h a l f b a k e r yExpensive, difficult, slightly dangerous, not particularly effective... I'm on a roll.
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There's a lot of concern about terrorists wanting to load
drones with explosives and attack public events. Shooting
them down presents obvious problems in that having a
lot
of bullets flying around a highly populated event poses
its
own hazards. Plus if you've ever watched V1 attack
footage
from WW2, you'll see that at least some get through.
My proposal is to have events patrolled by hunter killer
drones that can drop a very lightweight net that will
tangle
itself in the blades of the attacking drone and drop it
from
the sky.
The design of the mesh would be such that there are one
way airflaps that are open when the net is trailing
behind
the hunter killer drone. When the net wraps around the
attacking drone these flaps would close blocking the
airflow to the fans so even if there was a cage around
them to prevent tangling of the net, the drone would
still
lose airflow and drop from the sky.
These nets would be very lightweight and one patrolling
hunter killer drone would be able to drop several attack
drones without having to do much aiming other than just
flying slightly above and into the path of the target to
ensnare it in the very
large net it's trailing. It would then unfurl another and
go
after the next target.
No need for precise aiming, carrying of heavy
ammunition
and targeting systems other than a binocular camera
system to assist in ranging the target. No bullets or
explosive missiles being let loose over the crowd of
thousand of people you're trying to protect.
The sight of a half dozen of these patrolling big events
would
probably be enough to discourage any attack and the cost
would be minimal. A dozen of these things shouldn't cost
more than the price of a police patrol car. They could
also patrol events on the ground as well as threats from
the sky.
I think I'll suggest this to the team who's working on this
problem. I read about in in the news this week and their
current solutions are looking problematic.
Military exercise Black Dart to tackle nightmare drone scenario
http://nypost.com/2...are-drone-scenario/
[doctorremulac3, Jul 26 2015]
Robot sniper
http://www.gizmag.c...t-gun-turret/17198/
Something like this would be great vs drones [bungston, Jul 30 2015]
I expected this to exist, but wasn't aware of it. Why isn't ISIL churning these out on a production line?
https://en.wikipedi...ronment_Switchblade
Nothing here you couldn't make for under $500 with parts from hobbyking.com (except the warhead) [Custardguts, Aug 03 2015]
They're doing it
https://www.youtube...watch?v=-vknRo7aLhc
[doctorremulac3, Dec 11 2015]
Bird of prey training to take out drones.
http://www.msn.com/...t-drones/vi-BBoZmcx
[scad mientist, Feb 03 2016]
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Well, you may be right, but I was thinking that a cage
around the fan blades might thwart this. Something that
actually shut down the airflow would be pretty impossible
to guard against I would think. |
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Hey, whose side are you on? Don't give them ideas! LOL. |
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I had also thought about just ramming the thing, but then
again, you get into having to be pretty precise. Here you've
got say a 10 foot by 10 foot net that would be pretty hard
to escape no matter how deft you are on the remote
control of that attack drone. |
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Drones will soon be fitted with net-cutters mounted outside of their spherical cages. |
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//Drones will soon be fitted with net-cutters mounted
outside of their spherical cages.// |
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Cutting a net without tangling the saw in wouldn't be
easy. Unless you're holding the net taught, which you're
not in this case, it just gets bunched up in the saw. |
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I was thinking you could even have 4 vehicles on 4 corners
of an even bigger net that would be able to sweep large
areas several square yards wide. The only way to counter
this would be to send hundreds of drones up and even
then you're not guaranteed to get through. With those
kind of numbers you're quickly getting away from small
group attacks using off the shelf technology, which is the
big threat here. |
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I just don't understand why we're all of a sudden scared of multicopter drones. You could easily gin up a much more dangerous "guided bomb" drone using RC wing aircraft tech. Longer range, faster, higher lift capacity, cheaper. All the newer(ish) tech like FPV cameras, telemetry, autopilots, etc are fully transferrable. |
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Your HK drone wouldn't be able to catch up to a 8ft ducted fan powered flying wing drone carrying say 2kg of HE and ball bearings. |
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The net-cutter is not a saw, it's a case-hardened cutting blade and anvil fired by an explosive charge, like an aeroplane-wing-mounted barrage-balloon-cable cutter |
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Sounds pretty complicated. How do you blow up a
net without blowing up the aircraft carrying the
charge? We're getting into designing shape charges
and adding several pounds of weight that would not
work with present off the shelf stuff. |
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The threat that the authorities see, and I agree with
them, is somebody taking an off the shelf drone and
putting explosives on it. Cheap and easy. The bad
guys don't need to be rocket scientists to cause death
and mayhem. |
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This works until somebody buys or creates a look-alike to impersonate the net drones. |
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Since you're close enough to deploy a net, how about a directed microwave beam to fry the circuits? |
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Too dependent upon operator skill. |
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Howabout just a random flyover by something guaranteed to kick up some wind every so often? |
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If you had a net/entangling/disabling device inside of a
guided bomb that would be more effective. A 10X10 net
is cool but a gust of wind could send it tumbling down like
a ball of yarn missing the target. |
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If you could lock on to the Drone's frequency you could
have the guided bomb track it, fly into the rotors with a
small explosion and unleash a tangling/disabling
net/goo/disabling device to drop the copter to the
ground. |
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I also really like the idea of using a massive fan to
disperse them. If you've ever seen somebody fly a drone
you can attest that a gust of wind can really send them
tumbling. |
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What about those big vortex guns that were a trendy xmas gift some years back? I would think they could come back now r/c drones and helis are on the gift circuit. |
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Blimps. Terrorists are terrified of blimps. You could have a ring of blimps with the net strung between them down to ground level. |
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I guess the terrorists would attack the blimps. But that way noone gets hurt. |
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Really this should just be opened up to the populace. Drone on drone warfare at all public events. Lots of passionate vigilantes would fly their own drones around, looking for terror drones to attach. Blimps too would be welcome. Maybe even those stunt kites! |
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It's probably not realistic to protect against
terrorist drones. |
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If not a football game or rugby match, then a
street full of rush-hour commuters. If not that, an
open-air concert. If not that, a holiday beach. If
not that, a school playground. |
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There is also the possibility of using drones for
more selective murder. What better way to
murder someone than by using a mass-produced
drone with a remotely-operated handgun? |
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No, you can't protect everything all the time, but
some places, some events could be protected. Better
some than none no? |
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Suppose you're some towel-head who has just
finished loading
a drone with 1kg of explosive and 1kg of ball-
bearings. You
start looking around for somewhere to play. |
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Your drone has the ability to kill or maim 50% of
people within
a 30m radius, so all you need is a dense crowd at
least as big
as that. |
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You know that the next major-league baseball
game (or
whatever you people have there) is going to be
heavily
monitored and protected. So, you instead consider
any of the
other 150,000 possible targets. |
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Net benefit of protecting the baseball game: zero. |
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Point being: there is no effective protection
against terrorism. |
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Well, I'd say the net benefit of protecting the
baseball game to the people at that baseball game
would be lots and lots though. |
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I don't like throwing laws and regulations at every
little problem but I have no problem with
government restrictions on drones in certain places
basically saying if you see a drone in a particular area
that isn't sending the correct IFF signal out it can be
downed on the spot. I have no need to fly drones
over crowds to exercise my rights to free fly objects
over big crowds. I'm not aware of any protection in
the constitution for that right. |
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Yes, but then in 3000 years you'll have a nation
populated by baseball fans. |
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It is to be deplored that the original meaning of
"terrific" has not been restored in the current
climate. |
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ter·rif·ic
təˈrifik/Submit
adjective
1.
of great size, amount, or intensity.
"there was a terrific bang"
synonyms: tremendous, huge, massive, enormous,
gigantic, colossal, mighty, great, prodigious,
formidable, monstrous, sizable, considerable; More
informal
extremely good; excellent.
"it's been such a terrific day"
synonyms: marvelous, wonderful, sensational,
outstanding, great, superb, excellent, first-rate,
first-class, dazzling, out of this world, breathtaking; |
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2.
archaic:
causing terror. |
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Well well, you're quite the word slinger there Max. I
never knew that. |
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I always wanted a pet terrapin, but my parents protested. They said they were too terrotorial. I got a tortoise instead, called terry. He ran away. |
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You made me shed a salty terr. |
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I was hearing about how Steven Hawking and his crew are worried about autnomous killer bots, and the radio article referred to Korean robot snipers. And I thought What a great thing to put on the roof for keeping drones out of the city! Probably also large birds. You would not need too many bullets to down a drone. You just need to be ready in a second when it suddenly shows up and then be able to hit it. No probo for robo here. |
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//I was hearing about how Steven Hawking and his
crew
are worried about autonomous killer bots// |
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Sorry Hawking you big dummy, autonomous kill-bots,
while romantic and cool are nowhere as much of a
threat
to humanity as grandpa's good old fashion hydrogen
bombs. I'll reserve my sleepless nights for worrying
about
those. |
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Let's just look at a few square yards of hydrogen
bomb
verses a few square yards of killbot swarm because
this is
about logistics, what's the most effective method of
killing as many people as possible in the shortest
amount
of time. Best method wins the top slot of being
something
to stay up at night to worry about. |
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Time for a killbot swarm several square yards in size
to
wipe out a large cityof say, 5 million people:
Assuming
the residents of city aren't shooting back, and
everybody
is leaving their windows and doors open. Several
weeks
maybe? |
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Time for a thermonuclear bomb of the same mass to
wipe
out that same population: A second or two. |
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There's nothing magical about killbots. They're not
carrying
any special weaponry, they just don't sleep, although
they do have power requirements, they're not
running on
black magic. They are also no killbots on the design
board
that are un-stoppable. For starters, their worst
enemy
will probably be counter killbots. |
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If some nefarious group is intent on wiping out
humanity, nukes are the way to go. Quick, cheap, off
the
shelf
technology that gets the job done today. You start
going
the killbot route you've got a logistical nightmare.
They're
going to have to come from self sustaining factories
that are
hardened against nukes. They're also going to have to
be
developed in some kind of vacuum where nobody
takes
notice and starts developing counter measures.
They're
going to have to get through old fashioned kinetic
weapons defense, no small task, and remember, the
counter
measures will be automated as well, and there WILL
be
counter measures. |
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The science fiction "Skynet" scenario is having all
command and control ceded to a computer that goes
nuts Hal 9000 style just isn't going to happen because
there's no reason for anybody to do that and there's
especially no incentive for a group to program these
killbots to kill everybody on both sides, including
themselves. Nobody's
done that with nukes, why would they do that with
killbots? If somebody is smart enough to create a
weapons system that can wipe out humanity they're
going to be smart enough to not flip the switch to
"Oh, yea, and when you're done killing them, kill me
too." |
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So if you really need to worry about something, worry
about Russian nuclear missiles manned by underpaid
vodka swilling drunks working with antiquated and
poorly
maintained equipment. |
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And besides, how do we know that's really Stephen
Hawking speaking anyway? |
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//If some nefarious group is intent on wiping out
humanity, nukes are
the way to go. Quick, cheap, off the shelf
technology that gets the job
done today.// |
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Not quite. Nuclear bombs are not all that easy to
make - I tried for a
whole afternoon and - nada. Even Iran doesn't
seem to have managed
it. So, it's going to be tricky for a terrorist
organisation such as
Moronic State to put one together. They haven't
the resources to build
one from scratch, and it's doubtful (not impossible)
that they could buy
the components. So, nuclear warheads are really
only for large rogue
states. Of course there are some of those, but we
know where most of
them are. |
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In contrast, it is possible - this very afternoon - for
some 15 year-old
kid to lash up an off-the-shelf drone, some neat
software, and an
AK47. Then he just has to drive to some field a
mile away from a big
crowd and let the thing go with instructions to
head to a given position
and fire at anything human-shaped. No, you won't
wipe out a city, but
it would be very easy and very cheap to kill maybe
a hundred people. |
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But then, I guess Hawking was talking about
sophisticated killer robots developed and owned by
the military. I don't see them as so much of an
issue, because they're unlikely to be asked do
anything that couldn't be done by humans anyway.
There will be software glitches that kill the wrong
people, but that happens in war anyway. |
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Well Max, nobody is more a-scrared of drones that
me, that's the whole point of this post. I'm just saying
that if we're looking at end of the world stuff,
autonomous killbots (friggin' spellcheck keeps trying
to change that to kilobytes) are a lot of work
compared to nukes. |
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For small scale terrorist attacks, yea. Off the shelf
stuff with a lone rat at the controls is the stuff of
nightmares. Pretty tough to guard against. |
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And please, let's call them "lone rats" not "lone
wolves". |
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//a lone rat at the controls// Point is that they
don't even need to be at the controls. |
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I'm just thinking about how easy this would be to
do, if I (for instance) wanted to kill 10-100 people
at random. |
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So, I buy a decent photography drone for cash.
Whatever other electronics I need I can get from
Maplin for cash. If I need to download software, I
do so anonymously at a public library. I still need a
firearm, which is a problem in the UK. So, I'd go
for the simpler option of a home-made explosive
and ballbearings. |
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Overall, I think that if I wanted to, I could kill a
reasonable number of people and get away with it,
within 2 months. Which is a scary thought. |
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what about defending against trained bomber pigeons? |
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See link for the sort of thing you've got to be planning to defend against. I think you've got Buckley's. |
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Rocs, trained to attack anything emitting a certain range of sound signatures. |
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Actually, now you mention it, birds of prey would be
ideal. They can be trained, and could out-maneuver
any quadcopter. It would be nice to see falconry
resurge. |
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Propellers can sting, even injure: so armoured and jet assisted... of course kamikaze pigeons would be cheaper. |
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Falcons are smart enough to learn which bits to
attack. A quadcopter with a thrashing buzzard
perched on top of it, ripping out its electronics, is
not going to get very far. |
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For nighttime operations, an owl would do the job. I
can confirm from personal experience that they are
mean and evil animals with extremely sharp talons. |
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//Actually, now you mention it, birds of prey would
be ideal. They can be trained, and could out-
maneuver any quadcopter. It would be nice to see
falconry resurge.// |
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They're doing it in Tokyo. See link. |
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That is cool video. I clicked on it thinking it would be trained crows taking out drones which would have been even cooler. |
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Hey, could happen. Crows are very smart social birds. |
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Hey [Max], someone was listening to your ideas about birds
of prey. See link. |
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After this Gatwick airport thing, it's time for the
anti drone drones, whether the net
method of attack or something else. |
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Drones are simply the modern incarnation of
fighter bombers and the solution is modification of
the same things we've used against those for three
quarters of a century. |
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Anti aircraft guns and missiles and interceptor
aircraft, in this case modified air to air combat
drones. |
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The good news is these things are much easier to
take down than a DO 17 and the guidance
technology has advanced a lot since we first
started tracking aerial attacks with reverse
megaphones. |
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And I hate to say it, it's time for aircraft
manufacturers to start quietly re-enforcing new
airliners against frontal impact. They've considered
this in their designs to deal with birds, it's just
time to make the leading edge structures a bit
tougher, mainly the windshields. I know there'll be
weight issues but there's also issues with a lone nut
being able to take down a multimillion dollar
aircraft with hundreds of lives at stake with an off
the shelf toy. |
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Impact on the airframe is not a problem. Windscreen, fuselage, wings, even leading edge high-lift devices like slats, already cope perfectly well with impacts from large birds. Drones are much lighter and more frangible. |
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The critical threat is to the engine core. |
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I was going to point out a flaw with that evaluation but I'm
not going to post any ideas for modifications that make
drones more dangerous. |
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Not that I have any idea what I'm talking about right now... but couldn't radio signals just be jammed around major events? |
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Or better yet, would you be able to seize control of a drone by using a more powerful emitter and scrolling through frequencies until the right one is found? |
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No to both of the above; or rather, that only works for the majority of off the shelf kit. |
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The issues is that, despite all the fuss, the current problem is mischievous rather than malicious. What you have is some idiot with a toy, doing something stupid and running away laughing. Flying a drone over an airfield in daylight, where it can be easily spotted, is "ineffective". It's extremely unlikely that there's any real intent to damage an aircraft, just cause inconvenience. |
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It's the difference between painting "ROMANES ITE DOMUM" on a wall, and unbolting the stretcher bar on a set of railway points. Neither require much equipment or intelligence, and are incredibly difficult to prevent, but one is irritating, and the other kills lots of people. |
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But if the attack were truly malicious, which isn't much harder to do, then it's a LOT worse. Only the technology is the same. |
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To cheer you up, there are more things coming down the pipeline that will make errant drones seem mild by comparison. |
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I should get back to work on my EMP vortex ring ball-lightning generator then. |
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That would be wise; then you can get both sides in a bidding war, and drive the price up. |
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<gets on the ouija board to a certain N.Tesla...dammit
where's that Serbian dictionary> |
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Don't worry, he spent a lot of his life in America, so there's a chance he may be able to speak and understand a little English. |
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Assuming that all airports have radar capable of detecting
drones, the only real threat (to airports) is disruption. In
which case, the solution shirley is to have a system of
cripplingly large fines for offenders, plus an effective way of
pinpointing who's controlling the drone. Ah, wait, I see the
flaw there. |
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Did they recover the actual drone that was troubling Gatwick? |
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You know, lasers might be the thing here. Never very
promising for IBMs but for little targets like this? |
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So I haven't been following it, but the latest I've heard about
Gatwick is that the police weren't sure there was a drone at all,
and then they realized there was a drone, but it belonged to
them. |
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// I'm not going to post any ideas for modifications that make
drones more dangerous. // |
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If we can think of such things, so can terrorists, right? Wouldn't it
be better if it was us? That way we (and the professionals) can
come up with counter-ideas. |
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// You know, lasers might be the thing here. Never very
promising for IBMs but for little targets like this? // |
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Thermate grenades are usually enough for computers. If you
can't get right up to them, EMP? |
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Shirley, the most pleasing way would be to 'Let my
armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in
the sky'* stylee. |
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Go get a duff drone, put in on a long stick. Waggle it
about near the runway, wait until the security drone
turns up. |
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Hack it, then you can make the drone into it's own
evil twin-brother. Doing despicable acts like taking
all the loo paper out of planes doing long-haul flight,
etc. |
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* Not Charly Main apparently |
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