Page 29 of 44

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 10:28 am
by seemslikeadream
Pakistan: US Drones Killed at Least 400 Civilians
Hundreds of Other Victims 'Probable Non-Combatants'
by Jason Ditz, October 18, 2013

The Pakistani government’s testimony to the UN human rights rapporteur has revealed that their own estimates on the US drone strikes against their tribal areas shows a major civilian toll, with at least 400 of the slain confirmed as civilians.

That’s a low-ball estimate, and Pakistan admitted as much, saying that over 200 other victims are officially classified as “probable non-combatants,” and a large number of others are simply totally anonymous.

It’s difficult to accurately figure these tolls, of course, since Pakistan’s government rarely officially comments beyond terming anyone slain as a “suspect,” and the only time civilian deaths come out is when there’s a surviving relative who is willing to push the issue, something that’s not easy to do in the lawless region.

The Obama Administration has occasionally disputed claims of civilian deaths in general, insisting they are super-careful about their killings, but also refusing to provide any real details on the matter, claiming they are classified.

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 12:28 pm
by KeenInsight
The state I live in struck a deal with the Airforce base here to be able to build for research companies in groups regarding Drones. It showed the typical Unmanned drones flying around in the report.

Also here is Malala, telling it like it is, which was ignored by the Mass Media when she confronted Obama:


http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/10/ ... -ever.html

Awkwardest and Most Authoritative Comments on Drones Ever

The comments come from Malala and the U.N. respectively.

President Obama invited Malala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old Pakistani advocate for girls’ education, to meet with his family. And she promptly explained that what he is doing works against her agenda and fuels terrorism.

Image

Malala is a victim of violence in Pakistan, having been attacked by religious fanatics opposed to her work. But Obama may not have expected her to speak up against other forms of violence in her country.

Malala recounted: “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education, it will make a big impact.”

President Obama may also have not expected most people to notice or care. The corporate media have virtually ignored this part of a widely-reported meeting.

It’s up to us to surprise everyone with the depth of our interest and concern. Almost 100,000 have thus far signed a petition to ban weaponized drones, soon to be delivered to the U.N., the I.C.C., the State Department, the White House, Congress, and embassies.

The United Nations has released a report on “armed drones and the right to life” (PDF). The report begins by noting that, as of now, weaponized drones are legal:

“Although drones are not illegal weapons, they can make it easier for States to deploy deadly and targeted force on the territories of other States. As such, they risk undermining the protection of life in the immediate and longer terms. If the right to life is to be secured, it is imperative that the limitations posed by international law on the use of force are not weakened by broad justifications of drone strikes.”

Drones, the U.N. Special Rapporteur reports, risk making war the normal state of affairs:

“Peace should be the norm, yet such scenarios risk making its derogation the rule by privileging force over long-term peaceful alternatives. . . . Given that drones greatly reduce or eliminate the number of casualties on the side using them, the domestic constraints — political and otherwise — may be less restrictive than with the deployment of other types of armed force. This effect is enhanced by the relative ease with which the details about drone targeting can be withheld from the public eye and the potentially restraining influence of public concern. Such dynamics call for a heightened level of vigilance by the international community concerning the use of drones.”

The U.N. Charter and this report seek to make war an exceptional state of affairs. This is a very difficult, and a morally depraved thing to attempt with an institution that deserves total abolition. War does not work as a tool with which to eliminate war. But, even within that framework, the U.N. finds that drones create extra-legal war:

“An outer layer of protection for the right to life is the prohibition on the resort to force by one State against another, again subject to a narrowly construed set of exceptions. The protection of State sovereignty and of territorial integrity, which onoccasion presents a barrier to the protection of human rights, here can constitute an important component of the protection of people against deadly force, especially with the advent of armed drones.”

The strongest excuse for war is the claim of defense against an actual attack. The next best thing is to pretend an attack is imminent. The Obama Administration has famously redefined “imminent” to mean eventual or theoretical — that is, they’ve stripped the word of all meaning. (See the “white paper” PDF.) The U.N. doesn’t buy it:

“The view that mere past involvement in planning attacks is sufficient to render an individual targetable even where there is no evidence of a specific and immediate attack distorts the requirements established in international human rights law.”

U.S. lawyers at Congressional hearings have tended to maintain that drone killing is legal if and only if it’s part of a war. The U.N. report also distinguishes between two supposedly different standards of law depending on whether a drone murder is separate from or part of a war. Disappointingly, the U.N. believes that some drone strikes can be legal and others not:

“Insofar as the term ‘signature strikes’ refers to targeting without sufficient information to make the necessary determination, it is clearly unlawful. . . . Where one drone attack is followed up by another in order to target those who are wounded and hors de combat or medical personnel, it constitutes a war crime in armed conflict and a violation of the right to life, whether or not in armed conflict. Strikes on others confirmed to be civilians who are directly participating in hostilities or having a continuous combat function at the time of the follow-up strike could be lawful if the other international humanitarian law rules are respected.”

The complex mumbo-jumbo of multiple legal standards for multiple scenarios, complete with calculations of necessity and distinction and proportionality and collateral damage, mars this report and any attempt to create enforceable action out of it. But the report does, tentatively, find one little category of drone murders illegal that encompasses many, if not all, U.S. drone murders — namely, those where the victim might have been captured rather than killed:

“Recent debates have asked whether international humanitarian law requires that a party to an armed conflict under certain circumstances consider the capture of an otherwise lawful target (i.e. a combatant in the traditional sense or a civilian directly participating in hostilities) rather than targeting with force. In its Interpretive Guidance, ICRC states that it would defy basic notions of humanity to kill an adversary or to refrain from giving him or her an opportunity to surrender where there manifestly is no necessity for the use of lethal force.”

Image

Pathetically, the report finds that if a government is going to pretend that murdering someone abroad is “self-defense” the action must be reported to the U.N. — thereby making it sooooo much better.

A second UN report (PDF) goes further, citing findings that U.S. drones have killed hundreds of civilians, but failing to call for prosecutions of these crimes. That is to say, the first report, above, which does not list specific U.S. drone murders of civilians, discusses the need for prosecutions. But this second report just asks for “a detailed public explanation.”

The fact that an insane killing spree is counter-productive, as pointed out to Obama by Malala, in case he hadn’t heard all his own experts, is not enough to end the madness. Ultimately we must recognize the illegality of all killing and all war. In the meantime, prior to the U.N.’s debate on this on the 25th, we can add our names to the growing movement to ban weaponized drones at http://BanWeaponizedDrones.org



What a wonderful girl, telling Imperialists how it really is.

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 3:30 pm
by fruhmenschen
Two days ago I was driving down State street in Augusta Maine when lo and behold
a procession of 30 plus people carrying
signs saying Ban Weaponized Drones in Maine appeared in my peripheral vision.
The group was led by several buddhist monks dressed in their traditional orange garb pounding on their rawhide drums. The rally was organized by Bruce Gagnon
see http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org ... uce-gagnon


see

10-day walk brings awareness of surveillance drones in Maine

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/10/13/n ... -in-maine/

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 12:00 pm
by Iamwhomiam
Here's the latest from my neck of the woods...
Taking a stand against real-life 'Terminators'
RPI expert signs petition against the use of "killer robots"

By Brian Nearing
Updated 6:27 am, Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Troy

As head of computer science at RPI, James Handler knows more about robotics and artificial intelligence than most people. So when he says the time is now for a ban on so-called "killer robots" -— machines with weaponry and decision-making power to kill, without human oversight -— it's reasonable to listen.

Last week, Hendler was among nearly 300 scientists from three dozen countries who signed a statement to the United Nations calling for governments to stop such robotic technology, which has long been the stuff of dystopian science fiction and films as far back as the 1927 silent German classic "Metropolis."

While the public might envision something along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the "Terminator" movies, the military term for such weapons is "lethally autonomous robots," or LARS, meaning the machine's artificial intelligence would select and destroy targets, human or otherwise. The lethal machine could be a flying drone, tank, vessel, vehicle or fixed weapon that could sense its surroundings and fire based on its findings.

"The first generation of such machines are already being tested by some countries," said Hendler, a 56-year-old expert in robotics and artificial intelligence and former scientific adviser to the Air Force who joined RPI in 2006. In Troy, his research involves something called the semantic web, an extension of the World Wide Web to enable computers to interpret the meaning and context of words and numbers.

This year, he was named director of the RPI Institute for Data Exploration and Applications, a $60 million project to explore applications of so-called "Big Data," based on increasingly powerful computing, artificial intelligence and device networking over an expanding Internet.

During the 1990s, when Hendler headed a robotics lab at the University of Maryland, the idea of "weaponizing" robots, which were still relatively clumsy devices, was still theoretical. Now, he said, the technology, particularly the sciences of target recognition and cognitive computing, has caught up. In cognitive computing, systems are trained using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to sense, predict, infer and, in some ways, think, according to experts.

"For the time being, such robots are still expensive, hard to build and owned by very few," Hendler said. "But we are at a cusp in time when that won't be the case. And it will be very hard to put these things back in the box."

This week, at the U.N., diplomats from Egypt, France and Switzerland proposed regulating "killer robots" while the technology is still developing, becoming some of the first international voices to back calls that groups like Human Rights Watch and Campaign to Stop Killer Robots began raising last year.

The idea that man-made machines, once capable of independent action, could turn on their creator has long haunted science-fiction writers. So troubling was this scenario that prominent writer Isaac Asimov, when he began writing about robots in the 1940s, made his first law of robotics this: A robot must not harm a human, or cause a human to come to harm through its inaction. In his second law, robots had to obey humans unless obeying violated this directive.

Hendler said he is less worried about legions of lethal robots turning against humankind in general, than he is about such killing machines being used by criminal gangs, terrorist groups, military strongmen or dictatorships. For example, during the 2011 civilian uprising in Egypt, the army refused orders from the government to suppress protesters. But if the government had squads of lethal robots to deploy, a massacre could have ensued as machines blindly followed commands without the moral choice faced by human soldiers.

"We are not facing Terminators yet," Hendler said. "But some of these technologies are very close and within a decade will be there. Most of the science fiction about use of robots contained these ethical dimensions. But when you look at the military arenas where developments are taking place, you are not seeing these ethical issues being raised."

Hendler said he "wanted to see these discussions taking place now, while these things are just starting to come out. We need to have roboticists, ethicists and government officials talking about this now."

bnearing@timesunion.com • 518-454-5094 • @Bnearing10

More information

See the petition to the U.N. signed by James Hendler of RPI and other scientists at http://bit.ly/1h5QJ1Y Learn about laws controlling robot behavior that were deemed critical by the late science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov at http://bit.ly/GX61D

Tim Pool | The Journalism Revolution

PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 8:20 am
by Allegro
This update shows Pool’s reliance on phones and a drone for journalism. You’ll see the drone in action.

_________________
http://youtu.be/SEVNA8EnTeA

^ Tim Pool: The Journalism Revolution
YOUTUBE NOTES | Published on Sep 6, 2013
    See Tim speak in NYC this October: http://futureofstorytelling.org
    Film/Edit: http://www.BrettNovak.com

    Tim Pool [is] now a producer for VICE and a brilliant friend of mine that I grew up skating with (an amazing skater at that). Our paths would separate for many years only to recross once he had found himself at the forefront of a revolution in journalism; Mobile carrying citizens. From dangerous protests, budding civil wars and political conflicts, Tim has seen it all. The organization “The Future of Storytelling” brought me out to NYC to document Tim in action this past MayDay.

Lockheed Martin on another unmanned spy plane

PostPosted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 11:24 am
by Allegro
Spy Plane Can Fly Anywhere on Earth—in an Hour
But aircraft won't be in service until 2030 at the earliest
By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff | Updated Nov 10, 2013 3:55 PM CST

    (Newser) – Lockheed Martin is working on an unmanned spy plane that can travel at six times the speed of sound—meaning that no matter where it needs to go, it can be there in an hour, LiveScience reports. The SR-72, under development in California, is a follow-up to the SR-71 Blackbird, developed in the 1960s and used by the US Air Force until 1998. At mach 6—some 3,500mph—the upcoming plane will go twice as fast as its predecessor, and three times as fast as today's fighter jets.

    "Hypersonic is the new stealth," Lockheed engineer Brad Leland tells Reuters. "Your adversaries cannot hide or move their critical assets. They will be found. That becomes a game-changer." A missile showing off the technology could be ready in five or six years, at a cost of less than $1 billion, he says. But the plane itself will take a little longer. It could be ready for service by 2030, notes Aviation Week via LiveScience.

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 11:08 am
by elfismiles
Drones with facial and eye-scanning capabilities from a distance...

CMU Facial Recognition Technology Could Be Future For Catching Criminals (Video)
November 12, 2013 11:10 PM
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/11/ ... criminals/

'Killer Robots' could be outlawed
'Killer Robots' could be made illegal if campaigners in Geneva succeed in persuading a UN committee, meeting on Thursday and Friday, to open an investigation into their development
BAE Systems' Taranis, a semi-autonomous unmanned warplane, that will use stealth technology and can fly intercontinental missions and attack both aerial and ground targets Photo: HANDOUT
By Harriet Alexander /
7:00AM GMT 14 Nov 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... lawed.html

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 7:57 am
by 8bitagent
fruhmenschen » Sun Oct 20, 2013 2:30 pm wrote:Two days ago I was driving down State street in Augusta Maine when lo and behold
a procession of 30 plus people carrying
signs saying Ban Weaponized Drones in Maine appeared in my peripheral vision.
The group was led by several buddhist monks dressed in their traditional orange garb pounding on their rawhide drums. The rally was organized by Bruce Gagnon
see http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org ... uce-gagnon


see

10-day walk brings awareness of surveillance drones in Maine

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/10/13/n ... -in-maine/


Thank fucking God. Least a few real anti war liberals still exist in Amerikkka

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 10:03 pm
by 8bitagent
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news ... t-kin?lite

A Yemeni civil engineer has provided White House officials with a first-hand account of a controversial CIA drone strike last year that he says "terrorized" his small village, scattered body parts near the local mosque and mistakenly killed two members of his family -- an imam who had denounced al Qaeda and a local police officer.

Two National Security Council officials met Wednesday afternoon with Faisel bin Ali Jaber, 55, a Yemeni government engineer who is seeking U.S. government compensation for his village, a White House official confirmed to NBC News.

"This is significant, this is a breakthrough,” said Alka Pradhan, a lawyer for Reprieve, a London-based human rights group that helped sponsor Jaber's visit and who attended the meeting. "This is the first time that a drone strike victim has come to the United States and met with members of the U.S. government."
Advertise | AdChoices

In an earlier interview with NBC News, Jaber described what happened on Aug. 29, 2012, when Hellfire missiles fired from a CIA drone struck Khashamir, the village where he lives in eastern Yemen.

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 10:20 am
by elfismiles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BIu9dpwHU



Amazon testing delivery by drone, CEO Bezos says
Alistair Barr, USA TODAY 9:51 p.m. EST December 1, 2013
It would speed up delivery of online orders, but the technology is at least three or four years away.
Image
An Amazon photo showing a test of package delivery by drone (Photo: Amazon)
Story Highlights

Company would use small, unmanned aircraft, through a service called Prime Air
Octocopters will pick up packages in yellow buckets at fulfillment centers for dropoff
New delivery system is to get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less

Amazon.com is testing delivering packages using drones, CEO Jeff Bezos said on the CBS TV news show 60 Minutes Sunday.

The idea would be to deliver packages as quickly as possible using the small, unmanned aircraft, through a service the company is calling Prime Air, the CEO said.

Bezos played a demo video on 60 Minutes that showed how the aircraft, also known as octocopters, will pick up packages in small yellow buckets at Amazon's fulfillment centers and fly through the air to deliver items to customers after they hit the buy button online at Amazon.com.

The goal of the new delivery system is to get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less, the world's largest Internet retailer said. Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take "some number of years" as Amazon develops the technology further and waits for the Federal Aviation Administration to come up with rules and regulations, the company added.

Bezos told 60 Minutes that the service could be up and running in as few as four years — although he noted that he is an optimist when it comes to such things.

"One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today," the company said.

This is the latest futuristic effort by Bezos, who was an e-commerce pioneer in the 1990s and more recently popularized the e-reader — while pursuing personal projects such as private spaceflight and a 10,000-year clock built inside a mountain.

Image
Amazon tests drone delivery through a program called PrimeAir(Photo: Amazon)

Drones have mostly been used by the U.S. military to shoot missiles at enemy combatants in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the cost of these unmanned aircraft has dropped precipitously in recent years, making them more accessible to commercial users, such as companies, small businesses and entrepreneurs.

However, the FAA currently limits the use of drones in the U.S. to public entities such as police forces and hobbyists, meaning the devices cannot be used in return for payment. The regulator said recently that it plans to have regulations governing commercial use in place by 2015.

"The FAA would not let Amazon do this now," said Ryan Calo, an expert on robotics, privacy and the law at the University of Washington. "But this is precisely the type of application that Congress had in mind when it told the FAA in 2012 to come up with rules for commercial unmanned aircraft."

Amazon will be able to petition the FAA to show them how its drone delivery technology works and the company can also apply to test its drones to make sure they are air worthy,he added.

"Amazon will not be able to darken the skies of Seattle with drones. They will need a plan for safety," Calo said. "But I see no reason why this application won't fly."

If drone delivery takes off, it could be a threat to FedEx and UPS, which Amazon uses for a lot of its deliveries now. Indeed, FedEx founder Fred Smith told Wired magazine in 2009 that the company wanted to switch their fleet to drones as soon as possible but that it had to wait for the FAA to regulate such activity.

"We'll be ready to enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place," Amazon said Sunday. "Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013 ... y/3799021/

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 5:26 pm
by elfismiles
This ROCKS!!

cptmarginal » 02 Dec 2013 20:14 wrote:http://matternet.us/

Our Vision

We are creating the next paradigm for transportation using a network of unmanned aerial vehicles.

We will bring to the world its next-generation transportation system.

A system that’s the lowest cost, lowest energy, lowest ecological footprint, most easy to set up, most easy to reconfigure, requiring the least upfront infrastructure investment than any other system we’ve ever created.

A system that can work in any environment, in the least and the most extreme landscapes and in most weather.

A system that can reach anyone, anywhere.

A system that creates opportunities and unlocks access.


Matternet Manifesto

We founded Matternet on the belief that we should take the most advanced technology where it’s needed most. It’s our fundamental belief that technological solutions will evolve faster and better where the need is most extreme.

Doing good is our first priority. There is strong value associated with doing good in the world and we are moving into an era when this will be appreciated as the prime objective after decades of technological innovation driven solely by the desire to make money.

As humanity continues to destabilize the global environment, the moments of global human crisis that face us will challenge the fragile systems of infrastructure that have been defined by our past will need to be augmented by smart agile systems of the future.

We feel like we’re constantly evolving our own category. When we started no-one was talking about the positive value of drones. Today, there’s plenty of players in the ‘drones for good’ business which makes us happy. We’re not just in the drone business, because that would have been like being in the hardware business and not the internet, the software and connected service creates long term value.

The inception point for Matternet was an observation that communities that can neither afford or sustain road infrastructure should leapfrog the accepted paradigm to build an infrastructure that redefines the next-generation of transportation systems. Today the solution is drones, tomorrow it could be desktop factories or dematerialization.

So we designed Matternet to connect drones to every possible fulfillment service, creating a federated infrastructure that realizes the full potential of the internet. We want to bring fulfillment to where need exists rather than where roads end. The beauty of UAVs is no physical infrastructure. UAVs fly wherever there is air, and air paths can be authorized. It’s dematerialised infrastructure. It’s software infrastructure.

Fundamentally we want to create a network that is designed around human need, rather than the limitations of the antiquated technology that formed our current transportation system.

And because we are able to sense need at the speed of the internet we can update the inventory of matter that can fulfill that need at the speed of the internet. Fulfilling this need quickly becomes simply about connecting this ‘need node’ to the closest location of available resource.

The matternet is finite resource networked to the awareness of need, serviced by an adaptive delivery mechanism. It is a net(work) for matter and will do to atoms, what the internet did to information.



Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 5:28 pm
by elfismiles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqhMUkErOkE

Self-Driving Nissan Electric Car Takes to Highway
By Jonathan Welsh

Nissan Motor Co. said a self-driving version of its electric Leaf car made its first foray onto public roads. Its guidance system, called Autonomous Drive, senses road conditions and operates the car’s steering, acceleration and braking as it merges into traffic, changes lanes and makes adjustments to keep a safe distance from other vehicles.

The Leaf drove on Japan’s Sagami Expressway in Kanagawa prefecture, southwest of Tokyo. Nissan vice chairman Toshiyuki Shiga and the prefecture’s Governor, Yuji Kuroiwa, rode in the car during the test, which marked a major step toward Nissan’s goal of selling self-driving cars to consumers by 2020.

A bigger step might be getting today’s drivers to accept them. Indeed, the technology allowing cars to drive themselves has essentially been in place for years, waiting for motorist culture to catch up.

Many car makers have experimented with autonomous passenger vehicles in part as a way to increase safety and efficiency. Technology company Google has a fleet of self-driving cars that have been on the road for years. Some safety experts have long said our highways would be much safer if cars drove themselves, cutting the chance of human error.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/12/ ... o-highway/


Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:36 pm
by DrEvil
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12 ... o-zombies/

Flying hacker contraption hunts other drones, turns them into zombies

Ever wanted your own botnet of flying drones? SkyJack can help.


Serial hacker Samy Kamkar has released all the hardware and software specifications that hobbyists need to build an aerial drone that seeks out other drones in the air, hacks them, and turns them into soldiers in a growing army of unmanned vehicles under the attacker's control.

Dubbed SkyJack, the contraption uses a radio-controlled Parrot AR.Drone quadcopter carrying a Raspberry Pi circuit board, a small battery, and two wireless transmitters. The devices run a combination of custom software and off-the-shelf applications that seek out wireless signals of nearby Parrot drones, hijack the wireless connections used to control them, and commandeer the victims' flight-control and camera systems. SkyJack will also run on land-based Linux devices and hack drones within radio range.

Kamkar is the creator of the infamous Samy worm, a complex piece of JavaScript that knocked MySpace out of commission in 2005 when the exploit added more than one million MySpace friends to Kamkar's account. Kamkar was later convicted for the stunt. He has since devoted his skills to legal hacks, including development of the "evercookie," a highly persistent browser cookie with troubling privacy implications. He has also researched location data stored by Android devices.

SkyJack made its debut the same week that Amazon unveiled plans to use drones to deliver packages to customers' homes or businesses.

"How fun would it be to take over drones, carrying Amazon packages... or take over any other drones, and make them my little zombie drones," Kamkar asked rhetorically in a blog post published Monday. "Awesome."

SkyJack works by monitoring the media access control (MAC) addresses of all Wi-Fi devices within radio range. When it finds a MAC address belonging to a block of addresses used by Parrot AR.Drone vehicles, SkyJack uses the open-source Aircrack-ng app for Wi-Fi hacking to issue a command that disconnects the vehicle from the iOS or Android device currently being used to control and monitor it. Operators of the flying hacker drone are then able to use their own smart device to control the altitude, speed, and direction of the hijacked drone and to view its live video feeds.

At the moment, SkyJack is engineered to target a small range of drones. That's because it's programmed to take over drones only if their MACs fall inside an address block reserved by Parrot AR.Drone vehicles. If the MAC falls outside that range, SkyJack takes no action at all. But the software is built in a way to easily target other types of drones that have communication systems that are similar to Parrot. That means a much broader range of devices may be susceptible to radio-controlled hijacking if they fail to adequately secure their connections.

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 2:13 pm
by elfismiles
Image

... Gaskell, eh? Wonder if she's related to Anna ...

Navy Launches a Drone from a Submerged Submarine
Stephanie Gaskell / December 5, 2013
Image

The Naval Research Lab just launched a drone from a submerged submarine – giving a huge edge to the future of special operations.

It took six years to develop and launch an all-electric, fuel cell-powered, folding-wing drone aircraft from a submerged submarine. The eXperimental Fuel Cell Unmanned Aerial System, or XFC UAS, was fired from the submarine's torpedo tube using a “Sea Robin” launch system, which is designed to fit within an empty Tomahawk launch canister used for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The XFC UAS uses an electrically assisted take-off system which lifts the plane vertically out of its container. Once deployed from the submarine, the Sea Robin launch vehicle rose to the ocean surface where it appeared as a spar buoy. The drone then vertically launched and flew a “successful several hour mission demonstrating live video capabilities streamed back to Providence [R.I.], surface support vessels and Norfolk [Va.]” before landing at the Naval Sea Systems Command Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center in the Bahamas.

“This six-year effort represents the best in collaboration of a Navy laboratory and industry to produce a technology that meets the needs of the special operations community," said Dr. Warren Schultz, program developer and manager, NRL. "The creativity and resourcefulness brought to this project by a unique team of scientists and engineers represents an unprecedented paradigm shift in UAV propulsion and launch systems."

The project was funded by SwampWorks at the Office of Naval Research and the Department of Defense Rapid Reaction Technology Office.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/20 ... ine/75026/

Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

PostPosted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 4:30 pm
by elfismiles
Unmasked: Area 51's Biggest, Stealthiest Spy Drone Yet
Posted By Zach Rosenberg Friday, December 6, 2013 - 9:53 AM
Image

The drone that spied on bin Laden and on Iran's nukes was just the start. Meet its bigger, higher-flying, stealthier cousin, the Northrop Grumman RQ-180. It's probably been flying for a few years now, but you weren't supposed to know that; the existence of this secret project, based out of Area 51, was revealed Friday by Aviation Week.

The existence of the RQ-180 has been long rumored. Cryptic public statements by U.S. Air Force officials indicated a secret high-altitude reconnaissance drone, and Northrop officials frequently reference the broad strokes of the program. For that matter, it is likely not the only classified unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV. Other companies, including Lockheed and Boeing, also have a stable of smaller secretaircraft.

The RQ-180 is likely flying from the secret Air Force test facility at Groom Lake, Nevada, widely known as Area 51. Its exact specifications, including such crucial details as the number of engines, is unknown, but Aviation Week suggests a wingspan of over 130 feet, based on hangar construction at Northrop's Palmdale, California facility. The number of aircraft built is also unknown; however, a flight test program, relatively quick entry into service and open budget documents suggest a small fleet are flying routinely.

One such aircraft is Lockheed's RQ-170, first shown to the world in grainy pictures from Kandahar air base, Afghanistan, but only officially acknowledged after one crashed almost-intact in Iran. The RQ-170 was (and maybe still is) tasked by the CIA to spy on Iran's contentious nuclear program. The drone was reportedly used to spy on Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan before and during the raid that killed him. RQ-170 has also been reported in South Korea, possibly to look at North Korea's nuclear program. RQ-170 was impressive, but limited: it showed only some stealth characteristics, and was widely believed to be slightly outdated by the time it was discovered. The larger and stealthier RQ-180 would be able to fly higher, longer, allowing the CIA to watch the same targets for days at a time, and -- just maybe -- spy on more sophisticated countries.

The RQ-180 is based off the X-47B, a much smaller experimental aircraft that became the first drone to takeoff and land from an aircraft carrier. Where the smaller X-47B lacks range and stealth, RQ-180 evidently delivers. Though RQ-180 is far too large for an aircraft carrier, it may have the same air-to-air refueling capabilities as the X-47B, allowing it to stay in the air virtually indefinitely. It may also have attack capabilities: X-47B has bomb bays, which have thus far gone unused, and indeed Aviation Week suggests it is used for electronic attack and carries sophisticated sensors.

The aircraft's performance is said to be similar to Northrop's white-world entry, the RQ-4 Global Hawk, which can fly for days and cover thousands of miles. Hopefully the RQ-180 performs better; Global Hawk has received mixed marks on its evaluations, and the aircraft it was meant to replace, the venerable Lockheed U-2, will continue to fly for decades to come.

White-world reconnaissance capabilities, such as the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper and a plethora of modified Beechcraft King Airs, are incapable of stealth and can easily be tracked on radar. Though few doubt stealthier capabilities, the Air Force has been closemouthed on its stealthy intelligence aircraft.

The Nevada desert has a long history of supporting whole squadrons of classified aircraft, including the famed Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 stealth fighter and the RQ-170. Often upon becoming public the aircraft are transferred to other facilities, usually the slightly-less-classified Tonopah Test Range airport. The wheels of declassification turn slowly, so as with RQ-170, details of the RQ-180 will likely remain opaque for years to come.

http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/pos ... _drone_yet