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How would you trace back a drone that shoots a bullet then wipes its data and dies?

by hamstergene 12y ago

ansible 12y ago
The MAC addresses for the wireless interfaces are likely trackable to an individual purchase.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Often they can be wiped as well.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    What? ifconfig or My Network Places in Windows. Adapter cards had to have their mac address programmed once; it can be done again. Its firmware.
  - ansible 12y ago
    In some cases yes, but that requires additional expertise.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Not much. The OS has a utility to do it.
- e12e 12y ago
  Perhaps. But a wlan card taken from a discarded/stolen/recyled/used corporate machine, then transported half-around the globe and sold for cash, isn't necessarily easy to trace back to a perpetrator.
tormeh 12y ago
A drone with a gun is unrealistic, I think. The stability of a light, air-borne vehicle is just not good enough. A drone with fragmentation grenades, on the other hand, could work well and pretty much erase all evidence.
- jagawhowho 12y ago
  Do you watch the news? Flying machines with guns are decades old tech. Drone versions are actively used. Welcome to the present.
- doorhammer 12y ago
  I'm mostly commenting because I think the "small drone with a gun" idea is interesting; no idea how it would play out in practice. If you had a drone with a weapon, I would think you'd want to fire on someone using some variation of Tracking Point style hardware [1], except partially self aimed. Basically see the target, paint the target, drone uses internal sensors to detect a brief instant of random stability and fires the weapon http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/gun-linux-on-the-range-with-trackingpoints-new-ar-15s/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/gun-linux-on-the-rang...
- johnnymonster 12y ago
  On the show Sons of guns, they already made a drone that can shoot a pistol. Not very hard to do. Drones can withstand very high winds and hold position very easily, lots of hand guns have very little recoil and can easily be shot from a drone with very good accuracy.
- baddox 12y ago
  Fragmentation grenades are presumably fairly difficult to come by. I think it's laughable to worry about an autonomous or remotely piloted drone assassinating people with fragmentation grenades when a normal firearm operated by a human is extremely practical and seems to work well enough. The latter is designed for nearly that exact purpose, and refined over centuries. They're cheap, easy to use, easy to get (in some places), and reliable.
  - personZ 12y ago
    when a normal firearm operated by a human is extremely practical Again, doing a crime and getting away with a crime are two enormously different things. The truth is that the majority of humanity can commit terrible crimes with utter ease. There is absolutely no question about that. Most of us don't, however, because of morality and our nature. The rest don't because they don't want to spend the rest of their life in jail, and for major crimes the probability of getting caught is enormously high. Things that reduce that probability (and a device that means you don't have to be on or even near the site, and can extract 100% of evidence with a very high degree of success, does that) open up opportunities for people to do such crimes. As a parallel, someone mentioned bitcoins, and bitcoins absolutely opened up the world of casual extortion, because suddenly you don't have to go to a mailbox or meet in a park.
baddox 12y ago
Fingerprints, hair or clothing samples, asking nearby drone hobbyists if they might know anyone into drones who might want to murder the victim, sales records of retailers of drones or drone supplies, and of course the normal stuff, like who would want the victim killed in the first place. I'm not a detective, but I suspect having the large, complex piece of electronic equipment that was used as the weapon would be a godsend compared to the evidence available in a normal murder or assassination investigation.
- personZ 12y ago
  Obviously the plan wouldn't be "drop the drone at the scene of the crime". Why would anyone ever do that? I mean, of course they would minimize the reveal were that to happen (though note that drones are becoming absolutely pedestrian, so this notion that you talk to the niche club and find the drone enthusiast is absurd), but the rational plan would be that the drone would escape as well. Because its odds of escape, currently, barring mechanical defect, would be close to 100%. No one is going to catch a drone.

How would you trace back a drone that shoots a bullet then wipes its data and dies?

ansible 12y ago

The MAC addresses for the wireless interfaces are likely trackable to an individual purchase.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Often they can be wiped as well.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  What? ifconfig or My Network Places in Windows. Adapter cards had to have their mac address programmed once; it can be done again. Its firmware.
- ansible 12y ago
  In some cases yes, but that requires additional expertise.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Not much. The OS has a utility to do it.
e12e 12y ago
Perhaps. But a wlan card taken from a discarded/stolen/recyled/used corporate machine, then transported half-around the globe and sold for cash, isn't necessarily easy to trace back to a perpetrator.

tormeh 12y ago

A drone with a gun is unrealistic, I think. The stability of a light, air-borne vehicle is just not good enough. A drone with fragmentation grenades, on the other hand, could work well and pretty much erase all evidence.

jagawhowho 12y ago
Do you watch the news? Flying machines with guns are decades old tech. Drone versions are actively used. Welcome to the present.
doorhammer 12y ago
I'm mostly commenting because I think the "small drone with a gun" idea is interesting; no idea how it would play out in practice. If you had a drone with a weapon, I would think you'd want to fire on someone using some variation of Tracking Point style hardware [1], except partially self aimed. Basically see the target, paint the target, drone uses internal sensors to detect a brief instant of random stability and fires the weapon http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/gun-linux-on-the-range-with-trackingpoints-new-ar-15s/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/gun-linux-on-the-rang...
johnnymonster 12y ago
On the show Sons of guns, they already made a drone that can shoot a pistol. Not very hard to do. Drones can withstand very high winds and hold position very easily, lots of hand guns have very little recoil and can easily be shot from a drone with very good accuracy.
baddox 12y ago
Fragmentation grenades are presumably fairly difficult to come by. I think it's laughable to worry about an autonomous or remotely piloted drone assassinating people with fragmentation grenades when a normal firearm operated by a human is extremely practical and seems to work well enough. The latter is designed for nearly that exact purpose, and refined over centuries. They're cheap, easy to use, easy to get (in some places), and reliable.
- personZ 12y ago
  when a normal firearm operated by a human is extremely practical Again, doing a crime and getting away with a crime are two enormously different things. The truth is that the majority of humanity can commit terrible crimes with utter ease. There is absolutely no question about that. Most of us don't, however, because of morality and our nature. The rest don't because they don't want to spend the rest of their life in jail, and for major crimes the probability of getting caught is enormously high. Things that reduce that probability (and a device that means you don't have to be on or even near the site, and can extract 100% of evidence with a very high degree of success, does that) open up opportunities for people to do such crimes. As a parallel, someone mentioned bitcoins, and bitcoins absolutely opened up the world of casual extortion, because suddenly you don't have to go to a mailbox or meet in a park.

baddox 12y ago

Fingerprints, hair or clothing samples, asking nearby drone hobbyists if they might know anyone into drones who might want to murder the victim, sales records of retailers of drones or drone supplies, and of course the normal stuff, like who would want the victim killed in the first place. I'm not a detective, but I suspect having the large, complex piece of electronic equipment that was used as the weapon would be a godsend compared to the evidence available in a normal murder or assassination investigation.

personZ 12y ago
Obviously the plan wouldn't be "drop the drone at the scene of the crime". Why would anyone ever do that? I mean, of course they would minimize the reveal were that to happen (though note that drones are becoming absolutely pedestrian, so this notion that you talk to the niche club and find the drone enthusiast is absurd), but the rational plan would be that the drone would escape as well. Because its odds of escape, currently, barring mechanical defect, would be close to 100%. No one is going to catch a drone.