Tuesday, September 24, 2013

How ya like me now?

Drones are harmless observers, an unquestioned good for the safety and security of the sta... wait? You mean ordinary people can buy those things? And they could theoretically be used to harm important people?

Well, we'll just have to take a look into some laws and regulations!

14 comments:

Stuart the Viking said...

They can pass laws and regulations all they want, but the truth is these things are easily enough to make from widely available components that those laws and regulations wouldn't effect the criminal use of these things at all. It would only effect the law abiding citizenry who aren't a threat anyway.

Sound familiar?

s

Joseph said...

We're the only ones professional enough to blow people up with drones.

Anonymous said...

Note that the article gives us a cost effective, widely available, answer to drones that we might use ourselves; lasers.

Boat Guy said...

Sauce for the goose...
"It takes a drone to catch a drone"?
Nice point about lasers.

Chas S. Clifton said...

Lots of Americans are impressed by our military drones, but how long until every nation has them?

And the "flying hand grenade" concept seems totally plausible. Pretty soon we won't see the president at all, just a video from the bunker.

Anonymous said...


The best answer, de Kraker and van de Weil suggested, might be laser and high-power microwave "directed energy solutions," which could be used to heat the drones up until their batteries or electronics are destroyed.


Yeah. Is he saying that just to give defense contractors an orgasm, or does he genuinely believe most so-called UAV's would be able to shrug off a 12 ga shotgun?

Stretch said...

"Dutch researchers say there's not much that can be done right now to stop them."
What? No skeet ranges in the Netherlands?

Anonymous said...

"Pretty soon we won't see the president at all, just a video from the bunker."

Bright side to everything I guess :)

Tam said...

Stretch,

""Dutch researchers say there's not much that can be done right now to stop them."
What? No skeet ranges in the Netherlands?
"

Can you imagine Dick Cheney standing behind Angela Merkel in that picture, about to down the drone with his Weatherby Athena?

For that matter, do we surround POTUS with a pack of Citori-toting USSS agents, waiting for someone to yell "Pull!" in Arabic?

:D

Robert said...

"Pretty soon we won't see the president at all, just a video from the bunker."

A laser assisted mortar round would do the job more effectively than a small drone. Range of the mortar is a few miles so you could set it up inside a truck that had a retractable roof. Just drive up anywhere within range and let fly. I wonder if they use laser jammers to prevent that kind of thing? Does any other country have a mortar that uses laser guidance? Would be kind of difficult to get your hands on one though, depending on if the Reds have ever deployed one where sticky fingers could get ahold of it.

Robert said...

Of course, you'd have to have somebody close enough to paint the target with the laser for long enough. They are invisible to the naked eye, but would the secret service have any kind of detector to tell them that such a laser was pointed their way? How long does it have to paint the target for the round to locate and fix position and correct the trajectory?

Joseph said...

I've been warning about the possibility that anti-drone rhetoric can backfire for months.

Leslie Sapp said...

Love that picture of Merkel and her advisors. Merkel seems to be somewhat amused, but look at the expression on the defense ministers face! He understands the threat.

Ted N said...

Re:laser detectors, my birds have them, and there's no "important"people in them, so I'm sure the USSS has some even better gear.