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Texas Students Hijack a U.S. Government Drone in Midair
PopSci ^ | June 28, 2012 | Colin Lecher

Posted on 06/30/2012 3:44:32 AM PDT by 6SJ7

The U.S. government, understandably, doesn't want its drone technology to fall out of the sky and into other peoples' laps. But being able to hijack a drone and control it? That's even worse. And a team of researchers has done it for 1,000 bucks.

The University of Texas at Austin team successfully nabbed the drone on a dare from the Department of Homeland Security. They managed to do it through spoofing, a technique where a signal from hackers pretends to be the same as one sent to the drone's GPS.

(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: drone; government; hijack; surveillance
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Who will watch the watchers?
1 posted on 06/30/2012 3:44:45 AM PDT by 6SJ7
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To: 6SJ7

Must have taken their cue from the Iranians.


2 posted on 06/30/2012 3:46:43 AM PDT by TADSLOS (The Liberty Experiment is over. All aspects of your life will now be MANDATED.)
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To: 6SJ7

America needs a spoof device freely available at Radio Shack, to ensure that the Federal Government leaves the privacy of THE PEOPLE intact.

Drones should only be used in war abroad, outside the USA.


3 posted on 06/30/2012 3:47:45 AM PDT by Candor7 (Obama fascism article: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: 6SJ7

This is the best news I’ve heard all week.


4 posted on 06/30/2012 3:48:22 AM PDT by papertyger ("And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if..."))
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To: 6SJ7

And hackers will hijack the IRS penalty collection from Americans and will redistribute the funds to worthwhile charities.

They still think they are superior, they still think they can govern America like a third world country.

Guess what baby, you just kicked over the alarm clock and woke up the baby, and that kids pretty darn smart.

You won’t see this in Britain, Australia, Italy or even China.

But it WILL happen in America.

may all their drones fall from the sky or be flown back into their faces.


5 posted on 06/30/2012 3:50:44 AM PDT by Eye of Unk (Is your state Obamacare free yet?)
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To: FrogMom

Fyi


6 posted on 06/30/2012 3:53:37 AM PDT by KC Burke (Plain Conservative opinions and common sense correction for thirteen years.)
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To: 6SJ7

It would be nice if this caught on and more hackers started seizing and destroying ANY “drones” used for random surveillance of American citizens by the NAZIs in Homeland Security.

Muchas Gracias Jorge El Segundo!!!!


7 posted on 06/30/2012 3:53:48 AM PDT by ZULU (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=D9vQt6IXXaM&hd)
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To: 6SJ7

I am not sure that you could, even in principle, “hijack” a drone by spoofing GPS. You could confuse it, yes. Military GPS have antispoofing and antijam capabilities and I doubt that you could spoof them for anything like a thousand bucks. A truly robust navigation system would have inertial navigation as a fall back, and could either continue its mission or RTB when faced with interruption of the GPS signal.


8 posted on 06/30/2012 4:01:22 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (The Democratic Party strongly supports full civil rights for necro-Americans!)
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To: ZULU

He.. he.. he... he... he... keep up the good work the elitists need to know they are as dumb as they look.


9 posted on 06/30/2012 4:03:15 AM PDT by ronnie raygun (B B)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

I have no doubts a drone can be hijacked, necessity is the mother of invention.

It was a necessity to hijack a drone, some very smart people did so.

Now if only we had the same smartness across America to bring down Obamacaretax.


10 posted on 06/30/2012 4:08:12 AM PDT by Eye of Unk (Is your state Obamacare free yet?)
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To: Eye of Unk
"...may all their drones fall from the sky or be flown back into their faces."

I was thinking of something simpler and more direct. You know. Like a couple of rounds of 7.62X54rAPI.
11 posted on 06/30/2012 4:12:59 AM PDT by shibumi (Cover it with gas and set it on fire.)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

The problem with your theory is that it didn’t know it was being spoofed to begin with. Now it will take years of research, endless government grants and how many acts of Congress to find out how they did it before they can actually be allowed to fix it. Re; the government study of the study to study the studies on the validity of studies? Reading the original story, they were able to totally take over the thing.


12 posted on 06/30/2012 4:14:02 AM PDT by mazda77 (and I am a Native Texan)
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To: shibumi

I would rather use their drones against other drones, or as intel devices “duh” against the Feds, possibly to scout internment camps? Moslem mosques?

No way I would destroy a strategic asset if I can take command over it, thats just common sense.


13 posted on 06/30/2012 4:16:57 AM PDT by Eye of Unk (Is your state Obamacare free yet?)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets
They monitored, recorded, cracked the code and cloned the signal. The drone thought daddy was calling. The iranians did it with the russians supplying the equipment. Now the rooskies and iranians have our best drone tech. China has the MIRV tech that clinton gave to them and roberts just transformed America into a communist collective. Great times eh?

LLS

14 posted on 06/30/2012 4:24:56 AM PDT by LibLieSlayer (Don't Tread On Me)
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To: Eye of Unk

THAT WOULD BE THE ROBERTS/OBAMA COMMUNIST CABAL ACT OF 2012.

LLS


15 posted on 06/30/2012 4:26:38 AM PDT by LibLieSlayer (Don't Tread On Me)
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To: shibumi

I doubt you need to waste the AP on a drone.


16 posted on 06/30/2012 4:29:25 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: LibLieSlayer

You know I just had an image of a scene from Terminator Salvation, where they block the transmissions of the Cyberdyne devices and use them against Skynet.

“Cool, my own Terminator!”


17 posted on 06/30/2012 4:31:11 AM PDT by Eye of Unk (Is your state Obamacare free yet?)
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To: 6SJ7

Don’t you just love it when the Gubmint experts think they have perfected a plan, only to have a bunch of outsiders show them up?

And for cheap, too!


18 posted on 06/30/2012 4:55:25 AM PDT by plangent
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To: Eye of Unk

“may all their drones fall from the sky or be flown back into their faces.”

Amen!


19 posted on 06/30/2012 4:55:35 AM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like it)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

They are not going to say how they really hacked it in a public article and you can expect some misinformation. But we know they can be hacked and controlled.


20 posted on 06/30/2012 4:55:46 AM PDT by Mechanicos (When did we amend the Constitution for a 2nd Federal Prohibition?)
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