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This year, the world saw a long-theorized weapon in action: a commercial drone, like a person might find at Best Buy, dropping a bomb on a target in Iraq. These drone bombers, used by the ultra-violent quasi-state ISIS in Iraq and Syria, are the flashiest combination of modern technologies with the modern battlefield. Cheap, camera-carrying robots, put to nefarious ends by a group that could never otherwise dream of fielding an air force. Dropping grenades isn't the deadliest thing an insurgent group can do with a small flying robot, but it leads to a very important question: What, exactly, is the answer to such a drone?
[...] Here is just a short sample of the more out-there anti-drone tools: net guns, drones carrying nets, squads of drones with nets, drones with net guns, and a smart anti-drone bazooka that fires, you guessed it, a net at a drone (we liked that last one). There was a vaporware drone concept that ensnared the propellers of other drones with wire. A Russian firm floated the concept of a microwave gun, to fry the electronics of hostile drones. And most famously, there are the Dutch police eagles, trained to snag a drone from the sky.
Part of the problem for law enforcement, the Pentagon, and other entities trying to protect against drones is that they're cheap. Workable quadcopters cost as little as a couple hundred dollars. Is there a way to knock drones out of the sky that's just as cheap as the drone itself?
Source
http://www.popsci.com/how-to-stop-a-drone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @02:09PM
I can't imagine this hasn't been an issue for the last 30 years in the middle east. So, just ask the commanders what they do there.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @02:20PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday February 13 2017, @02:30PM
I think its public knowledge that they're already into radio jammers because of IEDs now you need a GPS jammer for the autonomous ones and they're good. I don't know if the army is going to issue short range jammers with every soldiers TA50 just like helmets and gas masks, but, well, maybe?
Its also very wealthy western thinking, to safely and remotely use a $1000 single use toy, or even a $100 single use toy, when a $100 AK47 has better range, repeatability, reliability, requires less training... Also those folks occasionally spontaneously go "boom" both over there and over here, so why transport a few ounces of boom on a drone when you've got people looking for revenge who can easily carry a hundred pound of boom on their body or tons in a truck maybe.
Drone attacks are very "snakes on a plane" movie plot. Yes snakes on a plane would be quite annoying if it actually happened but merely being annoying isn't enough for actual military effectiveness.
The real danger isn't things that go boom anyway, its cameras. The USA has had air superiority since late WWII, yeah well not so much anymore. Opfor is going to have detailed up to date photographs of both tactical formations and logistics and specific gear, the didn't have that in 1990 but it isn't 1990 anymore. You can assume that in 1990 opfor had no idea where we were (partially because we were lost, but I digress) but in 2020 opfor knows almost as much about us as we know about ourselves.
There are some strategic countermeasures like not getting involved in a 2nd or 3rd Vietnam where we serve no mission other than catching bullets for people who hate that we're there, or if you can't win COIN insurgencies try not starting them by invading, just because Israel wants us to do something like invade one of their neighbors again doesn't mean we have to salute and say yes sir in Hebrew as we have for a couple decades. The latter alone would keep us out of a lot of stupid situations.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday February 13 2017, @03:08PM
Its also very wealthy western thinking, to safely and remotely use a $1000 single use toy, or even a $100 single use toy, when a $100 AK47 has better range, repeatability, reliability, requires less training...
I don't think anybody is saying that these drones are being used instead of AK47s on the battlefield, they are being used more like mobile, targetted IEDs against targets in the field or as more precise / easier to hide alternatives to mortars for attacking stationary targets (ie bases).
If they achieve nothing else, they've given their enemy something else to worry about - the US must now invest time, money and effort defending themselves against this novel threat. This was Osama Bin Laden's big plan all along, and it's exactly how Al Qaeda etc have been winning the "war on terror" since 2001:
1 - Use creative but inexpensive methods to kill some people and induce panic in the US population (US government and media will help you with the panic bit, don't worry.)
2 - Induce insane military spending on the part of the US gov and its allies. (They will happily help you with this as well. Yay military industrial complex!)
3 - Keep it cheap: Make sure you spend no more than a couple thousand dollars for every five million the US spends.
4 - Point and laugh as they bankrupt themselves and gut their own country fielding billion dollar fighter jets, drones, aircraft carriers and cruise missiles against a nebulous bunch of scruffy goatherders.
5 - Those expensive military toys create a lot of "collateral damage". Use that in your propaganda to recruit ever more scruffy goatherders. Make sure you recruit at least 5 people for every one the US kills.
6 - Rinse, repeat.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 13 2017, @04:07PM
Keep it cheap: Make sure you spend no more than a couple thousand dollars for every five million the US spends.
A drone works, its just a wire and shovel is even cheaper and more reliable (dig hole, bury IED, run wire).
Labor is cheap.
Releasing hundreds of snakes on a plane would work, but not work as well as most anything else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @04:37PM
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday February 13 2017, @05:01PM
They might choose to dig up the road when no one is around to shoot them.
In Montreal is we were to shoot everyone digging up the road, it would stop the sewer renovation project dead in its tracks.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:16AM
In Montreal is we were to shoot everyone digging up the road, it would stop the sewer renovation project dead in its tracks.
Hey, don't even joke about that. TFA refers to "ISIS in Iraq and Syria", so by extension there must be an ISIS in Dorval and Kirkland as well. They're probably funded by stealing PIN Numbers from ATM Machines with LCD Displays, as reported on the CNN News Network.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday February 13 2017, @05:26PM
Indeed. Now the "IED" can be hidden ten or twenty metres away from the road, and when the US patrol drives past it simply takes to the air and follows them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday February 13 2017, @05:44PM
Also relevant here: The US helps even more by backing local leaders who at least appear to be worse for the population than you are.
For example, the reason the Taliban has as much support as it does in Afghanistan: The warlords that are backed by the US and the Kabul government routinely rape boys [nytimes.com]. ISIS got as much support in Iraq as it did because Nouri al-Maliki's government was abusing the Sunni population [pbs.org], so when ISIS showed up people thought "Hey, these guys can't be any worse" (they were wrong). Many Saudis hate the US because we've consistently backed the thoroughly corrupt and oppressive Saudi royal family. And so on.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @07:44PM
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @03:40AM
Just to clarify - a lot of people backed the rebels, until it became clear that ISIS/DAESH were using the rebels. Today, you would have a very hard time separating rebels from any of a dozen different foreign interests, and the leading foreign interest is DAESH.
Back when the rebels were really a thing, we didn't give them nearly enough resources to accomplish their goal. I can't say at what point the rebel forces were subjugated by foreign interests, but it should have been clear to the state department long before we spent millions on training and arming them.
But, if we go back just a little further, Iraq pretty much proved that when we topple one regime that we hate, we can't predict what will replace it. Whatever else they may or may not do, a long established regime does offer stability to a nation, as well as the region it is located in. Toppling regimes just leads to chaos.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday February 14 2017, @09:13AM
Toppling regimes just leads to chaos.
As a Brit on a largely US-centric website, the irony here isn't lost on me.
You're right for the vast majority of cases though, of course.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 14 2017, @12:44PM
The rebel forces were subjugated by foreign interests from Day 1. Specifically, by the United States.
As in, the US immediately began arming them, and may have in fact been behind the attempt to remove Assad in the first place. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it very clear in her leaked emails that overthrowing Assad was a major foreign policy goal for the United States. And that concerns about the humanitarian situation, freedom, democracy, and so forth had exactly zero to do with that decision. The US had 3 major reasons for trying to oust Assad:
1. Israel wanted them to. Probably because a new Syrian government would probably be willing to cede all claims to the Golan Heights and probably additional territory in the southern areas of Syria.
2. They wanted to set up oil and natural gas pipelines from Saudi Arabia and Iraq through Syria and Turkey into Europe, to directly compete with the Russian pipelines that many eastern European nations depend on.
3. Syria was an isolated Russia-friendly government surrounded by US-friendly Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. Taking over Syria, and then taking over Iran, would be 2 moves that would substantially shorten the Middle Eastern front of the ongoing US-Russia Cold War. (You probably thought the Cold War ended in no later than 1992, but the US is still very much fighting it.)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @02:39PM
You're mostly on target, but there were rebels fighting against the Syrian government before '08. Bush wouldn't consider aiding them, and by the time Obama was elected, it was already to late. Had we sent the rebels all the aid they needed around 2005, or 2006, Syria might well be a stable nation today. Or not. But, while we're considering if's, maybe if Syria had a more western government, then Iraq wouldn't be in such severe shit.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @08:16PM
This is why it's time to say, 'Fuck it', and drop the bomb, exterminate them all. Right now we are fighting a PR war, and we will lose until we do what is necessary. Too many people on the planet anyway. We could do quite well to wipe out 5 or 6 billion people and still keep a sufficient labor force to clean up. The time is now. Let's see if Trump is up to the task.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @02:50AM
Troll?! Obviously some people can't handle the truth. You wimps are destroying America! Dark days of tyranny lie ahead because of you people. You're so fucking weak! Most likely democrats. You're letting the nazis win.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @03:49AM
Truth is often in the eye of the beholder.
Wiping people out for the sake of wiping people out is pretty damned stupid.
Want to nuke a bunch of people, and maybe do some good along the way? What if I offer you something just as dramatic and intimidating, but less poisonous, and with a goal in mind?
Kinetic weapons from space! Harness a metal asteroid. Start mining it. Forge some nice finned spears out of that metal. Transport the spears to earth orbit. Start dropping those spears on mosques around the world. Pinpoint accuracy, you can single out a mosque in crowded neighborhood, and destroy it with "acceptable" collateral damage. Demoralize the Muslims - just tell them, "Your Allah can't even protect his own house, he won't protect you either!" With those spears, you can destroy single buildings, or with larger spears, you can destroy entire neighborhoods - even cities. And, they don't introduce any radiation.
We have more than sufficient reason to hate Islam. We have no reason to hate Arabs, or Africans, or Europeans, or anyone else who happens to be Islamic. Most of them are just like you and me - we grew up believing what our parents taught us to believe. Demoralize Islam, and start converting all those Muslims to other, less dangerous faiths.
No need to be hateful, no need to poison the planet.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:38AM
Less dangerous faiths? Like christianity with its history of buggering altar boys, bombing planned parenthood centres, and murdering doctors?
All religions are dangerous, as they promote a lack of critical thinking, they don't have to think for themselves, because their book of fairytales insists that something is the way it is due to the skydaddy(s) making that way, and thus cannot be chanhged.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @07:18AM
All religions are dangerous
That's why nukes are the best way to take care of the problem. And who cares about the 'religion' angle? The best place to start is the Middle East, Africa, India and Asia. They're nothing but a drain on civilized society anyway, regardless of their religion. Let's get rid of them all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @07:36AM
Corporations are a bigger drain on civilized society, they leach wealth from local economies.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 14 2017, @09:56AM
I guess you got modded troll because there isn't a "-1 genocidal loon" mod option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:17AM
Quickest way to get the things going: start with NY, Washington, LA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @08:34PM
Shouldn't it be possible to build a drone that acquires a target from a distance using GPS, and then uses some other unjammable techniques or cheap sensors to deliver the payload to the target?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday February 13 2017, @10:55PM
of course.