Ask HN: Anti-drone, anti-surveillance tech for the home?

[CoreSet]

Although it's a somewhat unsolvable program and we should all get used to living in the panopticon, etc, etc, I'm excited by the evolution of possible countermeasures discouraging the sort of nuisance surveillance so many people worried about drones, CCTV, wearables, etc find concerning.

So a simple use case: Someone flies a drone past each of your windows every night looking to film as much of you in compromising positions as possible. Is there any solution that would be feasible to stop this, beyond just blacking out your windows?

This got me thinking about it: http://www.dailydot.com/technology/cyborg-unplug/

[akg_67]

This is actually very interesting and relevant problem. Govt seems to work with manufacturers of drones to create geo-fencing for important locations. But what can average people do to protect themselves from peeping drones? I started to think about this after watching a video of a guy shooting down a drone, flying over his property, with his shotgun. Though video turned out to be a hoax, It got me thinking the ways to prevent peeping drones. Also, in Seattle a drone got entangled with power lines. It cost $30,000 to remove drone from power lines. There seems to be an opportunity for fencing off drones but how?

[olegious]

I hear curtains on your windows may prevent others from looking in....

[fuj → olegious]

Are you crazy? What are you going to suggest next? Blinds?!

[skidoo]

There's all kinds of toys for that:

http://www.signaljammerblockers.com/

[bediger4000 → skidoo]

I bet some of these will get you arrested, if not convicted.

However, they don't seem to sell HERF "guns". Wouldn't the asker's situation be best solved by HERFing a drone out of the sky as it passes his/her windows? "Oh, ooops! A small EMP knocked the drone's controls out? My bad!" Where can I buy a small HERF gun capable of roasting a drone looking in a 2nd floor window, but not so powerful as to destroy my neighbor's electronics across the alley?

[CoreSet → skidoo]

Fun site (the cigarette pack looks nifty)!

So in the use case that I described, for a drone, the drone would get within jamming, lose signal and ... crash? Or do modern UAVs have protocols for losing connection?

[MichaelCrawford]

Make your entire house a faraday cage.

Transparent windows present a challenge but I expect it would work were they partially aluminized.

[CoreSet → MichaelCrawford]

But wouldn't a faraday cage just kill your in-home electronics? How would it affect a remote UAV just buzzing by?

[MichaelCrawford → CoreSet]

You wouldn't receive radio or TV, but you could put antennas on the outside of your house, then use optoisolators to transmit the signal inside.

It wouldn't affect the UAV directly but it would not be able to pick up signals from inside - so it couldn't geolocate your cell phone nor sniff your wifi.