
The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming - DyslexicAtheist
https://mwi.usma.edu/era-drone-swarm-coming-need-ready/
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torgian
I’ve brought up this eventuality countless times in the past couple of years
(including recently mentioning this in my software company).

I don’t think people are realizing the dangers to minitrization and ease of
manufacturing small drones that could kill people. Either through mini bombs,
or carrying diseases.

What are we doing about it? Seems like we aren’t doing anything

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xrayzerone
Some people are doing things. There's an outfit at DIU (Defense Innovation
Unit) called Rogue Squadron who's job it is to conduct counter-UAS research.

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torgian
I’ll check it out. I’m still trying to find a way we can protect ourselves
though. The best I can come up with is (at home) a droppable net that covers
your windows that has a current running through it. Maybe something similar
for a personal device.

Beyond that, hacking into their WiFi or navigation signals. But how do you do
that?

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nradov
Why do you think someone would try to kill you in your home with a drone? Do
you have a lot of mortal enemies?

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torgian
Same thing has been said about guns. And data collection. And the government
using data to spy on us.

It doesn’t matter if you have mortal enemies, or if you aren’t doing bad
things, or if it matters if the government spies on you.

What matters is that it’s possible. And it’s a very real possibility.

~~~
nradov
All sorts of bad things are _possible_. So what. People with guns could shoot
you through your windows today, but the reality is that almost never happens.
Most firearm deaths in the home are due to suicide or domestic violence.

Watch out, maybe your wife will program a drone to kill you!

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pierrec
I'm surprised there's no mention of the short film "Slaughterbots" on this
exact topic:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&vl=en](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&vl=en)

It's very well done and has an HN vibe to it (with a dark twist, of course).

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nradov
No need to panic. Just because the video has high production values doesn't
mean it's an accurate prediction of the future, or that effective
countermeasures won't be found.

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torgian
I’m gonna have to say I disagree. We are already making tiny drones the size
of bees. And you don’t need that size to make a reliable, one shot bomb to
kill someone.

Anyone with time, a bit of money, and a plan can make a swarm of drones to fly
into a crowd automatically and blow themselves up remotely.

The fact that I hasn’t happened already just surprises me.

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jon_richards
I imagine Bill Gates' mosquito killing laser research is going to become a lot
more popular soon.

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cubano
China is almost wholly dependent upon U.S. citizens for their economic growth
and well-being, so the idea that China is itching to start a hot war with the
U.S. is rather laughable, at least for the near future.

Remember, it's always bad business to kill your customers.

I think by far the more credible threat, of course, is from terrorists
(foreign and perhaps even domestic, as horrific as that seems) and do hope
that the superpowers of the world come up with some defense systems that are
able to mitigate such attacks.

But to be honest...this new military-sponsored "killer robot" world we are
barreling headlong into gives shudders to most sane, peace-loving citizens,
no?

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gyvastis
So on your world map it's only US and China?

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devoply
I would encourage countries like China or Russia to develop cheap mass drone
swarm systems that can deny access to airspace to any adversary. A country
could sell this sort of service for hundreds of billions of dollars to another
country like an insurance policy. Entire wars could be made impossible. It
would be great progress for the world.

~~~
walrus01
anti drone swarm drone: several dozen large-ish sized x8 hexacopters, capable
of 2 hour flight time and carrying a 10kg load, with a gimbal mounted semiauto
12 gauge shotgun + large magazine of birdshot shells.

Drone swarms are possible, sure, but it's also quite possible to miniaturize
existing concepts of antiaircraft missiles and guns, and automate those.

Or build swarms of disposable 2 meter wingspan size drones that can fly above
a drone swarm, and drop chaff consisting of long lengths of fishing line.
Tangle propellers.

Basically something like this, which is a bit smaller than the Zipline drones:

[https://www.banggood.com/Believer-1960mm-Wingspan-EPO-
Portab...](https://www.banggood.com/Believer-1960mm-Wingspan-EPO-Portable-
Aerial-Survey-Aircraft-RC-Airplane-KIT-p-1178800.html?cur_warehouse=CN)

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mlthoughts2018
anti anti drone swarm drone drone swarm: a swarm of those.

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walrus01
or, fly a C-17 sized aircraft at FL400 over the anti-anti-anti-droneswarm and
drop many metric tons of unspooled fine gauge fishing line. More seriously
though, if small drone swarms will be limited in the altitudes that they can
reach (being limited by battery life, not enough motor runtime to ascend to
FL200, travel laterally, and then down to a ground attack again, for
instance), any modern air force that can establish air superiority over a
battlefield... Will have a lot of different options to attack drone swarms
from above.

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btbuildem
Just another step along the way towards this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_\(novel\))

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abledon
“Start learning mandarin _now_ people!” — quote from a guy in my office who is
only learning mandarin because he is sure Chinese will take over world in
coming decade

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stephengillie
Like Japan was supposed to in the 1990s.

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nradov
Sure the concerns over Japan buying up US real estate and driving US companies
out of business seem ridiculous now. But the difference is that at Japan's
economic peak they had only about half the US population, whereas now China
has about four times the current US population. That's a huge difference in
scale.

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stephengillie
I was concerned when Deng was in power, but not anymore. China always seem to
get in their own way.

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KineticLensman
Not mentioned in the article in the context of hardening is the use of
electromagnetic pulse weapons as the basis for anti-drone swarm
countermeasures. You don't need to jam their comms or disrupt their nav or hit
them with shotgun pellets if you can glitch the unhardened control circuitry
of their little motors.

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nradov
Directional, reusable electromagnetic pulse weapons are still science fiction.
Producing any significant EMP today requires a large explosion.

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stephengillie
An EMP wirelessly overvolts circuits, burning them like a blown fuse. What
kind of magnetic field would it take to induce too much current inside an
Arduino?

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nradov
It depends on the range. Due to the inverse square law, it would take a
tremendously powerful magnetic field to induce enough current to damage even
unshielded electronics at more than a few meters away.

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carapace
So this is mostly about drone-based warfare, which is uninteresting in the
limit because nanotech and "Toner". (That's a "Diamond Age" reference.)

The challenge is securely coordinating your swarm so it can be controlled by
you and not suborned by your enemies. _It can 't really be done_, basically
you wind up recapitulating an immune system and that's the best you can do.
I've been thinking about this for years and there's just no way truly be
certain that all your hardware will actually follow _your_ order when the shit
hits the fan.

Anyway, if you have the technology to make drone war then you also have the
technology to make techno-utopia. So the real issue is for us to globally
chill out and be excellent to each other. Otherwise all these machines are
going to be a hazard, not a benefit. (That's a Bladerunner reference. Another
scary tech is realistic beyond-the-Uncanny-Valley androids. Cf.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates)
...or same but small...)

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sanatgersappa
You just have to play some good rock music. See Star Trek Beyond.

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NTDF9
In the very short run, I think China wants to protect itself from what seems
like a very adversarial, unpredictable and unreliable US.

Which automatically makes some military and defense people think how they
could neuter their adversaries.

In this case, the US's biggest strength is the aircraft carriers. No other
country, not even China has those many aircraft carriers.

How does one best neuter slow moving but dangerous targets? The best way is
remotely causing enough damage on the hull that impedes progress.

Why will developing an equivalent swarm not help US in the short run? Because
the China doesn't have such key large targets that the US could neuter. China
literally doesn't have as many ships.

I think this whole uncertainty with Trump presidency is taking really ominous
shape and I hope it's all ok at the end.

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spiritcat
we're so fucked

