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Texas Schools Add Attack Drones To Protect Students (www.dallasobserver.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/world
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[–] 59 points 1 year ago (8 children)

$550,000 per month, an elite team of drone racing pilots, encrypted command and control system.

All defeated by a $30 WiFi jammer from Alibaba.

This isn't even security theater.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Why would you get a drone controlled thru wifi? It's just dumb, at worst they're only sending video somewhere around that frequency

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    Unless they're fiber optic drones, they're vulnerable to jamming. It is trivially cheap and easy to buy or make a device that spews noise across a wide range of frequencies.

    You can buy devices to jam all WiFi and cellular activity in a few hundred yard radius for under $100. (This is a felony in the US, so don't do it... but I imagine mass shooters don't adhere to FCC regulations).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Mass shooters almost never plan past the "kill a bunch of people in a horrific environment" stage. Even when they do (see the Aurora shooter) they focus on tacticool bullshit rather than actual tactics. Guy's gun jammed about instantly with his super cool 100-round mag, had to toss it and go to work with a shotgun.

    In related news, I'm all about high capacity mags! Yes, really. They jam constantly, total pain in the ass, and people who actual shoot guns scoff at them. LOL, I mostly use 10 and 20-round mags in my AR because they never fail. Found a nice Magpul 50-round at the thrift one day for $15. Was tempted to buy it for giggles, for just a second. Nah.

    Anyway, I don't expect a jammer to be in a murderer's kit.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    What's the range on them? And how are they jamming all frequencies? I suspect by outputting a tiny amount of power, which is shit against any competent setup. And what happens if they're using FHSS?

    edit: what I'm saying is no school shooter is gonna be as competent as a specialist in that field, and I think the company bets on that.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    And how are they jamming all frequencies?

    The common ones are typically designed to transmit on common frequency ranges (wifi, cellular, GPS).

    What’s the range on them? I suspect by outputting a tiny amount of power, which is shit against any competent setup.

    You can buy 1W-1,000W UWB jammers on alibaba. It's very unlikely that a drone the size that they're showing in the article is going to be able to transmit at a higher power. It would cause disruption for thousands of yards with a clear line of sight.

    And what happens if they’re using FHSS?

    Doesn't matter. These things output noise on all channels for the frequency range that they're designed for (say from 2.4Ghz to 2.5Ghz). All channels are being jammed, so jumping between them won't do much.

    what I’m saying is no school shooter is gonna be as competent as a specialist in that field, and I think the company bets on that.

    Oh yeah, you're probably right and, it's entirely possible that they're using non-standard frequencies or some other countermeasure. On the other hand, software defined radios exist if someone wanted to do consumer-tier electronic warfare.

    It's not likely to happen, but neither is a school shooting.

    If a county is going to pay millions of dollars for a system claiming to be the last line of defense between a mass shooter and school children, then it shouldn't be something that can be completely shut off with a $50 piece of equipment. Maybe I'm missing important details, but if I were looking at this project I'd have some questions about the specifics of how these drones are remotely controlled.

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