Domestic Drone Hijacked!

[Tigermike 3,425]

U.S. college students hijack drone

By Kris Sims ,Parliamentary Bureau

First posted: Friday, June 29, 2012 06:27 PM CDT | Updated:

Friday, June 29, 2012 06:35 PM CDT

Undated file photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy shows a RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle conducting tests over Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Erik Hildebrandt/Northrop Grumman/Handout

OTTAWA -- College students in Texas stunned officials when they hijacked a domestic drone with under $1,000 of gear that could be bought at Radio Shack.

With Department of Homeland Security officials watching, the small group of techies from the University of Texas at Austin's Radionavigation Laboratory showed the security experts how to mimic a dummy GPS controller, aim it at the drone and start controlling it. It worked within minutes, and the students had control of the unmanned aircraft.

For a nation that has an exponentially increasing number of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles cruising its skies, the demonstration was sobering.

For privacy watchdogs, the fact that a domestic drone could so easily become a remote controlled missile is only one of myriad concerns over the use of the flying robots.

"This is a concern because they can be taken over, hacked into, what could happen if the controls were ceded?" said Micheal Vonn, policy director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

She warns that the technology is a very powerful tool for the U.S. to watch us.

"We know that surveillance is always introduced in the narrowest possible, most benign form." In Canada, the RCMP in B.C. are using the hovering video cameras to take pictures of car crashes, vowing they won't be used for surveillance, but privacy groups are urging Canadians to be vigilant about their terms of use because privacy laws can change.

Domestic drones are increasingly common in the U.S., and recently some countries and police departments that use them are considering adding tasers and tear gas to the unmanned, constantly watching aircraft.

Earlier this year in North Dakota, police used a predator drone to help storm Rodney Brossart's 3,000-acre farm and arrest him. Brossart allegedly refused to return six cows that had wandered on to his property and is accused of chasing police off of his property with a rifle. He is the first American citizen to be arrested with the help of a drone.

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2012/06/29/us-college-students-hijack-drone?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=recommend-button&utm_campaign=U.S.+college+students+hijack+drone

[TitanTiger 20,708]

Damn.

[cptau 169]

They keep showing pictures of military drones in these stories, but what they brought down with a hack was a non military drone that used a civilian gps receiver that can be fooled with a spoofed gps signal.

The military drones have military grade gps receivers that use an encrypted gps satellite signal channel. That channel might be jamed, but is not spoofable unless the hacker can break the encryption. If a hacker can break that encryption, he's in the wrong business.

There is some speculation that the Iranians brought down a military drone by jamming the encrypted gps channel and that the drone then switched to the unencrypted civilian gps signal. The Iranian's claim they spoofed the civilian gps signal.....

[japantiger 4,077]

If this is possible; the I sure as hell don't want these things used domestically (aside from the other obvious reason I don't want the Fed using surveillance aircraft domestically).

[arnaldoabru 11]

I don't want em using those black helicopters either

[AUloggerhead 2,356]

I don't want em using those black helicopters either

Don't be a racist.

[Tigermike 3,425]

I don't want em using those black helicopters either

Don't be a racist.

He's a lib dem, they are allowed to be racist.

[AURaptor 1,137]

The military drones have military grade gps receivers that use an encrypted gps satellite signal channel. That channel might be jamed, but is not spoofable unless the hacker can break the encryption. If a hacker can break that encryption, he's in the wrong business.

There is some speculation that the Iranians brought down a military drone by jamming the encrypted gps channel and that the drone then switched to the unencrypted civilian gps signal. The Iranian's claim they spoofed the civilian gps signal.....

It was either hacked, or they had help from the inside.

[japantiger 4,077]

I don't want em using those black helicopters either

http://www.aclu.org/...domestic-drones

U.S. law enforcement has been expanding its use of domestic drones for surveillance purposes. This type of routine aerial surveillance in American life would profoundly change the character of public life in the United States. Rules must be put in place to ensure that we can enjoy the benefits of this new technology without bringing us closer to a "surveillance society" in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinized by the authorities. Drone manufacturers are also considering offering police the option of arming these remote-controlled aircraft with (nonlethal for now) weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas.

http://www.aclu.org/...domestic-drones

Ban on Arming Domestic Drones: Let’s Draw a Line in the Sand

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 7:44am

Last week Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and the House of Representatives drew an important line in the sand. Holt offered an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill to bar any DHS funding for “the purchase, operation, or maintenance of armed unmanned aerial vehicles.” (The amendment was adopted and the bill has passed the House.) While moves to arm domestic drones are widely seen as beyond the pale and have not really been contemplated (with the exception of one sheriff in Texas who mused about mounting less-lethal weapons like rubber bullets on unmanned aircraft), we believe it’s crucial to get ahead of any possible trend.

All this from that Conservative Republican bastion...the ACLU.

[cptau 169]

The military drones have military grade gps receivers that use an encrypted gps satellite signal channel. That channel might be jamed, but is not spoofable unless the hacker can break the encryption. If a hacker can break that encryption, he's in the wrong business.

There is some speculation that the Iranians brought down a military drone by jamming the encrypted gps channel and that the drone then switched to the unencrypted civilian gps signal. The Iranian's claim they spoofed the civilian gps signal.....

It was either hacked, or they had help from the inside.

I'd like to hope we set the Iranians up with a honeypot drone to through them off, but probably not. We lose lots of best toys at the worst time and places. We lost part off a stealth helicopter getting ben laden, which the Chicoms got a good look at courtesy of our fake friends in Pakistan.