Secret Service Testing Drones, and How to Disrupt Them 66
schwit1 writes with this news from the Associated Press: Mysterious, middle-of-the-night drone flights by the U.S. Secret Service during the next several weeks over parts of Washington — usually off-limits as a strict no-fly zone — are part of secret government testing intended to find ways to interfere with rogue drones or knock them out of the sky, The Associated Press has learned.
A U.S. official briefed on the plans said the Secret Service was testing drones for law enforcement or protection efforts and to look for ways, such as signal jamming, to thwart threats from civilian drones. The drones were being flown between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to publicly discuss the plans. The Secret Service has said details were classified. ... The challenge for the Secret Service is quickly detecting a rogue drone flying near the White House or the president's location, then within moments either hacking it to seize control over its flight or jamming its signal to send it off course or make it crash.
A U.S. official briefed on the plans said the Secret Service was testing drones for law enforcement or protection efforts and to look for ways, such as signal jamming, to thwart threats from civilian drones. The drones were being flown between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to publicly discuss the plans. The Secret Service has said details were classified. ... The challenge for the Secret Service is quickly detecting a rogue drone flying near the White House or the president's location, then within moments either hacking it to seize control over its flight or jamming its signal to send it off course or make it crash.
this genie is out of the bottle (Score:2)
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and flying around...what is your wish, master?
I wish for the Nile.
The solution is obvious (Score:2)
They just need to get their hands on a few ZF-1s.
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They need a Microwave (Score:1)
A friend of mine built a "device" for an event, which was basically a directed microwave cyclotron. He shot it at a staged PC across the room and it crashed. I assume something similar could be done here. The other question, is WHY are they testing it in a populated area with air-space restrictions? You'd think they would do some experimentation in a area where they could protect their classified operation better.
Re:They need a Microwave (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect they've already done all the controlled environment testing they can. As you know, deployment in the field is the ultimate test. Washington is saturated with RF noise, with legitimate transceivers operating on every possible frequency and at varying levels of power. Being able to play "spot the drone amidst the noisy backdrop" is hard enough. Being able to 100% protect the President is something they have to get right the first time, and every time. Responding harshly to too many false positives may also create a nuisance backlash, so they may just be tuning their rejection filters.
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Being able to 100% protect the President is something they have to get right the first time, and every time.
tell that to JFK.
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And Reagan.
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That's not enough. A drone could be flown autonomously using inertial navigation, or even dead reckoning, needing no external RF guidance. They have to be able to bring them down without praying that jamming all RF will work.
On the other hand, hobbyists have had model rockets for 50 years and there's been no rain of home-made ballistic missiles on the White House. Maybe it's just not a big deal.
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Every flight controller I'm aware of requires either a radio frequency connection to a RC controller, or GPS.
Both can be messed with. By building a drone myself, radio interference is a huge issue. A directed 1575mhz signal towards the drone would certainly interfere with its lock on the GPS satellites (my Ublox M8n gets disrupted just from other electronics on the vehicle!). And to knock out flight control, just emit something around 433 mhz, or 2.4ghz towards the craft and that should take it out. Granted
Re:They need a Microwave (Score:4, Funny)
I had a roommate in college that did the exact same thing. We had a noisy neighbor who enjoyed playing garbage like Limp Bizkit (this was in the late 90's IIRC) on his stereo at full blast all day every day. My roommate finally got fed up with it and built a HREF gun out of an old microwave and some sheet-metal for a waveguide. It didn't destroy our neighbors stereo (to my knowledge) but it sure did make it buzz like crazy. I don't think he ever figured out that it was us interfering with his stereo, either.
I'll never forget the first time we turned it on, hearing KEEP ROLLIN ROLLIN ROLLIN *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* from next door. It was a glorious day.
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I'll never forget the first time we turned it on, hearing KEEP ROLLIN ROLLIN ROLLIN *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* from next door. It was a glorious day.
Why would you want to interfere with his Blues Brothers CD?
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A friend of mine built a "device" for an event, which was basically a directed microwave cyclotron. He shot it at a staged PC across the room and it crashed.
a 10 GHz pulsed magnetron will distrupt (unshielded) electronics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two ways they could do this, as far as I can tell:
1. disrupt the onboard electronics to kill the power
2. spoof GPS so the thing goes somewhere totally different
You could do #1 as well by having nets spring up/out - basically have a physical barrier. The question is how would you deploy anything fast enough to catch an incoming drone? Even an energy weapon needs time to find, track, and fire.
#2 is easier, because most drones today use GPS. Just have the white house have a GPS signal that overloads anything the drone has. In fact, they could fuzz DC out of GPS, which would be the safest option.
#2 will cause drones to use an inertial system, which would then be hit with #1.
Really, they need a perimeter of cameras to track any fast moving objects from 1 mile out right down to the white house. That would probably give them enough time to figure out the vectors so they could actually do #1.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Funny)
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#3 Shotgun
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Coincidentally, I just read Wikipedia's article on Unintended Consequences [wikipedia.org]. If your idea #2 ever gets implemented, I think it will make a nice addition to that article, which already includes many interesting examples.
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Maybe they could shift everything 100 feet to the left in case of emergency. Would that work? It probably wouldn't be reliable - it depends on how the drone is using GPS.
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The short version is that altering the position of a GPS signal (multiple signals, actually) in a local area would amount to jamming it with a stronger signal, and other things near the intended area also would see that signal.
That sort of thing might be a good idea in Iran if you're trying to confuse and capture a US military drone [wikipedia.org], but it's not a good idea in any urban area where people are trying to use GPS in the way it's intended - such as a tourist using GPS navigation as part of a friendly drive past
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3. Throw rocks or beanbags or some other kind of projectiles at it.
4. Point frickin' lasers at it, especially if it has a camera.
And #2 assumes that it would use GPS for guidance. If it's a video link to a human operator, it's not going to much. Better yet if the drone has a camera and computer vision using the street grid and buildings as a reference of where it is. After all, you only really need GPS when you're in the middle of nowhere.
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Erh... guiding a flying drone by GPS is heaps easier than developing a pattern matching algo for visual ID.
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#3 -> you have to know it's coming and be able aim/fire at it. How fast can you identify, track, and shoot down something when you don't know what you're looking for and where it's coming from? Plus they'll probably come at night, when it's hard to see.
#4 -> See above.
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2. spoof GPS so the thing goes somewhere totally different.
Right, because there are no other aircraft in the vicinity which might also be using GPS and which could go off course with possibly disastrous results if GPS was sending deliberately inaccurate signals. In other words, this is not an option which makes sense in anything less serious than a literal doomsday scenario.
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Just remember, the Secret Service treats imminent threats to the POTUS as doomsday scenarios. No bat-shit crazy response is completely off the table, regardless of unintended consequences.
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Just wait till the day they have to fire up the antimissle guns on the roof of the Whitehouse. They will cut buildings in half.
A 'bad guy' could trick them into doing all kinds of damage. Perhaps get the Whitehouse guns to smeg the Capital building.
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Jamming only delays the inevitable. A device today can still use dead reckoning to continue its flight without GPS, albeit with less accuracy. From a short distance, it could be good enough. On a windless day it could be good enough over the range of the device. Fast forward a few years, and onboard processing will be good enough to do automated terrain and target recognition.
I think automated drones (flying or otherwise) are the single greatest threat to physical security in the future. They're force
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They are well hidden on the Whitehouse roof.
The next question. How to prevent someone from flying a drone between the WH and the capital building to draw fire?
The real trick (Score:3, Insightful)
The real trick is figuring out a way to find the operator. Knocking a drone out of the sky seems fairly straightforward (trained attack crows, natch) but, except in the case of imminent attack, locating the person flying the drone seems like it would be much more useful for law enforcement.
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That works if there is an operator. Given today's technology that's not really a necessity, it's quite possible to build a poor man's cruise missile... ok, it would be more a GPS-directed model plane bomb, but you get the idea.
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Firing dumb mortars takes rather smart people. At least if they're expected to hit what they should hit. Not quite a quality I'd expect from people who are willing to blow themselves up 'cause their imaginary friend promises them a few whores after they croaked.
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And sometimes the "dumb mortars" are really dumb... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Sharks (Score:2)
My solution is sharks, with freaking lasers!
catch and (maybe) release (Score:3)
Next.
And this is surprising how. (Score:2)
I know some how America needs to protect itself so the average citizen feels secure enough to live their own lives. However you don't want the government who we put in charge to protect us, to evaluate new risks, and how to deal with them.
12 gauge shotgun (Score:2)
Seriously.
We Knew This Was Coming (Score:4, Insightful)
After that drunk crashed his hobby-class UAV on the White House lawn, the hue and cry from the SS and the TLA's went up as predicted.
"We must have $xM and uncontrolled executive powers to combat the clear and present existential threat posed by $40 toys!"
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I'm actually pretty amazed that there hasn't been a legit drone attack inside the US yet. You can easily make a quadcopter carry a couple pounds of arbitrary stuff, and I'm sure someone even marginally creative could do some very bad things with a couple pounds of aerially delivered whatever.
I do think that manually piloted drones are the least concern here. Fully autonomous is the way of the future, commercially.
Also I have a strong suspicion that various TLAs are keeping a very close eye on drone hobbyi
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Probably some sort of jamming system. But I'm surprised they chose to test this in Washington DC instead of out at some remote military base. What happens if their EMP weapon accidently wipes the e-mail servers at the State Department?
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What happens if their EMP weapon accidently wipes the e-mail servers at the State Department?
No problem, the State Department e-mails are going through the Secretary's private server.
Great, matches my project (Score:2)
to thwart threats from government drones. Care to compare results?
Next up ... (Score:2)
... secretly tossing rookie agents across the White House fence to test for breach detection systems.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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Americans are probably the only people in the world who would actually welcome an armed invasion so we could swap the first person shooter video games with some real excitement and family fun. And the Palestinian apartheid is the result of the male ego driven Arab psychosis brought to fruition by getting the snot kicked out of them by Israel back in 1948.It was the equivalent of the Bahamas successfully holding off the entire us Military and then successfully counter invading the US to claim ownership of th
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I disagree.
Yes, there will always be some chance of a successful attack, but I think it is wise to expend effort to make attacks very difficult. I don't want my president's decisions to be guided by fears for his personal safety. Similarly, I don't want people to avoid becoming president for that reason. Otherwise, those who would threaten the president's safety influence policy. It is hard to conceive of a worse way to make policy, and I am glad that John Wilkes Booth and those who followed him have no
Fishing for Mod Points... (Score:3)
I added a few tens of yards to my old Popeil Pocket Fisherman along with a 1-ounce sinker. I am fairly accurate with the PPF, and I can regularly knock out those small helicopter RC/drones from maybe 30 feet away, and can do as good as 60 feet. And that is with them hovering, not really moving. My kids have a bunch from ages ago and we have destroyed 3 this way, and knocked many out of the sky. Again, you have have to be fairly close. I really like it because you can reel it in and nobody ever knows what happened. And, you can always stop by the the stream on the way home and catch a tasty bass for dinner.
They'd better. (Score:2)
Worlds Smallest "Iron Dome" System (Score:1)