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Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

blogs.reuters.com

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Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

codeduck wrote: post #17
TeMPOraL wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including eyeballs. Using high-power lasers in crowded area seems even more dangerous than bullets - the latter at least don't reflect off surfaces.

No, but they follow ballistic trajectories and can ricochet. A laser is at least predictable, and given that most drones would fly above ground level for visibility, it would take a very unlucky reflection to injure someone on the ground. A bullet is going to come down somewhere.

I didn't do the math here, but my intuition tells me that as lasers scatter, if you point a 1MW beam at a rough surface, you'll have a lot of high-power reflections in every direction - even a laser pointer reflecting off a wall is annoying for the eyes. I'd love someone more knowledgable about high-powered lasers to chime in here.

Anyway, neither of those two options seem safe for drones flying just above people's heads. Maybe microwave lasers would be better? Also low-powered visible-light lasers could be enough to blind sensors and force the drone to rely on dead reckoning while not risking eye damage.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#32

Post by engendered »

guscost wrote: post #30

Not to get all libertarian, but this reminds me of the gun control debate. What this person seems to be most worried about (a drone attack) would necessarily be the work of a criminal. But what this person seems to be endorsing (a law restricting civilian drone use) would mostly limit the freedom of those who follow the law. It's very silly and a bit disappointing.

a law restricting civilian drone use

Was this submission originally linked to something else? The submission talks about jamming and techniques to shoot down drones. I coincidentally mentioned on here yesterday the business opportunities around anti-drone technology-

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8998369

None of this has anything to do with banning drones. Several comments thus far have fearmongered a worry that the article doesn't even remotely claim.

EDIT: While I know that commenting on moderation is verboten, and seldom beneficial, the moderation in this discussion are embarrassing. Fear-mongering hysterics of the actual worst kind, incapable of discussing actual changes without rhetoric and propaganda. Though now I see this was flagged to the fourth page, unseen by normal rational people.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#33

Post by engendered »

MereInterest wrote: post #5

From the title, I thought that the article was going to be about the rise of the surveillance state, and how monitoring/tracking drones would be the next battleground in the War on Privacy. Instead, we get a fearmongering article that stops one step short of suggesting that civilian drone ownership be banned.

Isn't your post a better example of fearmongering? The article says absolutely nothing about banning, or even regulations or laws, beyond those that apply to jamming (e.g. anti-drone).

Drones are and will increasingly be used for criminal enterprise. Being rational about how that changes things seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do, just as personal backpack helicopters would probably lead to a rapid rise in robberies where someone escapes via their helicopter, necessitating the appropriate change in capture techniques.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#34

Post by guscost »

engendered wrote: post #32
guscost wrote: post #30

Not to get all libertarian, but this reminds me of the gun control debate. What this person seems to be most worried about (a drone attack) would necessarily be the work of a criminal. But what this person seems to be endorsing (a law restricting civilian drone use) would mostly limit the freedom of those who follow the law. It's very silly and a bit disappointing.

a law restricting civilian drone use Was this submission originally linked to something else? The submission talks about jamming and techniques to shoot down drones. I coincidentally mentioned on here yesterday the business opportunities around anti-drone technology- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8998369 None of this has anything to do with banning drones. Several comments thus far have fearmongered a worry th…

A restriction does not necessarily mean a ban. From the article:

> For the recreational pilot who loses control of his machine, better firmware can keep it from hovering over prohibited areas like the White House.

Now of course it's hard to argue that a special blacklist for programmable GPS does not make some sense. But this kind of agenda always starts out at the fringes. What I'm saying is that even the mild rhetoric at this stage is troubling, because I have a pretty good idea where it's headed.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#35

Post by murbard2 »

guscost wrote: post #34
engendered wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a law restricting civilian drone use Was this submission originally linked to something else? The submission talks about jamming and techniques to shoot down drones. I coincidentally mentioned on here yesterday the business opportunities around anti-drone technology- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8998369 None of this has anything to do with banning drones. Several comments thus far have fearmongered a worry th…

A restriction does not necessarily mean a ban. From the article: > For the recreational pilot who loses control of his machine, better firmware can keep it from hovering over prohibited areas like the White House. Now of course it's hard to argue that a special blacklist for programmable GPS does not make some sense. But this kind of agenda always starts out at the fringes. What I'm saying is that even the mild rheto…

It is not a sensible idea.

First of, people will be able to go around your DRM by patching the firmware, or spoofing the data coming from the GPS.

Second, your proposal would require the GPS to be always on. Not every drone needs a GPS, and not every drone needs the battery drain of using a GPS all the time.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#36

Post by engendered »

guscost wrote: post #34
engendered wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a law restricting civilian drone use Was this submission originally linked to something else? The submission talks about jamming and techniques to shoot down drones. I coincidentally mentioned on here yesterday the business opportunities around anti-drone technology- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8998369 None of this has anything to do with banning drones. Several comments thus far have fearmongered a worry th…

A restriction does not necessarily mean a ban. From the article: > For the recreational pilot who loses control of his machine, better firmware can keep it from hovering over prohibited areas like the White House. Now of course it's hard to argue that a special blacklist for programmable GPS does not make some sense. But this kind of agenda always starts out at the fringes. What I'm saying is that even the mild rheto…

The author was clearly discussing the recent events regarding the drone that went over the White House. For normal buyers of drones, and for drone companies, such "blacklists" make sense because it protects the drone operator. Right now if you fly your drone over the White House, an airport, and so on, you -- the operator -- are taking significant legal risks. DJI and other companies know that their average user doesn't want that, hence the "blacklist". But it (flying in restricted areas) remains against the law, and a serious risk, whether your drone complies with it or not. The author of the piece seemed to talk about that from a "normal device" perspective.

But of course everyone knows that such a list would do nothing against a real criminal who would override such functionality. It isn't really clever for anyone to point that out, and it's reacting in advance to a non-law or regulation, but hysterically responding to a company trying to ensure that their customers don't accidentally get in trouble with the law.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#37

Post by dingaling »

pjc50 wrote: post #28

Doesn't even require explosives. It's more like the laser pointer threat to aircraft; all it needs is for someone to fly a reasonably solid drone into a jet engine on takeoff to achieve a major air disaster. This has come close to happening by accident at least once (drone near Heathrow).

> to fly a reasonably solid drone into a jet engine on takeoff to achieve a major air disaster

Any modern turbine engine can swallow vast quantities ice without much of an issue. I think the baseline is in the region of 500 kilos of ice in 1 minute. A small commercial drone won't make much of an impact to an engine that can fly through a hailstorm without burping.

Edit: the abuse a modern engine endures for certification:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTKfFxwpbUU

And if it did, any commercial aircraft certificated since the late 1940s will survive an engine failure on take-off, and continue to climb.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#38

Post by marcosdumay »

alkonaut wrote: post #4

It's not hard to imagine cheap(ish) long range autonomous drones that can't be jammed. Such a drone can't communicate or coordinate attacks in flight, but a mere timer or location trigger can still make an attack pretty exact. The technology is sufficiently cheap and available off the shelf today that even a moderately skilled person could assemble an autonomous drone that carries a small bomb and detonates it at a s…

There are communication channels that can't be jammed in practice (eg. color and shape codes). The drone does not need to be completely mute and uncordianted.

The way to avoid this kind of attack is the same way people has been avoiding for ages somebody hiding a bomb with a clock at the target. It's done by police investigation and arresting the people as soon as they start making bombs. Helped by the fact that most people that want to do something like that are too stupid not to blow themselves while trying, this has been good enough for a long time.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#39

Post by ecocentrik »

"The American public largely hates domestic use of drones, and only 3 percent are “very likely” to buy one this year, according to a recent Reuters American Insights poll."

Huh? Hate is a very strong word for a technology that the "public" planned to showcase during a big collage football game but was shut down by the FAA. http://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michiga...

I have no doubt that the FAA, "hates" the domestic use of drones but the public keeps finding tons of incredible uses for them, which seems to be complicating the security issue. The security issue is clear, even if you could jam the whole frequency spectrum how do you deal with possibly disrupting emergency medical care, package delivery, surveillance... This article grossly oversimplifies the security issue. Garbage.

Re: Why we should worry about domestic drones and how to bring them down

#40

Post by acd »

I'm sure jamming Wifi and GPS will have fun effects on drones as is jamming common frequencies for radio controllers at 72Mhz will also have fun effects of crashed drones.

Not sure if this is possible but actually if you make a broad frequency listener with software controlled radio then you can try and just jam all local heard frequencies with a stronger noise signal.

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