WOW, NY drone story

Good story. There SHOULD be concern of idiotic terrorists using them for harm. I kind of liked the idea of a warning system and some sort of "defense" for high population areas and or events. Let's not just sit back and hope that it's not going to happen because I can assure you, with the world the way it is today, there is some moron already contemplating how they can hook up a bomb to one of these birds!
 
There are any number of ways that terrorists could use even a small drone like the Phantom 2 as a weapon. A small canister of (choose your aerosol biological/chemical weapon) could fly over a pretty large area in a densely populated city like NY and infect tens of thousands of people in 15 minutes or so. The UAV is so relatively cheap compared to other methods that they could fly a bunch of them simultaneously.
Now that we have this wonderful technology, it will inevitably be used for evil. BUT, that is no reason to ban any of it.
 
Will happen, just a matter of time. Just like how kids shoot kids at schools. If an idiot gets a gun, he'll make a hole.
 
thongbong said:
Will happen, just a matter of time.
It's exciting to think about and would make a great Hollywood plot line but how close it this to reality?
Bad guys have had radio control available for 50 years but haven't shown much interest.
A Phantom has a payload of 300g.
For comparison Timothy McVeigh put 5,000 pounds of explosive into the truck he rented for a lot less than a Phantom cost.
The alternatives are so much more effective and easier that they are what the bad guys go for.
They are looking for results rather than hollywood excitement.

For anyone wanting some mindless hollywood bad guy using radio control action ...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xiuizz ... shortfilms
 
Meta4 said:
thongbong said:
Will happen, just a matter of time.
It's exciting to think about and would make a great Hollywood plot line but how close it this to reality?
Bad guys have had radio control available for 50 years but haven't shown much interest.
A Phantom has a payload of 300g.
For comparison Timothy McVeigh put 5,000 pounds of explosive into the truck he rented for a lot less than a Phantom cost.
The alternatives are so much more effective and easier that they are what the bad guys go for.
They are looking for results rather than hollywood excitement.

For anyone wanting some mindless hollywood bad guy using radio control action ...
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xiuizz ... shortfilms

Unfortunately, they're writing about drones not just a Phantom. I've built a quad that can carry an SLR. I've seen youtube videos of multirotors lifting 50+ lbs. No need for bombs, how about a pistol with low recoil like a 22 pointed straight down over a crowd. For the past 50 years, the technology for GPS, 6 axis stabilization has not been around. It was just in the past couple years the tech has become very affordable. Bad guys are taking notice because it has become very cheap, the same reason why there are so many multirotor pilots now, its cheap and easy to assemble. You and I wouldn't be having this convo if it werent true. ISIS has already uses Phantoms to map out attacks.

As much as I love this hobby, there are already a handful of nutcases planning to use this tech to do some nasty %@@#$. But I sure hope you're right though.
 
thongbong said:
how about a pistol with low recoil like a 22 pointed straight down over a crowd.
With somewhere like 300 million guns in the USA, the threat of one on a drone is nothing.

thongbong said:
As much as I love this hobby, there are already a handful of nutcases planning to use this tech to do some nasty %@@#$. But I sure hope you're right though.
Those sort of nutcases are going to cause trouble whether they have a drone or not but generally they can cause more trouble and a lot easier with other methods.
 
Meta4 said:
thongbong said:
how about a pistol with low recoil like a 22 pointed straight down over a crowd.
With somewhere like 300 million guns in the USA, the threat of one on a drone is nothing.

thongbong said:
As much as I love this hobby, there are already a handful of nutcases planning to use this tech to do some nasty %@@#$. But I sure hope you're right though.
Those sort of nutcases are going to cause trouble whether they have a drone or not but generally they can cause more trouble and a lot easier with other methods.
I'm sure there's some CIA algorithm scouring the web for the exact key terms found in this thread, all in all, I hope you're right. I think a peeping tom by drone is far fetched, but lethal activity by one is not... as you have also admitted above. Building a heavy lift quad is very easy and cheap. But for all our sakes lets hope the bad guys dont know how.
 
When it comes to VIP protection, the Secret Service and other protective and police agencies have countermeasures and doctrines and procedures to prevent or stop many kinds of attacks.

They wouldn't be doing their jobs if they ignored drones as potential threats for both mass destruction and surgical assassinations.

Bad guys have shown a lot of interest in remote control when it's simple and effective, like IED detonation. Aerial drones were once the domain of specialized hobbyists. Now they're consumer products. The notion that "this technology has been around for decades" ignores this important point.
 
This is a tempest in a teacup. Out of all the possible scenarios law enforcement and security services need to be concerned with, this one is low priority. A terrorist wants to achieve a big impact from obtainable means. Much much bigger than shooting a gun. Explosives are way too heavy.

The only viable option would be biological/chemical weapons. I highly doubt the level of sophistication exists to acquire, prepare, carry and deploy such a payload in an effective manner from a consumer drone. It's possible but not very likely. And if all the necessary capabilities were there, they could deploy it in much more effective ways. Think municipal reservoirs, HVAC systems in skyscrapers, etc.

I think drones, even consumer ones, strike a visceral fear into a lot of people who know little about them. And the news media is fanning the flames with their BS yellow journalism.
 
I agree with you on everything except the "tempest in a teacup." Yes, there are more effective ways of causing mass destruction, if that's your goal.

I also agree the media is sensationalistic and that's where terrorism automatically gets a headstart. How many headlines can a terrorist get with a dull knife, a decapitation and a video camera? That's big impact if you want to talk death to headline ratio.

The purpose? Recruiting, probably.

Explosives are way too heavy? How much do you figure a DSLR weighs? What about its gimbal? And landing gear or anything else you might shed for a one-way flight? Enough for a few fragmentation grenades, each with a kill radius of 5 meters and a casualty radius of 20m.

More than enough for point target like a VIP at a podium campaigning for votes.

I'm not saying it will happen, but it makes sense for those who protect VIPs to consider the threat.

This drone got close enough to endanger a Head of State. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense ... erkel.html
 

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