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back to article Drone perves defeated by tinfoil houses

If a drone-creeper is snooping on you, you could catch them by grabbing the video stream – but what if it's encrypted? Even then, detection turns out to be pretty straightforward: as researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science explain, you don't need to decrypt the stream at all, …

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  1. ThatOne Silver badge

    Arm Laser Turrets!

    Shooting a drone down (one way or another) is dangerous and breaks the law (potentially several laws).

    So, what about blinding it with a laser? Obviously not a tiny 0.2W laser pointer, I'm thinking about something a little beefier.

    Shining it on the camera lens should blind the camera somewhat, wouldn't it? And if you don't use a laser strong enough to actually damage the camera, there is nothing anybody could sue you about; AFAIK there is no law against shining lasers on drones hovering over your garden.

    (Now to devise a targeting system to keep the laser on target despite the drone's constant jerky movements.)

    1 0 Reply
    1. tim292stro
      Reply Icon

      Re: Arm Laser Turrets!

      > "...And if you don't use a laser strong enough to actually damage the camera, there is nothing anybody could sue you about; AFAIK there is no law against shining lasers on drones hovering over your garden..."

      With people's luck today, the dazzler laser would have enough range to point at a passing jumbo jet - pretty sure that's illegal. Most people who aren't trained to shoot guns around people aren't aware of the concept of ballistic backdrop... ;-)

      3 0 Reply
      1. Haku
        Reply Icon

        Re: Arm Laser Turrets!

        "the concept of ballistic backdrop"

        When watching Star Wars etc. I do sometimes wonder in the space battle scenes where all those stray laser blasts end up...

        3 0 Reply
        1. Aqua Marina
          Reply Icon

          Re: Arm Laser Turrets!

          In the old original X wing PC game, you could come to a complete stop, divert all power to engines, fire a laser then go full throttle and catch it up. After 30 seconds or so the laser bolt just disappeared. I assume the game is based on real physics!

          1 0 Reply
  2. Potemkine! Silver badge
    Megaphone

    Crow(d)funding

    I've got a project to sell: to protect your privacy, buy a drone killerz (TM) ! This defense drone is specially designed to eradicate any threat above a specific area. Equipped with R/F detection and visual sensors, it can detect any drone over your house and disable it by several means: net throwing, rotating blades... It can even hook the peeping drone and bring it back to you!

    For the small amount of $999, you can buy already one! First deliveries expected in 2027. Anyone interested?

    4 0 Reply
    1. Haku
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: Crow(d)funding

      "First deliveries expected in 2027."

      Will they be delivered by drone?

      1 0 Reply
  3. tim292stro

    If your house has SmartGlass on it, why not take the time to actually detect the drone, and then automatically opaque the windows?

    Seems like a few upwards facing cameras with very wide angle lenses and an electronic iris, should be able to detect a drone or birds - and classify if the object is loitering or flying past for simple classification. Then piggy back that with some SDR radio direction finding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wzb1mgZ0EE), and you should be able to further pick out if that "bird" is emitting radio waves...

    1 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Counter Measure?

    A miscreant could figure out how to add dummy bits to the transmit stream to smooth the bit rate and make it appear to be a continuous stream.

    It would be technically difficult and expensive but not out of the range of possibility for a government or well heeled corporation.

    0 0 Reply
  5. Captain Obvious

    Sadly

    There would be a huge market for these (shirts that could tell when being spied on) in the Middle East, ISIL, etc.

    0 0 Reply
  6. Muscleguy

    Instead of wearing flashing LEDs you could just walk about or run or wave your arms about. It's fascinating how geeks ALWAYS seek the techno solution when there are plenty of meatspace alternatives.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Phukov Andigh Bronze badge
      Reply Icon

      thats because you cannot effectively monetize or sell non hardware solutions. Not much geekery when there's a product to be sold, its marketing in the front and the "this would be cool" techies in the back

      0 0 Reply
  7. Phukov Andigh Bronze badge

    this is why

    this is why you should never use WiFi for FPV. 5.7ghz or go home :)

    0 0 Reply
  8. cortland

    It's possible

    It's possible that a receiver able to demodulate these frequencies might allow confirmation by listening to its audio output. And yes, I own a few.

    http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/wireless/wi-fi/80211-channels-number-frequencies-bandwidth.php

    0 0 Reply

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