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Is it unreasonable for small drones to be tracked? It's way too easy to get footage of private property or through otherwise obscured windows with drones. Regu

Is it unreasonable for small drones to be tracked? It's way too easy to get footage of private property or through otherwise obscured windows with drones. Regulation doesn't have to be unreasonable.

jb775 6y ago
There's already legislation in place requiring that drones over 250g be registered with the FAA. They're also in the process of drafting legislation that would require drone pilots to sync flights in real time via internet connection. This is controversial however since many drone flights take place outside of internet connected areas (very remote areas, middle of national park, etc). The response from the drone community is that drones themselves should be required to broadcast a wifi network, so nearby planes/helicopters can be alerted when there's a drone nearby. So there's definitely regulation in the works, but the drone community is primarily worried they will be squeezed out in favor of commercial drone interests. An interesting thing to point out is that the DJI mavic mini only weighs 249g (designed this way on purpose), making it a exempt from these regulations but still extremely capable (have had one for a few months now).
anitil 6y ago
I work in this field. There's two components to this. There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering. The second is to track them in the sky. DJI has a product AeroScope that tracks their drones, my company has a competing product (this isn't a plug so won't mention the name). The issue with this is you need hardware to do it, or use existing hardware. This is expensive, so only really feasible for specific assets (pipelines, corrections and sports facilities etc).
- bigiain 6y ago
  > There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering. From where I'm, sitting, I can see one drone which can readily be "tracked via the manufacturer" (A DJI Spark). There are two more which came assembled - from random AliExpress (or maybe GearBest) vendors, which have nothing resembling a serial number nor any way to "phone home" to the manufacturer. There are another 5-6 which were completely assembled from parts (some of which I 3D printed myself) and which run open source software on ubiquitously available flight controllers. (And probably enough parts to assemble another 3 or 3 at least). Most of those can be set up to fly completely autonomously, where jamming of the control channels and/or video link won't affect the completion of the flight plan. (Jamming GPS would fuck them all up though, but I might have enough parts on hand to make a machine vision and lidar and IMU capable SLAM platform, that'd be able to fly a mission plan even in the absence of a good GPS lock...) (I'd be fascinated to know how your company's system fares against a reasonably creative "white hat" amateur drone builder who's intentionally set out to beat it...)
  - anitil 6y ago
    Yes there's plenty of difficulties with home-grown devices. Fortunately most people aren't capable of designing an over-the-air protocol like lightbridge, and there's a limited selection of chips to choose from. Vision/IMU/Lidar are obviously much harder My email is in my bio
- imtringued 6y ago
  >Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering. This is actually the most effective anti drone defense. The only meaningful benefit of a drone vs a firearm is that the pilot is unknown. If you can link a drone to its pilot then you can just use conventional law enforcement. This would force abusers to build their own drones and thereby limit the impact of drone attacks significantly.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    Or they’d just remove the serial numbers.
    - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
      Sure, just like you can remove the serial numbers on guns, remove the license plate or remove the VIN of a car, etc.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
eunos 6y ago
Next thing you know will be 3d printed drone for the body with the battery, microelectronics and propulsion(?) sourced from Shenzhen, or salvaged from 2nd hand drone and smartphone. For the software, with a few million dollars, probably, cartels might hire engineers to fork open source autopilot software to do the bidding. Everything done on darknet paid with cryptocurrency.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I was told drones were "cheap". What you just said is not cheap at all. Sure the cartel might be able to afford this but a lot of people in this thread are worrying about attacks against politicians and celebrities being committed by individual actors. That's not going to happen if the drone pilot can't get away with it.
  - eunos 6y ago
    You might need hundred thousand or low million to target person of interests. However, you might only need ten of thousand to target common individuals.

Is it unreasonable for small drones to be tracked? It's way too easy to get footage of private property or through otherwise obscured windows with drones. Regulation doesn't have to be unreasonable.

jb775 6y ago

There's already legislation in place requiring that drones over 250g be registered with the FAA. They're also in the process of drafting legislation that would require drone pilots to sync flights in real time via internet connection. This is controversial however since many drone flights take place outside of internet connected areas (very remote areas, middle of national park, etc). The response from the drone community is that drones themselves should be required to broadcast a wifi network, so nearby planes/helicopters can be alerted when there's a drone nearby. So there's definitely regulation in the works, but the drone community is primarily worried they will be squeezed out in favor of commercial drone interests. An interesting thing to point out is that the DJI mavic mini only weighs 249g (designed this way on purpose), making it a exempt from these regulations but still extremely capable (have had one for a few months now).

anitil 6y ago

I work in this field. There's two components to this. There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering. The second is to track them in the sky. DJI has a product AeroScope that tracks their drones, my company has a competing product (this isn't a plug so won't mention the name). The issue with this is you need hardware to do it, or use existing hardware. This is expensive, so only really feasible for specific assets (pipelines, corrections and sports facilities etc).

bigiain 6y ago
> There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering. From where I'm, sitting, I can see one drone which can readily be "tracked via the manufacturer" (A DJI Spark). There are two more which came assembled - from random AliExpress (or maybe GearBest) vendors, which have nothing resembling a serial number nor any way to "phone home" to the manufacturer. There are another 5-6 which were completely assembled from parts (some of which I 3D printed myself) and which run open source software on ubiquitously available flight controllers. (And probably enough parts to assemble another 3 or 3 at least). Most of those can be set up to fly completely autonomously, where jamming of the control channels and/or video link won't affect the completion of the flight plan. (Jamming GPS would fuck them all up though, but I might have enough parts on hand to make a machine vision and lidar and IMU capable SLAM platform, that'd be able to fly a mission plan even in the absence of a good GPS lock...) (I'd be fascinated to know how your company's system fares against a reasonably creative "white hat" amateur drone builder who's intentionally set out to beat it...)
- anitil 6y ago
  Yes there's plenty of difficulties with home-grown devices. Fortunately most people aren't capable of designing an over-the-air protocol like lightbridge, and there's a limited selection of chips to choose from. Vision/IMU/Lidar are obviously much harder My email is in my bio
imtringued 6y ago
>Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering. This is actually the most effective anti drone defense. The only meaningful benefit of a drone vs a firearm is that the pilot is unknown. If you can link a drone to its pilot then you can just use conventional law enforcement. This would force abusers to build their own drones and thereby limit the impact of drone attacks significantly.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  Or they’d just remove the serial numbers.
  - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
    Sure, just like you can remove the serial numbers on guns, remove the license plate or remove the VIN of a car, etc.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

eunos 6y ago

Next thing you know will be 3d printed drone for the body with the battery, microelectronics and propulsion(?) sourced from Shenzhen, or salvaged from 2nd hand drone and smartphone. For the software, with a few million dollars, probably, cartels might hire engineers to fork open source autopilot software to do the bidding. Everything done on darknet paid with cryptocurrency.

imtringued 6y ago
I was told drones were "cheap". What you just said is not cheap at all. Sure the cartel might be able to afford this but a lot of people in this thread are worrying about attacks against politicians and celebrities being committed by individual actors. That's not going to happen if the drone pilot can't get away with it.
- eunos 6y ago
  You might need hundred thousand or low million to target person of interests. However, you might only need ten of thousand to target common individuals.