http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion....

Drones: A deeply unsettling future

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Reports confirm that the US believes Iran is now in possession of "one of the more sensitive surveillance platforms in the CIA's fleet", but deny Iran's involvement. Of course, Iran’s claim of overtaking the drone with its cyber warfare team should be tempered with a serious dose of scepticism, as cyber security experts say the facts may not add up. But this is just the latest story in a series of incidents that raises worrying questions about security problems caused by drones. And given the coming proliferation of drone technology both domestically and abroad, this should be a concern to citizens all over the world.

Two years ago the Wall Street Journal reported Iran-funded militants in Iraq were able to hack into drones' live-video feeds with "$26 off-the-shelf software". In another unnerving incident, Wired reported in October that a fleet of the Air Force's drones was infected with a computer virus that captured all of drones' key strokes. Technicians continually deleted the virus to no avail. How did the drones get infected? The military is "not quite sure". Worse, the Air Force's cyber security team didn't even know about the virus until they read about it in Wired.

Wired reported in a separate story that an upcoming Congressional report will detail how hackers broke into the US satellite system. With one satellite, hackers "achieved all steps required to command" it, "but never actually exercised control".

Last summer, a drone caused a scene in the nation's capital, when, as New York Times wrote, "fighter jets were almost scrambled after a rogue Fire Scout drone, the size of a small helicopter, wandered into Washington's restricted airspace". A similar incident took place in Afghanistan where military planes had to shoot down a "runaway drone" when pilots lost control.

So...the Iranians did/did not take this over in flight? I'd say as remarkably well preserved as it is, they did. Or more likely the Chinese did with Iranian support.

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Wired reported in a separate story that an upcoming Congressional report will detail how hackers broke into the US satellite system. With one satellite, hackers "achieved all steps required to command" it, "but never actually exercised control".

Good to know you can do it when you want to, or need to. Hmmmm...who would want to and be capable of such antics?

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Last summer, a drone caused a scene in the nation's capital, when, as New York Times wrote, "fighter jets were almost scrambled after a rogue Fire Scout drone, the size of a small helicopter, wandered into Washington's restricted airspace". A similar incident took place in Afghanistan where military planes had to shoot down a "runaway drone" when pilots lost control.

The US, of course, leads the world in drone use for both surveillance and combat missions. Attacks are carried out in Pakistan every four days on average. Many times, the US isn't even sure exactly who they are killing. Despite the fact that the location of vast majority of drone bases are classified, journalist Nick Turse pieced together a startling picture of the massive US fleet. He determined that the US has at least 60 drone bases operated by either the US military or the CIA around the world, and "most of these facilities have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably anonymous - until now".

But drone use is not just relegated to US military. Drone manufacturers already command a $94bn market, according to some estimates, and the drone arms race is in full swing. As the Washington Post reported, the constant buzz of drones and threats of attack now dominates the lives of civilians in Gaza. And Turkey plans to have Predator drones in operation by June 2012.

Meanwhile, Chinese contractors unveiled 25 types of unmanned aircraft last year. In all, at least 50 countries now have some sort of unmanned aerial vehicles, and the New York Times reports that "the number is rising every month". That number also includes Iran, which is seeking to upgrade its fleet. Even the Libyan rebels had their own surveillance drone - provided to them by Canadian defence contractors - before they were in full control of their own country.

The technology itself is also developing at an alarmingly rapid pace. The New York Times reports that researchers in the US are working on "shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects", along with oversized drones that can capture video of an entire city. There are birdlike drones, underwater drones, drones within drones, facial recognition drones, and perhaps most terrifying, completely autonomous drones - currently being tested in Georgia - which will require no human control at all.

As Micah Zenko, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me last month, "It's a very impressive and responsive tool that should be used sparingly. Even if we’re responsible now, we might not be forever."

But in the US, drones will become yet another way authorities can compromise the privacy of ordinary citizens, as the FAA plans to propose new rules for their domestic flight. As Newsweek reported, police forces and border patrols in the US are buying the technology from defence contractors, and one has already been spotted flying over Houston. Police departments are already using GPS and cell phone tracking without warrants, this will another powerful surveillance weapon in their arsenal. As privacy advocates warn, "drones can easily be equipped with facial recognition cameras, infrared cameras, or open Wi-Fi sniffers". And while these drones will be used for many surveillance purposes (a scary thought in and of itself), contractors admit they are equipped to carry weapons, such as Tasers.

Interesting - I've not read any worries about the privacy rights of Americans over drone use in the US; guess you have to go to Al Jazeera for that.

Well linked article continues at site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoBot

Robots that can eat, drones that can kill autonomously, the future looks not so bright.




EcoBot-III
EcoBot-IIIEcoBot-III was developed in 2010, as part of a European FP-6 funded project, by Ieropoulos I., Greenman J., Melhuish C. and Horsfield I and was the world's first robot to exhibit true self-sustainability, albeit in primitive form. This robot was capable of operating within an enclosed environment for 7 days, by collecting its food and water from the arena environment, metabolising these through the collection of 48 small-scale Microbial Fuel Cells and excreting the waste by-products at the end of the day

Obama says U.S. has asked Iran to return drone aircraft!!!!


http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/12/world/meas....

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States has asked Iran to return a U.S. drone aircraft that Iran claims it recently brought down in Iranian territory.

"We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said in a news conference, alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

A top Iranian military official previously vowed not to return the unmanned American stealth plane that it says it has.

"No nation welcomes other countries' spy drones in its territory, and no one sends back the spying equipment and its information back to the country of origin," said Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran's military, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday.

"It makes no difference where this drone originated and which group or country sent it to invade our airspace," Salami said. "This was an act of invasion and belligerence."

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contractors admit they are equipped to carry weapons, such as Tasers.

Tasers? hmmm. Dazzlers, yes.

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The technology itself is also developing at an alarmingly rapid pace.

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"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it." - Admiral Josh Painter in The Hunt for Red October

Just as I surmised in a previous post here: jam control link, then allow drone to think it was auto-returning to launch point while spoofing its GPS, most likely using the primo Russian EW van they'd received 6 weeks prior to the hijacking. No need to intrude upon secure communications links or via viruses both of which, IMO, are extremely difficult verging on the impossible because of the nature of secure comm/control links:

Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer

Excerpt:

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-Ea....

This means that the GPS .MIL code has been compromised and is worthless.

The implications of that are far worse than getting the encryption keys for the drone system -- it's a **** of a lot harder to fix the satellites in orbit!

Yep. Jammed GPS signals are relatively simple to achieve by an adversary, but are generally transitory, limited in geographic extent, and can be accommodated with relatively trivial effort. Faked signals not so much.

Merely jamming the signals means the drone just falls back on its inertial nav systems (pretty damn accurate by themselves) and heads home. Only if the drone is made to believe that it's receiving proper GPS info will it keep relying on the signal instead of switching to alternate systems.