
Pentagon Confronts a New Threat from ISIS: Exploding Drones - hindsightbias
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/middleeast/iraq-drones-isis.html?_r=0
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BinaryIdiot
I can't say I'm surprised I'm only shocked they didn't really prepare for the
eventuality. A small vehicle that can travel in 3 dimensions can easily carry
explosives and other weaponery. It's only a matter of time before this is
common place and with the ability to throw a drone out of your backpack and
send it flying it's going to get worse.

I always remember FPSRussia's drone [1] and I'm surprised they haven't made
these in mass over there.

[1] [https://youtu.be/SNPJMk2fgJU](https://youtu.be/SNPJMk2fgJU)

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msane
_I can 't say I'm surprised I'm only shocked they didn't really prepare for
the eventuality._

One of the countermeasures we can expect is "persistent aerial surveillance"
(airship based eye-in-the-sky platforms), which are semi-secret platforms
being used in battlefields by the US currently. I wonder how rapidly one of
these systems can detect an unknown drone in the air.

Amazed you believed the FPSRussia video.

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vinchuco
Now I'm curious of the physics involved, how do you keep a drone from spinning
out of balance after shooting?

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dogma1138
It's CGI it's part of the promotion for one of the COD games.

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vinchuco
So...?

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nojvek
After reading "unmanned: illusion of perfect war", it seems American military
has more drones than all countries combined. American drones have killed quite
a lot of civilians. While I don't like war, it was about time someone gave US
a taste of their own curry.

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M_Grey
It's one of those things that outrages everyone, until they get the same
capability, and then is utterly adopted. We do a lot of things wrong, mostly
to do with overuse of our assets, but there is nothing inherently wrong with
drones.

Our policy of using them so freely on the other hand...

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cyberferret
Or, to flip the viewpoint around 180, "Drone strikes are a safe, low risk, low
cost and legitimate method of snuffing out the lives of people we believe and
supporting, funding, training, or harbouring people who mean to do us harm
with absolute impunity and no consideration for the justice system."

...until the 'other guys' start doing the same. Then it becomes a heinous,
unfair act of terror.

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M_Grey
Exactly... perspective dominates all.

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azinman2
It was only a short matter of time...

Now imagine what happens when drones with explosives/guns/chemical weapons
start flying into sports stadiums, concert halls, etc in unpredictable swarms.

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dogma1138
You had RC planes and helicopters for well ever, quads are no different.

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TaylorAlexander
But quads _are_ different.

Quads take less skill to operate, because they hover and are self-stabilizing.
Also first person video hardware did not exist in the past, so finding a
target is much easier.

It's easier than ever to fly several kilos of something somewhere a few
hundred meters away.

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dogma1138
I had FPV setup for my heli in 1998-1999.

Helis were also stabilized with gyros.

If an 8 year old can learn to fly in an afternoon a determined attacker can do
so also, lets stop pretending that barrier to entry is a thing for people who
strap 20kg of PETN and ball bearings to their chests.

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TaylorAlexander
What if the determined attacker is just funding the attack, and needs low
skilled labor to perform the ground work?

And how much did your FPV unit cost? Certainly today they are cheaper and far
better than they were in 1998?

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dogma1138
Not that expensive overall cheaper than say a modern DJI.

As for the better you'd be surprised but the only thing that has improved
really is the camera.

FPV is still transmitted today in the same analog manner as it always was.

As for the skill required, it's still the same level of skill if you are
planning such an attack you'll train the drones executing it regardless if you
are using a quad or an 1986 RC plane.

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ryoshu
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Decision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Decision)
\- modern warfare

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caffeinewriter
I've been meaning to read Kill Decision for quite some time. Daniel Suarez has
some really unique perspectives using near-future fiction. Daemon and Freedom™
were fascinating glimpses into the potential of the future of modern day
technology.

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BinaryIdiot
Kill Decision was fantastic. Not as good as the Daemon series in my opinion
but anyone who liked that series will not be disappointed with Kill Decision.

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ChuckMcM
It has been obvious to some for years that small quad/hexa-copters with POV
capability is the hellfire missile of an insurgency. We've talked about it
here on HN lots of times.

However, as it is true with many ideas, there is the idea and there is the
execution of that idea. Now that there are confirmed uses of this sort of
system in the field I expect much more energy in finding ways to mitigate
them. On the plus side it is easier to destroy/disable a drone than root out a
sniper's nest, on the down side it is really hard to defend soft targets from
pop-up deployments of them.

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doe88
Just recently 2 french special forces commandos and their local handlers have
also been targeted by this new kind of attack [1] (in french).

[1] [http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-
orient/article/2016/10/11/irak-...](http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-
orient/article/2016/10/11/irak-deux-commandos-francais-gravement-blesses-a-
erbil-par-un-drone-piege_5011751_3218.html?xtmc=irak&xtcr=1)

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microcolonel
That long range beam forming microwave weapon (DEW?) they were working on
could probably do the trick. It'll be a pain to have to monitor for this crap
though.

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Spooky23
No need. There are automated machine guns that use microphones to
automatically do counter-sniper fire. I'd imagine a platform like that will
emerge to counter this threat.

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microcolonel
The problem is with missing all the time. With the DEW, your ordinance
intercepts at the speed of light, and covers lots of area down range. With
machine guns, you have a 1/many chance of hitting the thing any given second.

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atarian
So the elephant in the room.. what steps will governments take to prevent a
domestic attack?

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noonespecial
There's already a small, really fast drone that's just packed with explosives
in wide use today. They do suck at steering though.

Of course its an RPG.

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mordant
Another term for 'exploding drones' is 'cruise missiles'.

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logicallee
People, this is so much bigger an issue than anyone is giving it credit for.
This is huge. Without exception every American three letter agency, and
others, are _completely_ dropping the ball by not giving this faaaaaaaaaaar
more weight than anyone is giving it. Literally there is this tiny little
wall, it looks like this >< and it's like 0.5 mm wide, and the only thing
separating one side from the other (safety versus a complete disaster) is the
fact that it takes some intelligence to play with drones and terrorists are by
definition dumb (since it means they have not even understood enlightenment
philosophy, that you can disagree with someone but defend to the death their
right to say or believe differently from you - a 250-300 year old advancement
in civilization.) That's it. This is not a wall that you can count on
remaining up, as drones become turnkey easy to use automated solutions.
Agencies need to act on this _now_ because they will not be able to put the
genie back in the bottle. This is really, really serious.

EDIT: I've been downvoted, but I don't think drone software has any backdoors,
safeguards, or even registration requirements, and I don't think drone
manufacturers even vaguely consider that they might be making what could be
part of munitions, or give a second thought to completing an order to a war
zone or to anyone, except of course unless there is some kind of general
embargo or difficulty (that applies to every class of products.) I think it's
being left too free, to be honest, and the possibilities that will unfold
naturally are not going to be well. I strongly advise agencies to put in the
necessary legal and technical safeguards today, not when it is too late. Other
posters point out that this stuff might apply "just as well" to model
airplanes -- but I personally don't think this is true at all. A model
airplane won't fly to a specific user-supplied location unattended. it's a
different beast entirely and it's not being handled with enough seriousness,
in my personal opinion. I don't know that much about drones though. (Just flew
a small cheap model helicopter toy, like a $20 one. I'm basing this based on
general reading.) I stand by my comment.

