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Comment by byearthithatius | Hacker News Reader

We are getting to the technological capability/availability stage where drone based terror attacks are a real threat... Imagine a swarm of drones with 9mm handguns, flamethrowers, bombs, acid, etc... Multiple operators that can't be killed because they are far away. Terrifying!

I imagine the government has plans to prevent this like how they close airspace near big events or employing drone jamming technology around a perimeter for large events. Idk this all just scares me a bit. Does anybody smarter have a good point of re-assurance? This just seems much more capable to do large amounts of damage where the operator may still feel "safe" which lowers barrier to entry.

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> Does anybody smarter have a good point of re-assurance?

I'm not very smart, but I don't think you need to worry about drones using the linked flamethrower attachment: in order to buy from the website, the terrorist needs to click the "Agree" checkbox that says "I understand that operating a drone or UAS in the US with this attachment would require a Part 107 Waiver."

This page has some information about operating drones over people: https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/operations_over... . That page says "the remote pilot must take steps using a safety risk-based approach to ensure that ... the small UAS is not operated in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another (§ 107.23)". So IIUC, I think it's likely that the FAA would deny the application for the Part 107 Waiver, and the terrorist wouldn't be able to use it.

Hope that helps!

I’m 99% sure you’re joking… but since this is the internet, I’ll say it explicitly: obviously the terrorist would check the box, never bother applying for FAA waiver, and fly the drone anyway.

That would be breaking the law, however, which is against the law.

Much like the beloved US Visa question "are you a terrorist? y/n"

Drone jamming technology? What are they doing, jamming the entire 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies? Seems like it would jam everything else nearby too. Sounds like total BS to me... If I was doing something shady, I certainly wouldn't use the default frequencies. You're already doing something illegal with the drone, why would you care about keeping inline with the FCC regulations? The entire spectrum is yours to use.

Not to mention, if the drones were fully autonomous, they don't even need to be run by a remote control.

Self piloting and target detection is enough to make it useless.

Type “drone jamming” into YouTube.

Oh ya think? Drones with explosive ordnance have been used in terror attacks for years now. You should be scared.

But really you should be thankful you don’t live somewhere that the US feels it can drop hellfire missiles from predator drones with zero regard for collateral damage.

The terrorists have had a pretty damn good reason to start using drones. We did it first.

Anti drone technology is actually a pretty decent sized market right now and there's plenty of options. I'm not an expert, but I've got a buddy who is into this stuff and we've talked about this before. According to him, some companies are using high powered lasers and microwaves to destroy the drones from distance. Others offer ways to either mess up the drones GPS and send it off course or hack into the drone and take control of it. More than a few companies make large net guns that can be fired to take the drones down and I've heard of companies who train eagles to knock them out of the air.

I definitely think it's a threat, but I think it's a well known threat at this point and something that is accounted for for large events. I doubt it's anymore likely than any other type of terrorist attack.

It's definitely a real, known threat. DARPA and friends have been working on their own swarm technology for years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W34NPbGkLGI

I'm shocked people aren't using drones for graffiti.

Drones + spray paint can reach anything and escape with impunity.

Thoughtful idea, I've also been thinking about that for a long time but surprised it hasn't happened yet. I've never tried to tackle the tech but I'm guessing it must be hard to execute it with the precision necessary for good results.

I bet a large part of the graffiti scene, would see that as cheating as you would remove huge chunks of the danger. As an armchair psychologist, I know it's not the art that attracts teenage boys to graffiti.

For a glimpse into how complicated this is, take a look at how Israel has been dealing with Hezb and Iranian drones. They're very hard and expensive to defeat and fairly effective unless you're willing to put full time air patrols in the sky

Or tiny little ones with nothing but a single needle. Now a cloud of 50 of those that approach from all directions at once.

50? Think 50000.

Well I was thinking about a single person, and it would be hard to stage 50000 of anything without being noticed.

Part of what makes drones so scary is how you have no effective way to defend against them, and part of that is not being able to see them coming.

You can see 50000 coming. You can defend against 50000 by getting inside a structure.

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