Students Hack Unmanned Drone

[Roboto]

Well this shows the value of wide spread testing before commercial development. A good lesson for any commercial product. Also, lol at the guys who came here trying to make a joke related to FOX news but found an actual okay story.

Truth. Fox News sucks, but when they aren't writing a political centered spiel strawman story, these come along.

I stopped reading at "FedEX Delivery" because that's too awesome to conceive. My new GFX card brought to me by quadrotor!

How would it ring my bell?

 

[Hevva]

Old news, they did this a week ago, and it was on the BBC without the fear content. They DID hypothesize (in the form of quotes), but not to the extent as FOX.

Really Escapist. Can we have the news a little faster? And from more reliable sources? It's not like you are doing research into this, you are copying from another site.

The BBC article, from Friday, quoted the Fox News story as its sole source. Regardless of how we might feel about Fox sometimes, in this case, they broke the story. They got the video footage with the Austin team, they get put as the source. Nothing unreliable about their reporting in this case (as far as I can see, anyhoo). Thanks for your input, though.

 

[ArianaUO321]

Military UAVs aren't protected from this... that drone that went down in Iran months back? That thing was possessed by a guy with no more than $20 worth of equipment.

Furthermore, they've got a lot of nerve to throw around the word "terrorist" with regards to people hacking drones. These drones have no business flying around, spying on citizens anyway, especially not when WE have to pay for it!

 

[Imthatguy]

Military UAVs aren't protected from this... that drone that went down in Iran months back? That thing was possessed by a guy with no more than $20 worth of equipment.

Furthermore, they've got a lot of nerve to throw around the word "terrorist" with regards to people hacking drones. These drones have no business flying around, spying on citizens anyway, especially not when WE have to pay for it!

This poster speaks truth.

I LOVE how they insinuated the 'defanged' UAVs would be coming to a sky near you and THEN suggested a commercial service (YEAH RIGHT). Not sure if clever rouse to incite 'big brother' panic or cover up real potential uses however.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Good for the students. They have done a great service too America protecting our future Domestic drones from Terrorists.

For the record, there is no Sarcasm in this post. I mean this seriously.

That's very sad, seeing as those drones are all made in China. They are already compromised by the secret control chip built into them.

假设直接控制
(Assuming Direct Control)

PS: Google translate for the Chinese.

haha good post, I laughed out loud at that.

OT: Usually I'm interested and all for technology, but no...just no, this could go wrong in just about a bajillion ways, not to mention how easy it would be to not get caught if you control it from a random location. (ever hear of war drivers? kind of like that.)

 

[Formica Archonis]

Fear not citizens. The aerial division of the panopticon is still on track.

Just remember our motto: To constantly watch over you, we need to constantly watch you.

Sleep well.

 

[Nurb]

Anyone concerned about this needs to stop taking pictures with their phones that record exact location and uploading to social websites that contain all personal information that is constantly sold to corporate and government interests for tracking and advertizing purposes.

"private companies are becoming increasingly interested in possible domestic applications for the de-fanged, person-friendly cousins of the military's UAVs"

Yeeeea...

 

[cdstephens]

Good for the students for doing this project, and good for the government for actually listening to them.

As for the danger of these unfanged drones, anything is a potential threat. Banning drones isn't the answer; moderate regulation is a better idea, as there are benefits to using drones for domestic purposes. Make sure they are properly secure, respect people's privacy, and that the companies that decide to use these drones are fully held accountable.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

I feel like the English Parliament is responsible for this.

I was watching the English Parliament talking with Prime Minister Cameron on C-SPAN and I thought it was a parody. They get quite exited.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Interestingly enough, Iran claimed to have done this to an actual military drone a few months back, although the US government denied it, claiming the drone must have just crashed instead.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1215/Exclusive-Iran-hijacked-US-drone-says-Iranian-engineer-Video

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45701847/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/iran-didnt-hack-us-drone-experts-say/#.T_FEErVYt2C

 

[insanelich]

You know its seems that students are always finding out better ways to things than the people trained to them. Maybe we should start sending students to the front line. call it "hands on learning".

If they don't train the students, they will try to make peace and forfeit military goals.

If they do train the students... it'd just be the current situation again, wouldn't it?

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Can't wait to here how this is Obama's Fault...
Still, Fair Play to the Students and I think its about time someone made a RC UAV

Wait... isn't every RC plane a UAV... :/

I was also under the impression that the Military RPAS were protected against that kind of thing. Anti-Jammers exist... Also as GPS was originally made for the military they use a more encrypted, more accurate version than Civvi GPS devices, they also have the ability to just turn the GPS off around the whole world in an instant and restrict it to Military use only.

Also, even if you do 'hack' it under your control with GPS jamming you won't be able to see the video feeds so you would have to be in Line of Sight of the aircraft at all time... A reaper/predator/globalhawk flying at 30,000ft is already practically invisible, and you definately wouldn't be able to accurately fly it...

Military UAVs aren't protected from this... that drone that went down in Iran months back? That thing was possessed by a guy with no more than $20 worth of equipment.

Furthermore, they've got a lot of nerve to throw around the word "terrorist" with regards to people hacking drones. These drones have no business flying around, spying on citizens anyway, especially not when WE have to pay for it!

Wooo... a conspiricy nut! For the record; this is bullshit... They don't spy on civillians and it wasn't taken out by a peasant with a transistor radio... Fact.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

You know its seems that students are always finding out better ways to things than the people trained to them. Maybe we should start sending students to the front line. call it "hands on learning".

If they don't train the students, they will try to make peace and forfeit military goals.

If they do train the students... it'd just be the current situation again, wouldn't it?

The students are very welcome to take the jobs of UAV development or military science... they just tend not to... in fact it annoys me when students are put on some pedastal like this... The people who do develop the UAV's, and work in the industries were students at one point, and most have got masters degrees in the subject. It doesn't prove that the students are more clever, only that a mass of trained people with a lot of resources and no particular focus on their research tend to eventually come up with stuff like this. Working in the industry where you have restraints on what you can research, and which direction to research in limits this!

 

[Albino Boo]

YES, sorry, major DERP, GPS is a passive system... I guess I wasn't really thinking, however how did they then control the drone? the most I thought they could do was spoof its position...

I suspect the drone flies down a preprogrammed flightpath. If you alter where its think it is it will try and correct back to the flight path, thus giving you effective control of hight and direction. My guess is that speed is also calculated by GPS so you could even get control of the throttle.


The easiest way to guard against this attack is to fit an inertial navigation gyro and compare the results. A sudden massive change in GPS position could then be ignored.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm a little disappointed to see the Escapist going along in American 'anything could be used for terrorism' paranoia.

Oh, fine.

"Glorious, we can use this to overthrow our evil librul regime. restore the Constitution and do away with healthcare"

Better?

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Not really. Glonass is not under US military control, and in a few years, Galileo will be ready as well. Especially Galileo will set the new standard as it's far more accurate and sophisticated than GPS. A system capable of switching between the networks can't have its navigation shut down from the network.

Ah, but Glonass and Galileo aren't [Brand Name] GPS. They are a type of GPS, but they are not [brand name] GPS, which is controlled by the US military. Even if the jammer can switch between systems it wouldn't matter if the US or UK (We arn't switching to Galileo either) aircraft is using the Military only GPS.

Also, Galileo isn't more accurate... only the civilian side will be, and coverage will be very limited.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

YES, sorry, major DERP, GPS is a passive system... I guess I wasn't really thinking, however how did they then control the drone? the most I thought they could do was spoof its position...

I suspect the drone flies down a preprogrammed flightpath. If you alter where its think it is it will try and correct back to the flight path, thus giving you effective control of hight and direction. My guess is that speed is also calculated by GPS so you could even get control of the throttle.


The easiest way to guard against this attack is to fit an inertial navigation gyro and compare the results. A sudden massive change in GPS position could then be ignored.

RPAS and UAV's don't just fly on flight paths, they are just remotely piloted. (That's why RPAS is now the preferred acronym instead of UAV.) They do not just fly themselves, that is just a crazy rumour that has somehow spread by nutters who think 9-11 was a lie, and the holocaust didn't happen! :/

RPAS are flown by pilots who sit away from where the aircraft are. They can see through sensors on the aircraft itself, and have a team who help with air traffic and decluttering of the airspace. Large RPAS are piloted at the take off and landing points by a localised ground-pilot, and then control is passed to someone further away for the rest of the flight.

All the jamming did was allow the students to shange it's heading. They didn not get control of any of the sensors of the aircraft so all they had was an aircraft that they could alter it's course in a line-of-sight localised scenario.

I am also confused how this 'actual control' was taken, as they are not auto-piloted, so spoofing it's position shouldn't do anything... sounds like porkies are being spun here...