How to hide from killer drones • Hacker News Board

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#131

Post by Narishma » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 11:34 PM UTC

projektfu wrote: post #91

dkresge wrote: post #90

If only it was simple rage bait. As a member of this thing we call "civilization" I can't help but wonder how the hell we got to this point. #rhetorical

Very few voices were complaining about flying killer robots in and around the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and more and more people seem comfortable with the status quo. I guess things like fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles led the way. The future is Skynet.

Like with many issues, people will only complain when it affects them directly. And by then it's usually too late to do anything about it.

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#132

Post by armenarmen » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 11:37 PM UTC

Think we're at a point where you could make a 2A argument for jammers

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#133

Post by matheusmoreira » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 11:39 PM UTC

gattr wrote: post #113

Remember the "Black Mirror" episode "Metalhead"? (If not, check it out, no spoilers here.) I'm afraid we'll see something like this in the not-too-distant future. Now, a squad of soldiers, or even just one experienced rifleman, would prob. dispatch of such a threat quickly. But against (at most poorly armed) civilians it would be an all too effective terror/area denial weapon.

Love that episode. The relentlessness of those drones is terrifying. I hope we civilians will have countermeasures against robots like those when the time comes...

Another interesting piece of fiction: Horizon Zero Dawn. AI robots armed to the teeth, fueled by biomass, capable of reproduction via onboard factories. They had to reset the planet.

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#134

Post by YZF » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 11:41 PM UTC

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #130

girvo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/CombatFootage will show that even with strong explosive payloads the modern quads used by Ukraine are surprisingly mobile. They’re incredibly quick and manoeuvrable still, much to my surprise. I do not actually suggest watching those videos, they are NSFL.

There’s a pretty big gulf between “very quick” and “capable of dodging air bursting autocannon rounds without sacrificing forward momentum”. Incidentally, modern drone footage is actually not nearly as bad as stuff from earlier in the war. Increased lethality of the FPVs means much fewer conscripts deciding to take a 5.45mm retirement plan.

Right. There is no way a drone can dodge a stream of bullets. They essentially arrive instantaneously at the drone from its perspective. A bullet from these flies at 1km/s and there are a lot of bullets. The bigger problem is getting a good lock on the drone but if you can track it any AA cannon will turn it into mashed drone.

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#135

Post by mapmeld » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 12:00 AM UTC

haunter wrote: post #33

You don't /r/CombatFootage (NSFL)

I have seen a few Ukrainian drone videos that cross over onto regular subreddits, and this subreddit is far more graphic. Do not take this 'NSFL' lightly.

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#136

Post by paulnpace » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 12:02 AM UTC

iFire wrote: post #103

> https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/quadrf-can-spot-drone... You can't hide from drones. Attach quadrf to your drone and now you can see through walls.

Anything active eliminates stealth.

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#137

Post by TacticalCoder » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 12:08 AM UTC

mynegation wrote: post #101

delichon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disco or death? It's not an easy choice. Which Bee Gees song is optimal? Does it help if I wear a leisure suit? Is the coke optional?

Stayin’ Alive - obviously

Upvoted: I love it when the old /. spirit lives on HN!

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#138

Post by fragmede » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 12:33 AM UTC

delichon wrote: post #65

atoav wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until drones deploy counter-blinkenlights. As someone who has built a realtime people tracker art installation in a disco: Stroboscopes are highly effective at confusing these models.

Disco or death? It's not an easy choice. Which Bee Gees song is optimal? Does it help if I wear a leisure suit? Is the coke optional?

According to the fine article, a zebra patterned suit is recommended.

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#139

Post by yogthos » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 12:49 AM UTC

esseph wrote: post #70

yogthos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the drone is going on a one way trip, I imagine you'd want to use the cheapest hardware possible which would mean using the dumbest model you can get away with.

Your drone needs to be cheaper than what you're killing, so if your target profile is 50k+ USD and up, a $10000 even is fine (not that it would need to be even 10k).

That's obviously not the only metric. The cheaper the drones are, and the less resources they need the more of them you can produce as a result. This is why cheaper weapons that can be produced at scale tend to be most effective.

Re: How to hide from killer drones

#140

Post by axus » Sun, Jul 12, 2026, 12:52 AM UTC

throwitaway222 wrote: post #126

ezekiel68 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not all killer drones run any kind of transformer model so...

Also "Civilian LLMs" use something on the order of 8 H200s, where a drone is effectively using a phone CPU from 2005.

what about the fiber-optic/Starlink line