German chancellor’s drone “attack” shows the threat of weaponized UAVs

[philipp-de]

This was staged by the german pirate party. They wanted to "take pictures" / draw attention to the surveillance issue.

The incident wasn't discussed in terms of being a threat in german media. Merkel was photographed smiling as the drone crashed down in front of her.

See also: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-campaign-...

[stephengillie]

They would have been more effective if they had 50-100 individually-controlled quadcopters, and had them hover near specific individuals, looking at facial expressions, phone screens, gestures, etc. Crashing the drone at the guy's feet makes them seem harmless, or even hapless.

[eigenvector]

> The drone was harmless, aside from potential political collateral damage to Merkel's Christian Democratic Party, and the pilot of the drone was released after being briefly held by police.

Can you imagine where this guy would be right now if he had attempted this near President Obama?

[venomsnake]

Gitmo. But Europeans are generally a bit more reluctant to freak on non-existing threats than US (not impossible though).

And you just don't have grounds on which to accuse him - flying drones is legal, he didn't endanger anyone and it was a prank.

[noonespecial]

Drones are sensational but a deer rifle with a scope is going to be a much bigger threat for a long time to come. RC planes were available in '63 but I doubt Lee Harvey Oswald considered one of those.

You can stop "drones" like these with a simple net if they really become a problem.

[devx]

You're thinking short term. DARPA was already testing drones that can see who you are from 1.8 KM above.

[plaguuuuuu]

lol @ the countermeasures being high tech lasers.

Spray them with water or vegetable oil. Water is easiest - just use a high pressure hose to knock them out of the sky / potentially break flight-critical components. Oil requires some special equipment but would presumably ruin the propellers/rotors.

[roel_v]

The threat is not in a single one of them, the threat is in drone swarms. We (as in: the general public, I'm quite sure secluded labs have working prototypes) don't have the technical details figured out, but in 5 years, it will be possible for a swarm of 100's of these things to appear out of nowhere (from backpacks, rooftops, garbage cans, sewer drains) and, blitzkrieg style, overwhelm even largish targets within minutes. It will take very sophisticated counter measure technology to correctly identify, isolate and attack a sufficiently large part of such a swarm; technology that will not be available at the time motivated amateurs will be able to deploy such weapons.

These are interesting times to live in, indeed.

[richardw]

If I knew there were 100 veggie-oil cannons on a stadium ready to protect the populace, I'd join a kickstarter campaign to attack that stadium just to see what 100k people covered in oil looks like. I'm equally enthused by the idea of a fire engine following the Prez' car around, or by the Secret Service agents carrying two guns: an Uzi and a water pistol. I do suggest colouring the oil in red, white and blue just for a bit of extra pizzazz.

The future just got brighter!

[venomsnake]

So the counter measures are more deadly and dangerous than the threat. As usual. One of this combined with red eye detection and a flash could blind a thousand people in a heartbeat.

[stephengillie]

I wonder how hard it would be to taser a quadcopter.

[asgard1024]

Or just use a slingshot. Even kids used to have it.

[bsullivan01]

>> Spray them with water or vegetable oil.

And what happens when the Prez, PM or Pope is at a rally and 10+ UAVs at the size of small birds start buzzing around? Remember, they are people around, even the sniper has to worry about what his bullet will hit next.

[Derbasti]

It is really depressing that we live in a society where our first instinct is to think "what would happen if someone strapped a bomb to that".

In contrast, in Germany this wass a prank, and only about surveillance. And the police let the guy go after a short interrogation.

[gojomo]

The blog Marginal Revolution considered the question a few months ago: "What is the political equilibrium when insect-sized drone assassins are available?"

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/wha...

Adapting my comment from there:

One possibility is that in the future, high-status (and thus also high-office) can only be safely held by pseudonymous cryptographic identities that can’t be linked to soft, locatable, assassination-prone meatspace bodies.

Note that this also makes it possible for a high-status identity/officeholder to be a branded collective (or AI) that continues beyond the death of any its members.

So, potential news from that future:

The Supreme Court, on a 5-4 ruling authored by Chief Justice @CyberJeffersonian_7, rejected the suspiciously-late election returns from Puerto Marte, throwing the 2096 election to Senator @Verax1983 over Governor @Locke2001, in the closest Electoral College contest since Bush-Gore in 2000.

From his/her undisclosed location, President-Elect @Verax1983 praised the ruling and again denied allegations that he/she has been a software-only entity for the last 17 years.

I, for one, welcome our new pseudonymous overlords.

[jacquesm]

I see some Enders Game references in there.

You may very well be right about your future vision, I'd love to be a fly on a wall somewhere in 2100.

[computeloops]

This makes the current setup look so innocent. Probably we should enjoy till it lasts.

[andybak]

And in conclusion - future politicians will be banned from using Google+

[anonymous]

This will bring new meaning to the "we are legion" motto.

[ajb]

This sort of thing could be done almost as easily without the drone. For example, the 1991 Mortar attack on the British Prime Minister:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_mortar_attack

It's worth noting that his response was "democracies cannot be intimidated by terrorism". Our current politicians are more craven.

[narfquat]

If Battlefield 3 has taught me anything, someone is going to strap a brick of C4 to one soon enough.

[stephengillie]

I know quadcopters are very sensitive to weight, and a 10oz (285g) quadcopter could probably not carry more than a 1oz (28g) payload. How destructive is 1oz (28g) of C4?

I want to see the destructive potential of a quantity of C4 graphed against its weight.

[krrrh]

There was a similar politically-motivated drone "attack" against Gary Kasparov 5 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbnySBqioB0

[angersock]

Oh great, a lot of fear-mongering about to happen.

We honestly can't defend against all of these things--might as well simply try to structure society to be resilient in the face of inevitable attacks, and try not to make such things desirable to anybody even remotely sane.

[philipp-de]

No fear mongering going on here. As i wrote earlier, the incident wasn't discussed in terms of being a threat in the german media.

Also, the pilot of the drone was only briefly arrested for disturbing the rally and released hours later by the police. After conducting an examination of the drone, the police concluded that it posed no threat. case closed.

[velik_m]

The obvious solution of course is to move all the people (except select few) underground for their own safety.