smoothly at 40 MPH.

Also note that it is believed that people have already been killed by GPS jamming: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/05/gps-los...

Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#56

Post by lallysingh »

asynchronous13 wrote: post #13

Egads, the news coverage of this is horrible fear mongering. The researchers from UT built a system to protect against GPS spoofing. In order to prove that their protection system works, they had to demonstrate that GPS spoofing is feasible. Without exception, every news item on this only mentions the spoofing part, and not the protection part. Military unmanned systems use encrypted GPS that is not vulnerable to the…

> GPS jamming is so much easier than spoofing and results in the same thing.

If that drone is in a homogenous-looking area, say a desert with litte habitation, it wouldn't be hard to slowly get the drone to a different target than desired, possibly having it think another car or house is its target.

Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#57

Post by ricardobeat »

Jach wrote: post #53
MichaelGG wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "can't transmit back"?

I think he may mean that airliners transmit their GPS coordinates (which I've heard an ordinary citizen can pick up cheaply) but can't receive commands that way.

The exact opposite actually. Apparently airliners, like our mobile phones, can only receive GPS signals to track their own position, but they can't report that back to the control towers - position is calculated from ground radars, which only reach up to 200 miles from shore. That's why the location of AF447 couldn't be pinpointed quickly after the accident, for example, there are only estimates for location while out at sea.

Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#59

Post by rdtsc »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #42
asynchronous13 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, yes it is possible for an autopilot to use dead reckoning for navigation without GPS at all. (we didn't use GPS to navigate to the moon, right?) However, all commercial autopilots that I know of rely on GPS to some degree. The difference is the use of low-cost gyros and accelerometers. They are good enough when augmented with GPS, but not good enough all alone. Edit: the low-cost sensors can be augmented…

State-of-the-art inertial navigation technology has approximately the same precision as state-of-the-art GPS. Even modern run-of-the-mill interferometer-based inertial systems are precise enough for most purposes. The unique value of inertial navigation is that it requires neither receiving nor sending a signal that can be jammed or spoofed, hence why the military uses it for everything.

Extra bonus points : if you get above the cloud cover, can also use constellations to correct accumulated errors.

I heard some Russian ICBMs had a special window so that cameras can see constellations for that purpose.

Re: Drone hijacked by UT hackers with $1,000 spoofer

#60

Post by einhverfr »

asynchronous13 wrote: post #49
jandrewrogers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State-of-the-art inertial navigation technology has approximately the same precision as state-of-the-art GPS. Even modern run-of-the-mill interferometer-based inertial systems are precise enough for most purposes. The unique value of inertial navigation is that it requires neither receiving nor sending a signal that can be jammed or spoofed, hence why the military uses it for everything.

1960's inertial navigation systems have better resolution than today's consumer GPS. The issue is not the technology, it's the cost, size, and weight. The small, light, and low-cost sensors fueling the current wave of UAVs are not the most accurate technology available, but that doesn't mean they aren't useful.

The concern I would have with inertial navigation over long distances is the possibility of drift. You might have good resolution over short distances, but what about hours and hours? What if your vectors are not quite right, or you get drift in your gyros (and LR gyros are prone to drift in certain circumstances)?
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