4 ms·

I was super disappointed after having read about this in books/news for years being referenced as in the spy museum, and finally got a chance to visit (it takes

I was super disappointed after having read about this in books/news for years being referenced as in the spy museum, and finally got a chance to visit (it takes living in DC area to fully experience DC) only to realize it wasn't available for viewing. More on topic, the real discussion this piece of work enables for me is the reduction in the gap of power between the government and the individual citizen due to technology as a force multiplyer. So they used to say the gov was ~10-20 years ahead of the civilians. I think the gov is more like 5 these days. It's corruption has weakened it's effectiveness.

walshemj 9y ago
Makes you wonder about the real state of quatum computing down in the NSA's etal basements where the black systems live.
vidarh 9y ago
> due to technology as a force multiplyer. You get $40 toy drones the size of a hand with HD video today. I keep telling people that interesting things will happen when these shrink enough and get enough flight time for people to decide it's low enough risk to start flying drones into restricted areas and buildings. It'll be increasingly hard to defend against, not least because it's getting cheap enough you're not going to be defending against a handful of enemy states, but against anyone curious enough or with a sufficient grudge and a willingness to take the risk.
- DenisM 9y ago
  I’m expecting drone-hunting drones. Flying around with tiny shotguns or maybe catch nets.
  - harryf 9y ago
    The US Airforce is experimenting with using Falcons - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-05/the-military-is-using-falcons-to-build-a-drone-killer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-05/the-milit... Meanwhile the Police in Holland have abandoned an attempt to use Sea Eagles https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/12/12/16767000/police-netherlands-eagles-rogue-drones https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/20...
  - vidarh 9y ago
    The challenge is the toys are getting so cheap, that it is likely to become highly difficult to do this for a committed adversary. E.g. imagine just overcoming the shotgun or net drones by simply sending in a thousand (or however many) toy drones to deplete your supply of nets first. Of course it'd set off all kind of alarms, but that may in itself make it worth it: How many people can you afford to keep on high alert for $12 [1] disposable drones in case one of them turns out to be something that actually matters. The potential disruptive effect of just toys is becoming massive. Then multiply it by a high factor if adversaries in that swarm of toys hide e.g. a handful with explosives, or a handful of "proper" surveillance drones, so that the cost of not taking out every single one (or even of taking one out in the wrong location) becomes prohibitive. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2-4G-6-Axis-RC-Drone_60693001101.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2-4G-6-Axis-RC-Drone_... - $12 if you order large enough volumes; of course these would not do it - for starters, you'd have no chance to control all of them, and they could be disrupted simply by transmitting enough noise at 2.4GHz. But replace the control of it with some semi-randomized flocking on all of the disposable ones, and cause chaos.
    - DenisM 9y ago
      It cuts both ways though - as attackers can buy more drones for $$ so do the defenders. Superior budget wins every time.
      - vidarh 9y ago
        The problem, though, is that a $12 toy drone won't be able to reliably stop even another $12 toy drone, and you need to be able to stop something much bigger and more sophisticated. Because you won't know if what's coming is harmful or a major security threat. So you might very well look at a $100k drone designed to take out $10k threats being used against a $12 toy because the only way of being sure is to take it out. Now suddenly an adversary able to send 1000x$12 drones for $12k materials cost could conceivably force you to spend $100m on drones for a single facility. The problem with that being that your adversary gets to decide where to attack. That's the nightmare of this: Highly mobile, extremely cheap "attacks" that can be used to massively drive up the needed defense efforts on the off chance that somewhere in a swarm of a 1000 the adversary has hidden a $10k investment in a flying bomb. A superior budget may win, but this can drive up the budget advantage needed before you have an advantage.

walshemj 9y ago

Makes you wonder about the real state of quatum computing down in the NSA's etal basements where the black systems live.

vidarh 9y ago

> due to technology as a force multiplyer. You get $40 toy drones the size of a hand with HD video today. I keep telling people that interesting things will happen when these shrink enough and get enough flight time for people to decide it's low enough risk to start flying drones into restricted areas and buildings. It'll be increasingly hard to defend against, not least because it's getting cheap enough you're not going to be defending against a handful of enemy states, but against anyone curious enough or with a sufficient grudge and a willingness to take the risk.

DenisM 9y ago
I’m expecting drone-hunting drones. Flying around with tiny shotguns or maybe catch nets.
- harryf 9y ago
  The US Airforce is experimenting with using Falcons - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-05/the-military-is-using-falcons-to-build-a-drone-killer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-05/the-milit... Meanwhile the Police in Holland have abandoned an attempt to use Sea Eagles https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/12/12/16767000/police-netherlands-eagles-rogue-drones https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/20...
- vidarh 9y ago
  The challenge is the toys are getting so cheap, that it is likely to become highly difficult to do this for a committed adversary. E.g. imagine just overcoming the shotgun or net drones by simply sending in a thousand (or however many) toy drones to deplete your supply of nets first. Of course it'd set off all kind of alarms, but that may in itself make it worth it: How many people can you afford to keep on high alert for $12 [1] disposable drones in case one of them turns out to be something that actually matters. The potential disruptive effect of just toys is becoming massive. Then multiply it by a high factor if adversaries in that swarm of toys hide e.g. a handful with explosives, or a handful of "proper" surveillance drones, so that the cost of not taking out every single one (or even of taking one out in the wrong location) becomes prohibitive. [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2-4G-6-Axis-RC-Drone_60693001101.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2-4G-6-Axis-RC-Drone_... - $12 if you order large enough volumes; of course these would not do it - for starters, you'd have no chance to control all of them, and they could be disrupted simply by transmitting enough noise at 2.4GHz. But replace the control of it with some semi-randomized flocking on all of the disposable ones, and cause chaos.
  - DenisM 9y ago
    It cuts both ways though - as attackers can buy more drones for $$ so do the defenders. Superior budget wins every time.
    - vidarh 9y ago
      The problem, though, is that a $12 toy drone won't be able to reliably stop even another $12 toy drone, and you need to be able to stop something much bigger and more sophisticated. Because you won't know if what's coming is harmful or a major security threat. So you might very well look at a $100k drone designed to take out $10k threats being used against a $12 toy because the only way of being sure is to take it out. Now suddenly an adversary able to send 1000x$12 drones for $12k materials cost could conceivably force you to spend $100m on drones for a single facility. The problem with that being that your adversary gets to decide where to attack. That's the nightmare of this: Highly mobile, extremely cheap "attacks" that can be used to massively drive up the needed defense efforts on the off chance that somewhere in a swarm of a 1000 the adversary has hidden a $10k investment in a flying bomb. A superior budget may win, but this can drive up the budget advantage needed before you have an advantage.