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German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

arstechnica.com

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Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#31

Post by venomsnake »

stephengillie wrote: post #19
bsullivan01 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinetic energy might be enough to do some serious harm. Or imagine putting a knife in front and via! But they'll probably buy larger drones, take out some parts /weight and replace it with c4.

I'd never thought of stabbing someone with a drone. How much pressure does it take to puncture the average human's skin? How fast can a quadcopter fly? How much does a steak knife weigh? We can build the future weapons of war...

Less than you think unless you hit a rib or bone. But if you are really nasty just put pressure operated container that fires a poison into the body http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella style. Depending on the payload they won't save him even if he is in ER the moment he gets shot.

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#32

Post by Ygg2 »

marvin wrote: post #24
bsullivan01 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Spray them with water or vegetable oil. And what happens when the Prez, PM or Pope is at a rally and 10+ UAVs at the size of small birds start buzzing around? Remember, they are people around, even the sniper has to worry about what his bullet will hit next.

The best, and soon only, good defense against terrorism is a society where people don't want to become terrorists. You guys are thinking in completely wrong terms by worrying about countermeasures. You could create 10 grenade-wielding UAVs, set them for a pre-programmed course above the crowd, out of reach of everyone, and set them off almost immediately. Water cannons, oil cannons or any other countermeasure would b…

Shame on you sir, for living in advance society, that deals rationally when confronted with a statistically insignificant event of high emotional impact. Shame!!!

On an unrelated note, where can I get your citizenship?

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#33

Post by sfjailbird »

philipp-de wrote: post #5
angersock wrote: post #4

Oh great, a lot of fear-mongering about to happen. We honestly can't defend against all of these things--might as well simply try to structure society to be resilient in the face of inevitable attacks, and try not to make such things desirable to anybody even remotely sane.

No fear mongering going on here. As i wrote earlier, the incident wasn't discussed in terms of being a threat in the german media. Also, the pilot of the drone was only briefly arrested for disturbing the rally and released hours later by the police. After conducting an examination of the drone, the police concluded that it posed no threat. case closed.

Just read the linked article. Talk of deploying ground-to-air missile systems or gun turrets against drones at public events, etc. You can be sure the billion dollar defense contractor industry is salivating at the 'threat' and will spend the money to make us all believe in it.

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#34

Post by pi-rat »

bsullivan01 wrote: post #12
stephengillie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know quadcopters are very sensitive to weight, and a 10oz (285g) quadcopter could probably not carry more than a 1oz (28g) payload. How destructive is 1oz (28g) of C4? I want to see the destructive potential of a quantity of C4 graphed against its weight.

Kinetic energy might be enough to do some serious harm. Or imagine putting a knife in front and via! But they'll probably buy larger drones, take out some parts /weight and replace it with c4.

You don't even need a knife, you already have several of them - spinning. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2413231/Roman-Piroze... - "... was pulling a stunt with the chopper at a Brooklyn park Thursday afternoon when he lost control and the RC device flew into his head. The blades sliced off a piece of his skull and slashed his throat."

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#35

Post by noonespecial »

Drones are sensational but a deer rifle with a scope is going to be a much bigger threat for a long time to come. RC planes were available in '63 but I doubt Lee Harvey Oswald considered one of those.

You can stop "drones" like these with a simple net if they really become a problem.

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#36

Post by Derbasti »

It is really depressing that we live in a society where our first instinct is to think "what would happen if someone strapped a bomb to that".

In contrast, in Germany this wass a prank, and only about surveillance. And the police let the guy go after a short interrogation.

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#37

Post by devx »

noonespecial wrote: post #35

Drones are sensational but a deer rifle with a scope is going to be a much bigger threat for a long time to come. RC planes were available in '63 but I doubt Lee Harvey Oswald considered one of those. You can stop "drones" like these with a simple net if they really become a problem.

You're thinking short term. DARPA was already testing drones that can see who you are from 1.8 KM above.

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#38

Post by roel_v »

plaguuuuuu wrote: post #7

lol @ the countermeasures being high tech lasers. Spray them with water or vegetable oil. Water is easiest - just use a high pressure hose to knock them out of the sky / potentially break flight-critical components. Oil requires some special equipment but would presumably ruin the propellers/rotors.

The threat is not in a single one of them, the threat is in drone swarms. We (as in: the general public, I'm quite sure secluded labs have working prototypes) don't have the technical details figured out, but in 5 years, it will be possible for a swarm of 100's of these things to appear out of nowhere (from backpacks, rooftops, garbage cans, sewer drains) and, blitzkrieg style, overwhelm even largish targets within minutes. It will take very sophisticated counter measure technology to correctly identify, isolate and attack a sufficiently large part of such a swarm; technology that will not be available at the time motivated amateurs will be able to deploy such weapons.

These are interesting times to live in, indeed.

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#39

Post by anonymous »

gojomo wrote: post #29

The blog Marginal Revolution considered the question a few months ago: "What is the political equilibrium when insect-sized drone assassins are available?" http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/wha... Adapting my comment from there: One possibility is that in the future, high-status (and thus also high-office) can only be safely held by pseudonymous cryptographic identities that can’t be linked to…

This will bring new meaning to the "we are legion" motto.

Re: German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

#40

Post by Luc »

roel_v wrote: post #38
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #7

lol @ the countermeasures being high tech lasers. Spray them with water or vegetable oil. Water is easiest - just use a high pressure hose to knock them out of the sky / potentially break flight-critical components. Oil requires some special equipment but would presumably ruin the propellers/rotors.

The threat is not in a single one of them, the threat is in drone swarms. We (as in: the general public, I'm quite sure secluded labs have working prototypes) don't have the technical details figured out, but in 5 years, it will be possible for a swarm of 100's of these things to appear out of nowhere (from backpacks, rooftops, garbage cans, sewer drains) and, blitzkrieg style, overwhelm even largish targets within m…

Aw, come on. I've got an inanimate bar of tungsten on my desk that's more dangerous than a hypothetical drone swarm. 'Overwhelm largish targets', what, like people are 'overwhelmed' by flocks of pigeons?

You're just in love with the technology.

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