From NBC News. http://www.nbcnews.com/mach/features...drones-n708646. Ed Making money more important than protecting people. Civilians should never ...
Trump Inauguration Spotlights New Ways to Protect Crowds From Attack Drones. January 19, 2017. As millions gather in Washington, D.C. for the inauguration ...
22 hours ago ...Trump Inauguration Spotlights New Ways to Protect Crowds From Attack Drones.
Comments. comments. Tagsattack, Crowds, Inauguration, Protect, trump
... Drone video shows a huge crack in Antarctic ice January 18, 2017 ...
Trump Inauguration Spotlights New Ways to Protect Crowds From Attack Drones
byKerry SandersandMatthew Vann
Drones could threaten crowds such as inauguration attendees, experts say3:20
As millions gather in Washington, D.C. for the
inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, there's a new threat
facing the Secret Service: airborne drones.
Despite being one of the most popular Christmas gifts in years, a drone in the wrong hands can be deadly.
"Drones are prohibited in the airspace over
Washington, D.C.," says Jeh Johnson, secretary of Homeland Security.
"This is something we have thought about, we have planned for, and there
is technology to deal with it." Related: Life Saving Drones Promise Revolution in Emergency Care
When asked about that defensive technology, Johnson says it's a secret.
What's not a secret are the real world threats.
In October, an ISIS drone strapped with a bomb
exploded in Mosul, Iraq, killing two Peshmerga soldiers and leaving two
French soldiers wounded. U.S. special forces now call these armed drones
"flying IEDs," or improvised explosive devices.
The U.S. Military's Central Command says
coalition forces are seeing adversarial drones on an almost daily basis.
It's why security experts in D.C. are paying extra close attention this
Friday as large crowds gather outdoors at the inauguration.
Drones, small and manufactured mostly of plastic, are often invisible to radars. Related: Protecting Your Internet Presence in the Age of Trump
Experts are finding that spotting a tiny drone
flying at speeds up to 100-miles-per-hour and then deploying a response
from the ground can be challenging. Traditional radars don't work well
because that old-school technology also picks up birds and planes, which
can look like drones.
In 2015, a Japanese protester strapped nuclear waste to a drone and flew it undetected to the prime minister's residence.
"It's a real threat," says former CIA targeting
officer Josh Desmond. "If you look at what's going on overseas in the
Middle East, it's a proven threat, not a theoretical one."
While Homeland Security won't detail what
technology the Secret Service is using, there are hints from companies
developing their own countermeasures.
Desmond, now vice president of business development at DroneShield,
says his company has "high-tech listening" technology to eliminate
false alarms, and that can detect and then take control of an incoming
enemy drone.
DroneShield uses an array of parabolic
microphones to listen for the telltale signature of the machine's rotor
blades. The system has been deployed the last two years at the Boston
Marathon.
"A lot of sounds you think of are a lot lower
frequency than these drones," says John Franklin, DroneShield's chief
scientist. "What goes into telling them apart is both the frequencies
they're emitting noise at and also how that's changing over time."
Once a drone is spotted, a ground agent fires a
DroneShield gun at the perceived threat. The gun doesn't shoot
ammunition, rather it fires radio waves that disrupt communication
between the drone and its pilot, effectively eliminating contact with
the potential terrorist, who could be up to a mile away.
The ground agent can then safely guide the drone back to earth.
Josh Desmond simulating use of a DroneShield gun that can ultimately bring down a drone. DroneShield
But jamming signals in the U.S. requires Federal
Communications Commission approval, so while the "ray-gun" has been
used successfully in Australia and Turkey, in the U.S. jamming is
restricted to the Secret Service and the military.
Desmond says he understands why. A jamming
signal fired off course could hit a plane, or a cellphone tower, or
maybe even a drone that is simply being flown by a hobbyist.
"You're talking about collateral damage and
liability if you're shooting it out of the sky," Desmond says. "It's
hard to hard to distinguish between recreational use and somebody that's
attached something that shouldn't be on a drone. " Related: Could One Person Take Down the Internet?
Another company, Department 13, tracks and detects potential threats by "sniffing" the airwaves for drone WIFI and GPS signals.
Once the drone is detected, Department 13 computers fire off signals that hack into the drone, giving the good guys control.
"We want to change the flight plan and tell it
to fly somewhere else," says Robi Sen, Department 13 founder. "By the
time you visually see it, it may be too late."
No comments:
Post a Comment