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Andreessen Horowitz Backs SkySafe, Which Wirelessly Grounds Your Drone

20 points by cpeterso 11y ago

Klasiaster 11y ago
Any details on what they are emitting to disable the drone?
- god_bless_texas 11y ago
  I don't know what these guys are using, but I searched and found an article I remembered from DIY Drones last year. http://madhacker.org/how-to-hijack-a-drone-by-telemetry-and-prevent-it/ http://madhacker.org/how-to-hijack-a-drone-by-telemetry-and-...
- headShrinker 11y ago
  My guess is it's a 2.4Ghz narrow beam jammer. It would likely have little effect on say a 400Mhz receiver. Not to mention it is reliant on a predicable failsafe. What if the failsafe is 100% throttle. It would be pretty easy to make this device useless.
- rasz_pl 11y ago
  not disable, from description it sounds like they recognize protocol/model used, hijack uplink and tell it to land. Trivial to bypass even by a novice with arduino.
datalord 11y ago
These guys have something similar: http://www.department13.com/ http://www.department13.com/ Existing military contracts. Probably similar tech.
- mrpants1 11y ago
  I think one difference though is D13 can take control of the drone, fly it somewhere, and land it.
viperscape 11y ago
So this might not work with totally custom drones, and that's a huge market in done world. They'd have to continually track and build a database of new controllers as they come out. Unless they plan on just saturating the 2.4ghz air waves, is that legal? Any ways, seems kinda unsafe to see the drone fall in disabled mode. Hopefully no one is near by
- god_bless_texas 11y ago
  Yep I was coming here to post something similar. I imagine they are further along than I am assuming. Or maybe they are OK with only being able to protect against a certain percentage of drones out there.
  - rasz_pl 11y ago
    They probably count on clients being clueless or not caring. 'we stop 99% of drones out there by sales volume' might by enough for the same people that buy application firewalls and antivirus software pretending its a sound security strategy.
snsr 11y ago
I'm curious about the legalities of a product like this, FCC and otherwise.
- NickNameNick 11y ago
  It does seem to run straight into the 'harmful interference' part of part 15. I've seen people in previous discussions (mostly around the 'rogue ap containment' feature of some wireless access points) try to argue that only 'dumb' broadband jammers fall afoul of the limitations on jammers, and that 'smart' or protocol aware jammers wouldn't. I don't agree, and based on the ruling against the conference centre that was abusing the AP containment feature of their wifi AP's to block other peoples wifi signals, I'm guessing that the FCC doesn't think so either.
HoopleHead 11y ago
So. What if you disable a drone and it hits someone as it falls?
- falcolas 11y ago
  This is my thought as well. Not all drones (I hate that term, but that ship has sailed) have return to home or even fail safe operations. Imagine, for a moment, someone triggering this while there's a quad racing event going on. All of a sudden, you have between 3 and 5 unguided projectiles following unpredictable paths, usually with spectators present. All of them are also carrying a fairly nasty incendiary device (also known to laymen as a battery), which reacts poorly to being crashed. Or a fly-in, where not only the quads, but all RC aircraft are affected. Some of those move at well over 100mph, and are filled with jet fuel.

20 points by cpeterso 11y ago

Klasiaster 11y ago

Any details on what they are emitting to disable the drone?

god_bless_texas 11y ago
I don't know what these guys are using, but I searched and found an article I remembered from DIY Drones last year. http://madhacker.org/how-to-hijack-a-drone-by-telemetry-and-prevent-it/ http://madhacker.org/how-to-hijack-a-drone-by-telemetry-and-...
headShrinker 11y ago
My guess is it's a 2.4Ghz narrow beam jammer. It would likely have little effect on say a 400Mhz receiver. Not to mention it is reliant on a predicable failsafe. What if the failsafe is 100% throttle. It would be pretty easy to make this device useless.
rasz_pl 11y ago
not disable, from description it sounds like they recognize protocol/model used, hijack uplink and tell it to land. Trivial to bypass even by a novice with arduino.

datalord 11y ago

These guys have something similar: http://www.department13.com/ http://www.department13.com/ Existing military contracts. Probably similar tech.

mrpants1 11y ago
I think one difference though is D13 can take control of the drone, fly it somewhere, and land it.

viperscape 11y ago

So this might not work with totally custom drones, and that's a huge market in done world. They'd have to continually track and build a database of new controllers as they come out. Unless they plan on just saturating the 2.4ghz air waves, is that legal? Any ways, seems kinda unsafe to see the drone fall in disabled mode. Hopefully no one is near by

god_bless_texas 11y ago
Yep I was coming here to post something similar. I imagine they are further along than I am assuming. Or maybe they are OK with only being able to protect against a certain percentage of drones out there.
- rasz_pl 11y ago
  They probably count on clients being clueless or not caring. 'we stop 99% of drones out there by sales volume' might by enough for the same people that buy application firewalls and antivirus software pretending its a sound security strategy.

snsr 11y ago

I'm curious about the legalities of a product like this, FCC and otherwise.

NickNameNick 11y ago
It does seem to run straight into the 'harmful interference' part of part 15. I've seen people in previous discussions (mostly around the 'rogue ap containment' feature of some wireless access points) try to argue that only 'dumb' broadband jammers fall afoul of the limitations on jammers, and that 'smart' or protocol aware jammers wouldn't. I don't agree, and based on the ruling against the conference centre that was abusing the AP containment feature of their wifi AP's to block other peoples wifi signals, I'm guessing that the FCC doesn't think so either.

HoopleHead 11y ago

So. What if you disable a drone and it hits someone as it falls?

falcolas 11y ago
This is my thought as well. Not all drones (I hate that term, but that ship has sailed) have return to home or even fail safe operations. Imagine, for a moment, someone triggering this while there's a quad racing event going on. All of a sudden, you have between 3 and 5 unguided projectiles following unpredictable paths, usually with spectators present. All of them are also carrying a fairly nasty incendiary device (also known to laymen as a battery), which reacts poorly to being crashed. Or a fly-in, where not only the quads, but all RC aircraft are affected. Some of those move at well over 100mph, and are filled with jet fuel.