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[What's Burning?]

Very interesting read over on Wired.

On the evening of June 19, a group of researchers from the University of Texas successfully hijacked a civilian drone at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico during a test organized by the Department of Homeland Security.

The drone, an Adaptive Flight Hornet Mini, was hovering at around 60 feet, locked into a predetermined position guided by GPS. Then, with a device that cost around $1,000 and the help of sophisticated software that took four years to develop, the researchers sent a radio signal from a hilltop one kilometer away. In security lingo, they carried out a spoofing attack.

“We fooled the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) into thinking that it was rising straight up,” says Todd Humphreys, assistant professor at the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas.

Deceiving the drone’s GPS receiver, they changed its perceived coordinates. To compensate, the small copter dove straight down, thinking it was returning to its programmed position. If not for a safety pilot intervening before the drone hit the ground, it would have crashed.

Full Article; Drone Hijacking

[1Lemon]

Interesting how easily those things can be broken (Easily meaning making a program for four years) but people are always surprised about how easily GPS signals can be modified, for example my Grandparents who live up in the west coast of Scotland (One of the most highly militarized areas in Europe) don't use GPS systems, because whenever the military is doing any tests they scramble all the GPS signals, making them about 50M inaccurate as to stop any bad people with missiles shooting at their newest submarine whilst it's surfaced.

[Jabberwocky]

Interesting how easily those things can be broken (Easily meaning making a program for four years) but people are always surprised about how easily GPS signals can be modified, for example my Grandparents who live up in the west coast of Scotland (One of the most highly militarized areas in Europe) don't use GPS systems, because whenever the military is doing any tests they scramble all the GPS signals, making them about 50M inaccurate as to stop any bad people with missiles shooting at their newest submarine whilst it's surfaced.

They should get one that uses the European satellites

[stonemonkey]

Interesting how easily those things can be broken (Easily meaning making a program for four years) but people are always surprised about how easily GPS signals can be modified, for example my Grandparents who live up in the west coast of Scotland (One of the most highly militarized areas in Europe) don't use GPS systems, because whenever the military is doing any tests they scramble all the GPS signals, making them about 50M inaccurate as to stop any bad people with missiles shooting at their newest submarine whilst it's surfaced.

Not quite sure that's the reason for the jamming, isn't it more to do with testing the systems and training for times when GPS is disabled or jammed?