Author Topic: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots and Balloons  (Read 123854 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Takedowns of drones
« Reply #150 on: October 05, 2017, 05:19:02 PM »

G M

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Terror from skies as Mexican cartel attaches bomb to drone
« Reply #151 on: October 24, 2017, 10:38:52 AM »
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/24/terror-skies-mexican-cartel-attaches-bomb-drone/


Terror from skies as Mexican cartel attaches bomb to drone

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Mexican police discovered four men carting a kamikaze drone equipped with an IED and a remote detonator last week, in what analysts say is an example of cartels figuring out how to weaponizing UAVs.  The disturbing development is a manifestation of something top American security chiefs warned Congress about earlier this year, when they said they feared terrorists would begin to use drones to attack targets within the U.S.

Drug cartels had already been turning to drones to smuggle their product into the U.S., and had begun using IEDs in their turf struggles — but now at least cartel appears to have put the two technologies together, according to Mexican reports analyzed by Small Wars Journal.

“A weaponized drone/unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)/unmanned aerial system (UAS) with a remotely detonated IED allows for a precision strike to take place against an intended target,” Robert Bunker and John P. Sullivan, the authors of the new analysis, wrote.

The drone-IED combination was found in central Mexico, by federal police who did a traffic stop on a stolen pickup truck with four men in it.

Police found an AK-47, ammunition, phones and what the Small Wars Journal authors said appears to be a 3DR Solo Quadcopter, which retails for about $250 online. Taped to the drone was an IED, which could be trigger by remote detonator.  Mr. Bunker and Mr. Sullivan said the “dron bomba,” as they labeled it, was the next step for cartels that have been using papas bombas, or potato bombs — a roughly shaped sphere with a core of explosives and nails and other shrapnel packed inside for the most lethal reach.

The analysts said several examples of potato bombs have been detected in Mexico this year.

Drug smugglers have long waged a technological war with authorities on the U.S.-Mexico border, with the cartels often boasting better night vision gear and tactics such as ultralights to carry drug loads over the border.

More recently, drones have become a tactic for smuggling hard drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine, which are light enough and lucrative enough to be carried by the expensive technology.

In August, U.S. Border Patrol agents nabbed a $5,000 drone and seized a $46,000 meth load in southern California, after one agent detected it flying overhead. Agents also apprehended the man assigned to pick up the load, who said he had made a number of such pickups and was paid $1,000 each time.

Meanwhile, the chiefs of the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center told Congress last month that they are worried Islamic State terrorists who have pioneered weaponized drones in the Middle East will use the tactic inside the U.S. to spread a toxin or drop a grenade.

“Two years ago this was not a problem. A year ago this was an emerging problem. Now it’s a real problem,” Nicholas J. Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2017, 11:20:54 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #152 on: October 24, 2017, 11:21:13 AM »
Please post in Homeland Security as well.

G M

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This is not going to go well for us
« Reply #153 on: October 25, 2017, 02:25:36 PM »
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2017/10/welcome-to-my-nightmare.html

This does not bode well for national security, or personal security for that matter.

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #154 on: October 25, 2017, 03:27:37 PM »
Still not on people's radar screens are the nano and insect sized drones , , ,  :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o

G M

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #155 on: October 25, 2017, 03:51:26 PM »
Still not on people's radar screens are the nano and insect sized drones , , ,  :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o

Well, those are only bleeding edge technology available to some nation-states at this time. The above technology is 200 bucks on Amazon right now.

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Yunfakh Min Allah - Wind Of God
« Reply #156 on: October 29, 2017, 03:54:26 PM »
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2017/10/yunfakh-min-allah-wind-of-god.html

Yunfakh Min Allah - Wind Of God



Ahmad checked his watch as he listened to the American baseball game on his earpiece. It was about an hour past sunset, with growing darkness as he watched from his vantage point, and listened to the announcer describing Game 6 of the World Series. Ahmad didn't understand the details of the game, just enough to plan the mission, but he knew he had at least another hour before it would end, more than enough for his purposes. From where he was situated, he could see down into Chavez Ravine, a couple of the nearby freeways, and the panorama of lights glistening in the growing nighttime scene of downtown Los Angeles.

In various places throughout the city, his teams waited. They were all his men, though few of them knew that, and he was the only one that knew all of them. His subordinates were all cutouts, few knowing anyone but him and their 2-4 teammates.

Ahmad had arrived some time prior to the operation, but was the necessary link to get it off the ground - so to speak. He chuckled at the memory. He had been delivered to America by the Americans themselves. He was actually Pakistani, and his real name wasn't even Ahmad, but that had been the Afghani name he'd adopted as an officer in the Afghan Army, shortly before he'd been selected to lead this operation in the heart of the Great Satan. The stupid Americans, he'd thought, had flown him to the United States for training. Once his contact was in place, he'd gone out one weekend on leave, and never come back. Even in this he blended with a hundred others, most economic opportunists, but more than a few, like himself, hand-picked to infiltrate and run operations like this one. The Americans hadn't been eager to broadcast that fact, which made his further movements all the easier to undertake.

His phone buzzed; the message let him know the game was back on live TV.
On his other phone he texted the codeword inshallah, which set in motion all that followed. Within a minute or two, motorcycle pairs entered all the surrounding freeways in both directions, dumping several pounds of metal caltrops on the freeways. In short order, tires were deflated or blown out, accidents ensued, and the legendary Los Angeles rush hour traffic snarl began an inexorable descent into a biblical amount of gridlock.

Simultaneously, four small drones lifted off east of downtown. They approached from different directions, but all were to converge on Piper Technical Center, a drab block arising several stories above and apart from the downtown skyline, upon the roof of which sat a dozen LAPD helicopters, at their otherwise-safe HQ high above the surrounding streets. When the drones arrived over their targets, they began their bombing drops. Two had homemade napalm: half aviation gasoline, half liquid dish soap, blended with aluminum flakes, contained in a pint glass bottle, and with a simple wick on the outside.

Ahmad recalled their maker pleased with himself for devising a way to re-purpose a simple automobile cigarette lighter to ignite the wicks, which were threaded under rubber bands holding the bottles, placed over foil-protected legs on the drones. The operator flipped a switch, and the igniters clicked on. When the wicks ignited, the bands would burn through and the bottles would drop; when they impacted, they'd create little fireballs that would stick to whatever they splashed, creating an instant inferno. Targeting was fairly simple on a windless night, requiring only hitting within a few feet of straight down for the helicopters, from a near motionless drone.

The other two had pint-sized soda cans, containing a mixture of iron oxide (essentially simple rust powder) and elemental aluminum powder. When the igniter set off a magnesium ribbon fuse, just like the napalm the payload would freefall. Once the magnesium ignited the thermite, oxygen bound in the rust would provide the air for the combustion that would take place. Its normal use was to weld railroad rails, and in the military to destroy things like howitzers, tanks, and radios. Once ignited, it burned hot enough to do either, at a temperature of around 4,000 degrees F., and the liquid molten metal produced would burn through anything as fragile as a fuselage in seconds.

Which they did, working exactly as they had when tested in the desert some weeks earlier, and helped along by fuel tanks with aviation gasoline on the parked aircraft.
The two napalm drops splashed all over the two target helos, setting them aflame immediately, as did one of the thermite drops. The other missed, but the ensuing plume of molten metal consuming itself on the concrete threw a shower of flaming embers that would prove hard to corral, even as the other targets combusted spectacularly.

They had bought all the drones and all the payload materials for less than $10,000, over the internet, using cash cards, over a span of some months, and sent to places in several states all vacated months before they operation began. And nothing they bought, and nothing they did, was illegal per se until the payloads ignited and began dropping.

As soon as the first four drones had dropped, a second wave was launched in seconds, and approximately a minute later two more helicopters were gloriously aflame. By the time the third wave struck a minute after that, nine helicopters and some ancillary equipment were fully-involved flaming junk heaps, and though there were several units airborne throughout the city, the LAPD's Astro Division would be hard-pressed to do much for the next few months, as several millions of dollars worth of high-priced ashes consumed themselves in plain view of the stranded commuters on the 101 freeway through downtown.

As he watched the second wave begin its attack on the police department's airbase, Ahmad texted the main attack to commence. Another dozen drones lifted off from all points of the compass, headed for the sellout crowd in Dodger Stadium watching the game. Each man had a section of the stadium assigned, including both outfield pavilions. All of them carried the napalm bottles. The drone bodies had been painted black so as to be far less visible to those on the ground, and with the blaze of nighttime lights illuminating the game, no one would see anything until their flaming payloads began to fall. They fell randomly, hither and yon all around the seats, bursting immediately into flaming gasoline balls, the stuff of nightmares, and sending more than 65,000 people fleeing in all directions in a stampeding panic to escape. One, by design, was dropped in front of each of the team dugouts, sending players scrambling onto the field or down the tunnels to escape the conflagrations. All of it was captured on live TV and broadcast around the world in seconds.

Originally, the plan had been to use a football game as the target, but dwindling audiences for those, and the draw of a World Series broadcast had led Ahmad and the planners to select the baseball game instead.

As soon as the first wave of drones dropped its payload, they were program recalled to a central spot, and landed in an industrial park, next to a garbage truck driven by one of two teams also organized for the purpose. Their only job was to collect the surviving drones, load them into the truck, and depart. All useable data and serial numbers had been meticulously removed long before the missions, and given their cost, the drones themselves weren't critical. But Ahmad had learned, just as some of his former colleagues, not to underestimate the thoroughness of American investigations and intelligence gathering after the fact. The less they were left to work with, the better.

His pilots each rode in on motorcycles and scooters, the better to thread their way through traffic and exfiltrate afterwards. Each had pulled up to one of several vans, or vice versa, some hours beforehand, been handed his drones and controllers, and the empty vans departed. Once they had launched their second waves and dropped, they plunked controllers into backpacks or saddlebags, and drove off, helmeted, invisible, and nondescript.

The second wave of drops went as well as the first, with several set to land amongst the main exits, surveyed beforehand, and now awash in a sea of people. Now, with no small number of flaming people, furiously trying to roll, or batter the flames out, and in a few cases, running faster, which only intensified the flames for the few seconds before they succumbed amidst hundreds of their fellows in screaming agony, and a horrible gasoline and flesh-stenched barbeque from hell. This last was mainly for effect, but the bulk of the second wave was still directed inside the stadium at alternate points not already hit, because that's where the TV cameras would be focused. And were, as millions of people across the country watched in speechless horror the spectacle before them.

Ahmad waited until a minute or so after the second wave had completed, then texted the signal for all his teams to depart, which they did. The cell monitoring the television broadcast and internet news sent him the best news of all: the response was off the charts, both on TV, and internationally. He whispered a brief thanks to Allah, then kicked his motorcycle into life, and rode off sedately into the night.

He had given the infidel Americans a Halloween to remember with dread for decades.

On Wednesday at 3AM they did the same thing over the refineries near the harbor, mainly with thermite bombs. 30 giant fuel and oil tanks, widely dispersed, had set 24 more adjoining ones on fire, in an inferno that would take two weeks to extinguish, and send the price of gasoline locally to the moon.

On Friday night, they hit crowds at Disneyland with napalm during the nighttime fireworks.

The exodus out of state began with a vengeance.

Early Sunday morning, they hit 25 separate power distribution complexes, and blacked out most of the state of California, and parts of Arizona and Nevada for a week and a half.

On Monday morning, martial law was declared in all three states.

"There." thought Ahmad.
"See how you like fighting a war in your country for a change."

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #157 on: October 30, 2017, 09:39:39 PM »
More than a little scary :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o

There sure seems to be a lot of specifics in there , , , hope no one gets any ideas , , ,

G M

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Global Guerillas: Drone swarm attack
« Reply #160 on: January 10, 2018, 07:13:57 AM »


Drone Swarm vs. Russian Base in Syria
Posted: 09 Jan 2018 11:00 AM PST
The Russians have been using drone swarms against the Ukrainians to good effect (blowing up ammo dumps).  Here's one being used against a Russian base on the coast of Syria.

Recount as reported by the Russian MoD reported it this morning:

Security system of the Russian Khmeimim air base and Russian Naval CSS point in the city of Tartus successfully warded off a terrorist attack with massive application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) through the night of 5th – 6th January, 2018.

As evening fell, the Russia air defence forces detected 13 unidentified small-size air targets at a significant distance approaching the Russian military bases.
Ten assault drones were approaching the Khmeimim air base, and another three – the CSS point in Tartus. Six small-size air targets were intercepted and taken under control by the Russian EW units. Three of them were landed on the controlled area outside the base, and another three UAVs exploded as they touched the ground.
Seven UAVs were eliminated by the Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile complexes operated by the Russian air defence units on 24-hours alert. The Russian bases did not suffer any casualties or damages.

The Khmeimim air base and Russian Naval CSS point in Tartus are functioning on a scheduled basis. Currently, the Russian military experts are analyzing the construction, technical filling and improvised explosives of the captured UAVs.

Having decoded the data recorded on the UAVs, the specialists found out the launch site.

It was the first time when terrorists applied a massed drone aircraft attack launched at a range of more than 50 km using modern GPS guidance system. Technical examination of the drones showed that such attacks could have been made by terrorists at a distance of about 100 kilometers.

Engineering decisions applied by terrorists while attacks on the Russian objects in Syria could be received from one of countries with high-technological capabilities of satellite navigation and remote dropping control of professionally assembled improvised explosive devices in assigned coordinates. All drones of terrorists are fitted with pressure transducers and altitude control servo-actuators.  Terrorists’ aircraft-type drones carried explosive devices with foreign detonating fuses.

The Russian specialists are determining supply channels, through which terrorists had received the technologies and devices, as well as examining type and origin of explosive compounds used in the IEDs.

The fact of usage of strike aircraft-type drones by terrorists is the evidence that militants have received technologies to carry out terrorist attacks using such UAVs in any country.

Some NOTES:  The swarm used what appears to be off the shelf tech.  It was a small swarm (only 13), and it was divided (two targets), which made it impossible overwhelm defenses.  It didn't fly low enough to avoid detection by anti-air.  The swarm also appears to be remotely controlled, likely as a means to provide target acquisition and terminal guidance. This allowed defense units to hack them. 

G M

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Mexican DTO killer drones
« Reply #161 on: March 10, 2018, 02:41:59 AM »

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A Criminal Gang Used a Drone Swarm To Obstruct an FBI Hostage Raid
« Reply #162 on: May 03, 2018, 01:31:24 PM »
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/05/criminal-gang-used-drone-swarm-obstruct-fbi-raid/147956/

A Criminal Gang Used a Drone Swarm To Obstruct an FBI Hostage Raid

Melanie Richter controls the Yuneec selfie drone 'Breeze 4K' with a smartphone at the IFA 2017 tech fair in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017

BY PATRICK TUCKER
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

And that’s just one of the ways bad guys are putting drones to use, law enforcement officials say.

DENVER, Colorado — Last winter, on the outskirts of a large U.S. city, an FBI Hostage Rescue Team set up an elevated observation post to assess an unfolding situation. Soon they heard the buzz of small drones — and then the tiny aircraft were all around them, swooping past in a series of “high-speed low passes at the agents in the observation post to flush them,” the head of the agency’s operational technology law unit told attendees of the AUVSI Xponential conference here. Result: “We were then blind,” said Joe Mazel, meaning the group lost situational awareness of the target. “It definitely presented some challenges.”

The incident remains “law enforcement-sensitive,” Mazel said Wednesday, declining to say just where or when it took place. But it shows how criminal groups are using small drones for increasingly elaborate crimes.

Mazel said the suspects had backpacked the drones to the area in anticipation of the FBI’s arrival. Not only did they buzz the hostage rescue team, they also kept a continuous eye on the agents, feeding video to the group’s other members via YouTube. “They had people fly their own drones up and put the footage to YouTube so that the guys who had cellular access could go to the YouTube site and pull down the video,” he said.

Mazel said counter surveillance of law enforcement agents is the fastest-growing way that organized criminals are using drones.

Some criminal organizations have begun to use drones as part of witness intimidation schemes: they continuously surveil police departments and precincts in order to see “who is going in and out of the facility and who might be co-operating with police,” he said.

Drones are also playing a greater role in robberies and the like. Beyond the well-documented incidence of house break-ins, criminal crews are using them to observe bigger target facilities, spot suss out security gaps, and determine patterns of life: where the security guards go and when.

In Australia, criminal groups have begun have used drones as part of elaborate smuggling schemes, Mazel said. The gangs will monitor port authority workers. If the workers get close to a shipping container that houses illegal substances or contraband, the gang will call in a fire, theft, or some other false alarm to draw off security forces.

Andrew Scharnweber, associate chief of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, described how criminal networks were using drones to watch Border Patrol officers, identify their gaps in coverage, and exploit them.

“In the Border Patrol, we have struggled with scouts, human scouts that come across the border. They’re stationed on various mountaintops near the border and they would scout … to spot law enforcement and radio down to their counterparts to go around us. That activity has effectively been replaced by drones,” said Scharnweber, who added that cartels are able to move small amounts of high-value narcotics across the border via drones with “little or no fear of arrest.”

Nefarious use of drones is likely to get worse before it gets better, according to several government officials who spoke on the panel. There is no easy or quick technological solution. While the U.S. military has effectively deployed drone-jamming equipment to the front lines in Syria and Iraq, most of these solutions are either unsuitable or have not been tested for use in American cities where they may interfere with cell phone signals and possibly the avionics of other aircraft, said Ahn Duong, the program executive officer at DHS’s homeland security, science and technology directorate.

The most recent version of the FAA reauthorization bill contains two amendments that could help the situation, according to Angela Stubblefield, the FAA’s deputy associate administrator in the office of security and hazardous materials safety. One would make it illegal to “weaponize” consumer drones.

The other — and arguably more important — amendment would require drones that fly beyond their operators’ line of sight to broadcast an identity allowing law enforcement to track and connect them to a real person.

“Remote identification is a huge piece” of cutting down on drone crime, Stubblefield said. “Both from a safety perspective… enabling both air traffic control and other  UAS [unmanned areal systems] to know where another is and enabling beyond line-of-sight operations. It also has an extensive security benefit to it, which is to enable threat discrimination. Remote ID connected to registration would allow you to have information about each UAS, who owns it, operates it, and thus have some idea what its intent is,” said Stubblefield.

But even if both amendments pass as part of the re-authorization, it will be some time before they take effect, so it will be the Wild West in America’s skies a while longer.

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, ...

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #166 on: July 17, 2018, 04:21:01 PM »
When Drones Attack: The Threat Remains Limited
By Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
Scott Stewart
Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
Payload limits and other factors make commercial drones more effective as surveillance platforms than a means of attack.
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)


    Commercial drones have become widely available, not only to hobbyists but also to those with more nefarious purposes.
    To date, attacks by non-state actors using drones have involved dropping military ordnance from commercial models.
    The difficulty of obtaining military ordnance or fabricating improvised drone munitions will serve as a limiting factor for such attacks.
    A drone attack in the West by a terrorist is likely to cause more panic than outright damage.

 

A series of recent events has me again thinking about the security threats posed by unmanned aerial vehicles — commonly referred to as drones.
The Big Picture

As more sophisticated drones become commercially available, concerns are rising about their use by terrorists to conduct attacks outside of war zones. However, drones can be used for other purposes — such as surveillance that — enables ambushes and armed assaults. The use of drones for intelligence, surveillance and target acquisition purposes could exceed the simple effect of dropping an improvised munition.
See Terrorism/Security
On July 3, Greenpeace activists crashed a drone they had draped in a Superman costume into the exterior wall of a spent fuel rod storage building at a nuclear power facility in Bugey, France. Security officials indicated that Greenpeace initially had launched two drones, but police intercepted one. The "direct action" stunt was not intended to cause damage, but instead to draw attention to what Greenpeace claims is lax security at French nuclear facilities.
 
On July 10, a drone bearing two hand grenades crashed outside the home of Gerardo Manuel Sosa Olachea, the secretary of public security of Baja California state. This incident also involved a second drone, but it was unknown whether that one was also armed or if it was just being used to observe the attack. An analysis of photos of the crashed drone shows it was carrying South Korean fragmentation grenades, a popular weapon among Mexican cartel gunmen, but did not reveal the intended triggering mechanism for the grenades. The drone involved in this incident was a larger, six-rotor model of a type that previously has been used to smuggle small bundles of narcotics across the U.S. border from Mexico.
 
That same day, Italian authorities announced that carabinieri in the southern province of Potenza had arrested a Macedonian grassroots jihadist who they believe was preparing to conduct an attack using a drone. During a search of the man's apartment, police reportedly discovered that he'd downloaded jihadist videos that covered a number of topics, including how to arm commercial drones. They also seized an unspecified number and type of commercial drones, along with military clothing, but they did not find any explosives. Either he had cached them elsewhere or, more likely, he was still very early in the attack cycle and had not yet acquired weapons for his drones.
A Forecast Confirmed

That we are seeing non-state actors use or plan to use drones in attacks is not a surprise. Indeed, the 2018 forecast produced for Stratfor's Threat Lens service indicated that such incidents would likely occur:

    It seems that the world is ripe for an attempted drone attack against a civilian target  ... such an attack will not necessarily come from a jihadist. Just like the vehicular attack tactic was popularized by Hamas and the Islamic State and adopted by others, the idea of using drones in a terrorist attack has been widely distributed. Now, it is just up to a radical or unstable individual to carry it out.

Attacks involving drones likely will only become more common and will eventually pose a global concern. On July 11, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point published a study of the Islamic State's drone program by Don Rassler that detailed how the group was able to obtain commercial drones and components that it used to conduct both surveillance and attacks. Rassler's study traced how an array of companies owned by a pair of Bangladeshi brothers in the United Kingdom, Bangladesh and Spain bought drones and parts and shipped them to Turkey to be smuggled into Islamic State territory. The complex, transnational supply chain that enabled the jihadist group's robust drone program could be replicated elsewhere.

However, an individual or a small terrorist cell wishing to obtain a drone or two for an attack does not have to go to such lengths. Commercial drones are readily available around the globe. Most can carry relatively small payloads — the popular DJI Phantom 4, for example, can bear just over a pound. Heavy-lift drones available for commercial sale that can carry over 20 pounds are far more expensive, and their purchasers will face more scrutiny. However, as the technology matures, and drones become more common, it's likely that payloads will increase while prices decrease.
Limits of the Threat

Obviously, non-state groups armed with military-grade drones provided by state sponsors — such as those supplied to Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen by Iran — pose a far greater threat. The recent cases in Mexico and Italy also highlight the limits of the threat posed by commercial drones, including the fact that obtaining one may be much easier than arming it with a functional weapon. In the case of the Islamic State, it had access to a wide variety of ordnance in Mosul that it could then use or modify for delivery by drone. It used manufactured military ordnance such as grenades, small mortars and bomblets salvaged from cluster munitions in the hundreds of drone attacks it conducted. The failed attack in Mexico, where cartels have ready access to military-grade weapons, followed this pattern. In other places where such ordnance is available, such as the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and even Sweden (where organized crime groups have conducted an alarming number of attacks involving grenades), drone attacks using military munitions are more likely.

But in many parts of the world where military weapons are less widely available, a would–be attacker would have to somehow acquire munitions. In recent years, there have been many cases in which grassroots jihadists reaching out for help in buying more powerful weapons have instead blundered into government sting operations. An attacker intent on delivering weapons with a drone could try to build some sort of improvised munition, which would also entail creating the explosive filler for it. However, that may be easier said than done. In several cases, grassroots jihadists have struggled to fabricate even simple explosive devices and viable homemade explosive mixtures, much less a drone-borne device capable of inflicting significant damage.

Obtaining bomb components, assembling them, testing them and then testing them with the drone all add complexity to the terrorist attack cycle, increasing the chances of the attacker being discovered in the preparation stages. But even if an attacker manages to conduct a direct attack using a drone, the physical damage that can be inflicted by home-brewed munitions, whether simple low-explosive pipe bombs or some sort of improvised fragmentation grenade using a more powerful explosive such as TATP, would simply not be as effective as a piece of purpose-built military ordnance.

 
The Terrorist Attack Cycle

Nevertheless, as demonstrated by the Islamic State's attacks in Iraq and Syria, the small pieces of military ordnance that drones are capable of delivering would inflict more psychological than physical damage. Indeed, even had Sosa Olachea been at home when the drone carrying grenades crashed outside his residence, and even had the grenades detonated as intended, the chances of his being wounded, much less killed, are small. Although it failed on an operational level, the attack still clearly sent a message.

In the event that an armed commercial drone were used to attack a large crowd, the psychological effects would likely cause more harm than the device it delivers. A stampede of panicked people, for instance, could inflict more injuries than an explosion. Thus, it is important that people realize the limits of the drone threat so as not to overreact and multiply the impact of an attack with trampling damage. Because drones at this point are likely to be more successful in instilling fear than causing actual physical damage, they could be categorized as a true terrorist weapon.

It is also important to keep in mind that the misuse of drones is not confined to direct attacks. The devices, which are quite effective surveillance platforms, can be used to gather intelligence on facilities, residences or the comings and goings of potential human targets, facilitating the planning of attacks by other means. The effectiveness of drones as surveillance tools should be a particular concern for corporate security and executive protection teams, which should take steps to look for them in addition to watching for traditional surveillance conducted by human operatives or static cameras on the ground. From a target's viewpoint, the use of drones for surveillance can alter the appearance of the attack cycle. But since attackers still must follow the cycle, the points of vulnerability that it exposes them to remain the same.

 
Scott Stewart supervises Stratfor's analysis of terrorism and security issues. Before joining Stratfor, he was a special agent with the U.S. State Department for 10 years and was involved in hundreds of terrorism investigations.

Beyond the Buzz: Assessing the Terrorist Drone Threat Mar 23, 2017 | 15:03 GMT

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« Last Edit: September 16, 2018, 07:18:43 AM by Crafty_Dog »

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NYPD
« Reply #170 on: January 24, 2019, 02:32:02 AM »

DougMacG

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Re: NYPD
« Reply #171 on: January 24, 2019, 07:07:50 PM »
https://www.justsecurity.org/62304/nypd-spy-drones-fly-privacy-headwinds/

Thanks for posting this BD.  Many privacy issues raised.  Strange that they have no oversight or apparent accountability.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #172 on: January 25, 2019, 05:07:44 PM »
We've looked at this before, but it has been awhile and maybe the technology has improved:

How can drones be brought down?

G M

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #173 on: February 10, 2019, 02:16:12 PM »
We've looked at this before, but it has been awhile and maybe the technology has improved:

How can drones be brought down?

Many ways. None are legal in the US.


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #175 on: February 25, 2019, 02:36:06 PM »
If memory serves, the Iranians hijacked a really big serious drone during the Obama administration.  Surprise!  He failed to go get it back!  Any chance anyone can dig this up?

https://gellerreport.com/2019/02/iran-hacks-centcom.html/

G M

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Some high quality trolling by the Iranians in 2012
« Reply #176 on: February 25, 2019, 02:55:57 PM »
If memory serves, the Iranians hijacked a really big serious drone during the Obama administration.  Surprise!  He failed to go get it back!  Any chance anyone can dig this up?

https://gellerreport.com/2019/02/iran-hacks-centcom.html/

https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/18/world/meast/iran-drone-replicas/index.html
« Last Edit: February 25, 2019, 10:14:03 PM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Iranians capture US drone in 2012.
« Reply #177 on: February 25, 2019, 10:15:01 PM »
As always, you are the master in memory hole excavations!



Crafty_Dog

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #180 on: April 17, 2019, 05:47:24 PM »
The Skynet is coming! :-o

G M

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #181 on: April 17, 2019, 09:00:09 PM »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots
« Reply #182 on: April 18, 2019, 09:39:38 AM »
 :-o :-o :-o


G M

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Iran's proxy drone warfare
« Reply #184 on: May 14, 2019, 04:55:12 PM »
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iranian-backed-Houthi-drones-target-Saudi-Arabia-report-589645

Don't expect the CONUS to be immune to this. In fact, this may be the preferred way for both state and non-state actors to strike the CONUS. High potential for lethality and plausible deniability.


ccp

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DougMacG

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Re: drones and defibrillators
« Reply #186 on: July 08, 2019, 08:04:07 AM »
http://www.ncmedicaljournal.com/content/80/4/204.abstract?etoc

Wow. Fly the equipment needed to the EMTs instead of carrying so much equipment that no one can afford  to call an ambulance.


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Anti drone ray gun
« Reply #189 on: September 19, 2019, 09:00:24 PM »






Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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Israel's MAGNI micro-drone
« Reply #198 on: December 09, 2019, 11:29:16 PM »


Meet Israel's New MAGNI Micro-Drone: A Game Changer?
by Seth Frantzman
The National Interest
December 7, 2019
https://www.meforum.org/60081/meet-israels-new-magni-micro-drone