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How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

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351–360 of 454 posts

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#351
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very interested in the consequences of vigilante applications of this kind of technologies. Imagine a scenario where people start taking out corrupt police officers who have until now been able to terrorize small communities with impunity. It may motivate actual reform in policing because law enforcement will realize that police officers who kill innocent people with no regard for the law are safer in prison than…

You don't need drones to do that.

You need drones to do it in a way that significantly reduces the risk of getting caught.

As it is vigilante action against law enforcement in the west is a sure death sentence and probably life long reprisal against your family once you're dead which is what keeps people in line.

If the development of drone technology significantly reduces the risk of that then you're likely to see many more people respond to violent abuses of authority by law enforcement with vigilante action.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How do you even defend against this in a terrorist use case? When a small drone with a grenade or homemade explosive is so accessible? I can see this from the other perspective. I've read stories for the past 30 years now about police forces and swat teams abusing people, murdering people because someone filled out the address wrong on a warrant, etc. And I wonder, in the coming years, if those sorts of scenarios wi…

Speaking just for myself, I am not currently stockpiling explosive-carrying drones in preparation for an encounter with over-zealous police. Yes, such incidents happen. They could even happen to me. Still, I don't worry about them enough to go to that length. (Nor do I see things ending well for me if I did.)

>Still, I don't worry about them enough

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking just for myself, I am not currently stockpiling explosive-carrying drones in preparation for an encounter with over-zealous police. Yes, such incidents happen. They could even happen to me. Still, I don't worry about them enough to go to that length. (Nor do I see things ending well for me if I did.)

Also, the fear of drones is their offensive use. I'm not sure a cop intending to officer-involved-shooting you for looking vaguely like a shoplifter is going to clearly announce his intentions, then wait for you to dig your weaponized drone out of the trunk of your car, boot it up, and get him with it.

>Also, the fear of drones is their offensive use.

Whatever fear Russians have of drones isn't in their offensive use. They're only being used defensively by Ukraine. Similarly, if you're a jackbooted goon, you might well fear their defensive use as I outlined above. But yeh, you have nothing to fear from the defensive use of drones, because you're not attacking anyone... in the coming years, however, the narrative will likely be twisted so that you do come to fear such people as might use them defensively, because the establishment needs you to despise them.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#354
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The programming can be set-and-forget, meaning operations can be staged months ahead of deployment and make it difficult to find or prevent. This is something I haven't considered before. What's the worst case here? Is it feasible for me to go live on a farm in , buy a fleet of DJI drones at flea markets etc, stick something harmful to them, then hide them in the woods. I can move away, wait a year or two, and then…

In a pre-drone world you can get explosives, divide them into X equal sized packages, add a timer set to the same point in time to each, then travel around the country hiding them in high-traffic areas. Yes, that approach is inferior to the drone version. You have to hide them inconspicuously, and a bomb sniffing dog could find them. But you can visit a lot of places in a single European country or US state within on…

Attentive people would find the bombs. Especially if they're on alert, which everyone who knows about terrorism will be at least to some degree.

Back in the day, if you forgot a bag on a British bus the driver would get it and run after you, so that it wouldn't be a bomb issue taking the whole day.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#355

Drone warfare has always been equal parts distressing (it’s impersonal, it’s too easy to leverage, and therefore too easy to abuse) and incredible (ultra-thin fiber as a kite line? Brilliant!) to me. These advances are no different. That said, I do fret we’re staring down a new age of guerrilla warfare. Drones are cheap, widely available, and increasingly autonomous. Their countermeasures are either impractical for c…

I think drones are fantastic. Why throw good money after bad?

Dutch soldier lives have been ruined because they had to be sent to places like Lebanon and Bosnia. Nobody decent deserves that.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#356
Here is a list of largest volunteer funds at your disposal (military and non-military help):

Come Back Alive ex. These guys delivered first deep-strike drones https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate-en/

Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation ex. Bought a famous spy satellite https://prytulafoundation.org/en

KOLO Charity Foundation managed by UA tech community https://www.koloua.com/en/

Razom Ukraine (US based) https://www.razomforukraine.org/

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#357
post #350
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair enough, is there a way to report these? I looked but tbh I am on mobile and I have a hard time with this media in this medium.

You can flag the comment and/or email hn@ycombinator.com

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#359

Drone warfare has always been equal parts distressing (it’s impersonal, it’s too easy to leverage, and therefore too easy to abuse) and incredible (ultra-thin fiber as a kite line? Brilliant!) to me. These advances are no different. That said, I do fret we’re staring down a new age of guerrilla warfare. Drones are cheap, widely available, and increasingly autonomous. Their countermeasures are either impractical for c…

I'm also fascinated by the political implications on state formation, state size, and form of government.

State formation tends to track the relative military effectiveness of large highly-trained standing armies vs. small distributed arms making. The Roman Empire collapsed when they ran out of money to pay their legions. The smaller tribes and kingdoms of the Early Middle Ages unified into the larger kingdoms of the High Middle Ages as the longbow and mounted knight gave the advantage again to large, highly trained standing armies. These collapsed into the city-states of the Rennaissance because the gunpowder musket rendered all the armor of the knights useless. Then the nation-state took over as mechanized arms and airplanes became military weapons, and needed the resources of a large territory to produce them.

It's likely that the drone, being both cheap to produce, easy to use, and extremely lethal to existing weapon systems, will produce a similar political revolution. And it seems tailor-made for smaller political units: drones can lay waste to an invading army, but they suck at power projection because their range is only ~10-20 miles. Might we see a return to city-states as the primary form of political organization? Maybe all the arguments about whether Russia vs. the U.S. vs. China will come out on top are moot, because the very concept of a nation-state will disintegrate, and instead we'll have Beijing vs. Shanghai vs. Shenzhen vs. Moscow vs. Kiev vs. the Bay Area vs. NYC vs. Washington DC? Drones are also ideal for defending shipping lanes, so perhaps we'll see a loose confederation of economically-bound city-states, but each having their own culture and social laws.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#360

Drone warfare has always been equal parts distressing (it’s impersonal, it’s too easy to leverage, and therefore too easy to abuse) and incredible (ultra-thin fiber as a kite line? Brilliant!) to me. These advances are no different. That said, I do fret we’re staring down a new age of guerrilla warfare. Drones are cheap, widely available, and increasingly autonomous. Their countermeasures are either impractical for c…

are jammers really that expensive? They shouldn't be particularly sophisticated
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