Drone intrusion repelled.

[Babalonian]

Airborne property invasion stopped by gunfire, drone owners angry that private property was defended against drone invasion. Errant drone crashes on busy highway, operator denies liability and points finger at mystery shooters "in tree cover". Cops laughing too hard to interview property owner, harassment group threatens further harassment.   

http://thetandd.com/animal-rights-group-says-drone-shot-down/article_017a720a-56ce-11e1-afc4-001871e3ce6c.html

I'm... so... confused...

They were approached before beginning their "operation" by officials and a representing attorney....  but couldn't contact anyone at the club afterwards (did they try the attorney who came out and likely provided a business card?).

I didn't know you were allowed to recreate in state/federal-DOT rightaways?... which is where the drone apparently was when it apparently was shot and apparently forced to land/crash....


In conclusions:  A friendly Sheriff walks up to a bunch of SHARKs parked out along the highway and asks them about AAA - he's not talking about 24/7 roadside assistance like they thought he was.

[tmetal]

Find out what freq. their transmitter uses, then purchase a method of broadcasting on the same frequency and watch the hilarity ensue.  Try and prove I crashed your spy drone now, ya dirty hippie. 

[Tank-Ace]

Find out what freq. their transmitter uses, then purchase a method of broadcasting on the same frequency and watch the hilarity ensue.  Try and prove I crashed your spy drone now, ya dirty hippie. 

Classic  !

[eagl]

Find out what freq. their transmitter uses, then purchase a method of broadcasting on the same frequency and watch the hilarity ensue.  Try and prove I crashed your spy drone now, ya dirty hippie. 

The new 2.4ghz tx/rx setups are very difficult to glitch out or hijack.  I'm sure it's possible and probably not even very hard for someone with the right training and equipment, but for the average joe it is nearly impossible.  Even the "cheap" consumer 2.4ghz setups have 256 unique "frequencies", with mild encryption linking one transmitter with one receiver.  If someone else is using that id slot, the tx/rx won't pre-flight correctly and you just have to pair them again so they'll associate again using an unused id.  There have been almost zero reports of glitching between different brands of 2.4ghz equipment either, even though they are mutually incompatible while sharing the same frequencies.

Bottom line, it's difficult for most people to hijack or glitch out a 2.4ghz tx/rx pair.  A geek with a simple usb network adaptor could probably hack something together and listen in, and possibly even hijack the link, but I don't think anyone has bothered to do so.

More entertaining I think would be to hitchhike on their video feed, maybe even inserting overlay graphics onto the video feed in addition to just watching what they're seeing.  That could be fun, and much easier than taking over the control system because encrypting the entire video feed can be compute intensive so most operators don't bother wasting payload margin on heavy/expensive digital encryption for the camera feed.

[Vulcan]

Bottom line, it's difficult for most people to hijack or glitch out a 2.4ghz tx/rx pair.  A geek with a simple usb network adaptor could probably hack something together and listen in, and possibly even hijack the link, but I don't think anyone has bothered to do so.

2.4Ghz is extremely easy to jam up.

[eagl]

2.4Ghz is extremely easy to jam up.

ToGTFO (tits or get the frack out)

In other words, provide a link or other information on glitching R/C 2.4ghz systems.  What brands?  What network protocol standard, since the major manufacturers seem to have ended up with at least 2 or 3 completely different standards with different techniques to combat interference?

[tmetal]

I can't provide a link, just a personal experience story. The park where I use to fly my RC planes was bad about interference on the 2.4 GHz range. There where time slots that you wouldn't fly during because of it. Come to find out that the sprinkler system used wide band 2.4 GHz signals and the elementary school next to the park had a PA system that would interfere as well.  I agree that GHz transmitters/receivers are more secure and less prone to interference when compaired to the old MHz band used, but it is still pretty easy to lose a RC plane to frequency cross talk.

[Vulcan]

ToGTFO (tits or get the frack out)

In other words, provide a link or other information on glitching R/C 2.4ghz systems.  What brands?  What network protocol standard, since the major manufacturers seem to have ended up with at least 2 or 3 completely different standards with different techniques to combat interference?

2.4Ghz is the ISM band. It's used for Wi-Fi, Cordless Phones, and Microwaves will often 'leak' across into this band.

Some toejamty wifi AP's (the ones that advertise they do 100 gazillion bps) will saturate the 2.4ghz spectrum to the point nothing else works on it. This is out of the box, no hacking required.

Some expensive AP's (such as Aruba) have counterattack mechanisms built in to try and push rogue AP's off band  <- that's how bad it gets.

Doesn't matter what protocols you use, what encryption standards you use.... if junk is saturating the band you're hosed.

Plus your average consumer radio's are fairly weak, especially in the US where the transmit power is hobbled by the FCC. Buying an enterprise grade AP with a full power range can make a huge difference.

All the R/C tests around 2.4Ghz seem to be based on 'co-existence' with other devices, none I've seen have actually employed using an aggressive high power 2.4Ghz device with an operator determined to jam the signal (who cares about hijacking it).

[guncrasher]

I am pretty sure it is illegal to jam frequencies.


semp

[Babalonian]

I am pretty sure it is illegal to jam frequencies.


semp

Best to let the kids find out from the FCC themselves. 

[Rob52240]

If you want to jam the control signal to someone's drone that is photographing your private property. 

I'd suggest using a shotgun.

Or Raspberry

[eagl]

2.4Ghz is the ISM band. It's used for Wi-Fi, Cordless Phones, and Microwaves will often 'leak' across into this band.
(snip)
All the R/C tests around 2.4Ghz seem to be based on 'co-existence' with other devices, none I've seen have actually employed using an aggressive high power 2.4Ghz device with an operator determined to jam the signal (who cares about hijacking it).

I understand the theory, but in practice the freq hopping and noise reduction protocols in use seem to be very effective even in hostile environments.  For example, the local casino runs a radio controlled blimp around inside the local Colosseum ice rink during hockey games, using a generic consumer R/C 2.4ghz system (probably futaba but could be airtronics or another brand).  My phone picked up a least 3 commercial grade wifi APs (high gain antennas visible if you know what to look for) in addition to about 3000 cellphones pinging around looking for some wifi love, inside a metal box with lots of neat reflection paths for signals to bounce around on/in.  Oh yea, right next to the commercial stadium food microwave ovens too.  And it works fine.  I sure wouldn't dare driving any RC object over a crowd using an older style AM or FM controller, but this guy drives all over the place in there with no dead spots that I've seen after watching closely for a few games.

Again, ToGTFO.  Links to reputable reports of repeatable glitching, jamming, or control loop hijacks for consumer R/C systems are needed here, or it's just intarweb-expert theorizing

[eagl]

I can't provide a link, just a personal experience story. The park where I use to fly my RC planes was bad about interference on the 2.4 GHz range. There where time slots that you wouldn't fly during because of it. Come to find out that the sprinkler system used wide band 2.4 GHz signals and the elementary school next to the park had a PA system that would interfere as well.  I agree that GHz transmitters/receivers are more secure and less prone to interference when compaired to the old MHz band used, but it is still pretty easy to lose a RC plane to frequency cross talk.

That's pretty funny actually   Almost as funny as the guy who didn't bother to charge his RX battery and then buzzed over my head while I was doing my own pre-flight checks.  His plane glitched and went in full power straight down about 30 ft in front of me, and he tried to say it was my fault.  I showed him my 3 month old Airtronics inspection certificate and tried to be sympathetic, but I sure wasn't going to take the heat.

Er... my point is that yea it sounds like you found a perfect storm for 2.4ghz abuse by some systems not being held to TX power restrictions. 

We had glitching problems with the old style radios when flying over the USAF Academy parade ground if it was too soon after heavy rain, and we theorized that it was because they used a grid of metal pipes for the sprinklers and when wet the whole field turned into a really noisy amp for our radios.  We were ok if we only used 1 or 2 radios but it seemed like a third radio of any type on any freq would cause glitching.

[Vulcan]

I just got back from a 2.4Ghz jamming session

One of my govt customers is looking at rolling out some wifi systems to remote offices, we were trying to test this in their main office. IBM run their Cisco Wi-Fi network and the IBM guy happened to be there (and I know him well). We were having major issues (Ipads couldn't even associate), so I'm like "do you guys have your APs set to go ape**** on rogue AP's and devices" and he's like "yup".  Even once they whitelisted the AP's the endpoints were still being hit as rogue clients.

It was very effective too. We could hop around and get brief spurts of connectivity, pings would get through but any large packets were toast.

[Vulcan]

I am pretty sure it is illegal to jam frequencies.


semp

ISM band is unrestricted/unmanaged/un-whatever... nobody can stop you flooding it - it's perfectly legal. All they can do is make sure you stay within the band and power restrictions.