Hacking Drones

[ExRAFRadar]

Another reason to keep humans in the cockpit

BBC News - Researchers use spoofing to 'hack' into a flying drone (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18643134)

But seriously, it must be harder to get into a military drone.....

[L J R]

...and a manned aircraft's GPS cannot be seduced....??

[diginagain]

But seriously, it must be harder to get into a military drone..... But where to sit?

[500N]

If the device has any non physical link, it can be hacked
and everyone needs to work on that premis.

[NutLoose]

Surely it could be designed to monitor say 6 recent GPS points at set periods and interegate it with the latest waypoint check it has, if they do not tally revert to either a fixed recovery point or heading.

[Laarbruch72]

Another reason to keep humans in the cockpit

Interestingly, in the most modern aircraft, (both civil and military), pilots themselves are often the vector for transferring viruses into a flight deck computer system.

[beardy]

Now that is interesting. As a pilot the only input interface I have with the computer systems on my aircraft is my finger. Pray, keep my interest and tell me what sort of virus I can infect my flight deck computers with (as opposed to simply transferring a piece of biology to the switch) and how often I can vector these virus.

[green granite]

beardy, I suspect that Laarbruch72 doesn't understand the difference between a 'Liveware error' and a 'virus'. :)

[Gulfstreamaviator]

Finger trouble.........excessive digital interference.....

Seating room.......outsource to Philippines, so only need standing room.....


glf

[Lima Juliet]

Oh FFS BBC, when are you going to get some expertise in your reporting - first there was that God awful Thames Pageant coverage and now this pile of tripe!

The Predator and Reaper that they show in their article is not what the students used - these have LASER-INS blended with MIL-Standard GPS navigation solutions. Also, spoofing or jamming a more professional RPAS (like Reaper, Predator, Heron, Watchkeeper, etc...) Is much harder when flying at 20,000ft+ with better antennae like a closed radiation pattern antenna (CRPA) that is directional straight upwards towards the satellite - not pointing downwards towards the spoofing source. The gain on such antennae are about 30-40db more upwards than downward, so if you are trying to spoof/jam from behind you need a massive amount of power. Then you have the Free Space Loss to deal with - signal power attenuates very quickly over even short distances like 20,000ft (which is just over 3 miles). That is just a start, you then need consider other losses, airframe shielding, signals processing, the anti-jam/spoofing modules in Mil-GPS.

From the article, it looks like they have spoofed a cheap "unecrypted" GPS, that has no inertial back-up or blending, with cheap omni-directional antennae from Radio Shack. Well, whoopie doo!

:ugh:

LJ

[falconeasydriver]

Soooo in effect they've merely proved what lots of us have said for years, a human pilot will be required for forseable future thanks to the inherent vunerabilities of the technology available today.
Just in the same way as Airboos marketed their jets as uncrashable, or the DOD assuming that the nighthawk would remain undetectable for a lot longer than it did.

Edit..Leon, the point is, it can be done, it may be more of a challenge, military UAV's may not be the target, given the drive from certain aircraft manufacturers towards intitially remotely flown freight aircraft. Can you imagine Leon a commercial organisation, with a profit motive utilizing the top spec encription etc etc and top spec everything else? I can't, they will do the BARE minimum required of them via regulation..which means it will be less of a tough road to hack commercial traffic.
I just love the opinions of the technically blinded, they ALWAYS forget and have to relearn the lessons of history, if someone can think of it, then someone can unthink it.

[green granite]

I suspect that this was an exercise to show up possible vulnerabilities in the proposed low level use of commercial drones by the police to replace their helicopters, rather than in Mil systems.

[Lima Juliet]

No Falcon, the systems denied in these aircraft are exactly the same in manned aircraft and also a lot of the guided munitions (from bombs to ICBMs). As you rightly say, you can deny anything - manned or unmanned. It just depends on what lengths you need to go to.

The human occupant can be the very weakest link in aircraft - poor tolerance of G, need for heavy life support / escape systems and the dreaded "human factors" to name but a few. However, we are mostly in the "remotely piloted" game at the moment until technology can be proven - Artificial Intelligence is still a long way off, despite what people might have you believe! So human factors will be with us for some time yet.

The easiest way to "hack" any aircraft is with a hacksaw and partially saw through critical control infrastructure. It starts from here and goes upwards in complexity.

In this instance there are many things that you can do to unmanned to make it more resilient. More automatics, auto star-trackers for position awareness, reliance on high-end inertial nav units, better antennae, use of spread-spectrum and frequency agility, encryption, more power, digital dispersion (hiding your signals in other's spectrum) and many more.

Just because the enemy is getting smart, don't assume we aren't either...

LJ:ok:

[Lima Juliet]

Green Granite

i agree, but the BBC screwed up by using Reaper and Predator pictures in their article...:ugh:

[green granite]

Unfortunately the BBC's news staff tend to be leftie liberal apologist Guardian readers, so any chance they can get to snipe at the military they will take, if it means distorting the truth. :ugh:

[albatross]

But are there not also "Human Factors" involved from the people on the ground directing the "All singing. all dancing" drone?
Just because you are sitting in an air conditioned ops room 10000 miles away does not mean you won't make an error.

[Lima Juliet]

Yes, HF is a problem with current systems as I stated in my rambling post above ^^^^

However, we are mostly in the "remotely piloted" game at the moment until technology can be proven - Artificial Intelligence is still a long way off, despite what people might have you believe! So human factors will be with us for some time yet.

[Lima Juliet]

Unfortunately the BBC's news staff tend to be leftie liberal apologist Guardian readers, so any chance they can get to snipe at the military they will take, if it means distorting the truth.

Yup, I fully agree. I also think that if I wrote the article as an apolitical, non newspaper reading (as I know the majority is complete drivel) subject matter expert (I have a MSc in this type of stuff), then the article would be non-sensational and consigned to the Edtor's recycled paper bin!

What a rubbish state of affairs we have declined into - dumbing down, "spin" and sensational celebrity-itis... Hush my mouth, less I be called a Grumpy Old Man!

LJ:ok:

[Sir George Cayley]

You are a Grumpy Old Man.

SGC

[fltlt]

Yep Leon, the systems are identical to those used in manned flight, not. And the man now rides in a Beech Baron behind and above to watch the unmanned, BRILLIANT!

Add all those extra high end nav goodies and where is your payload and power budget going?

What all the unmanned folks forget is the space between a manned pilots ears accounts for about 40% of the power and volume budget which is one reason why Gh lost out to a 60 yr old MANNED ac.

They have their place, just not on top of my house or yours and certainly not in manned airspace in their current stage of development.

Like I have said many times, the first time one goes astray and hits something/someone/somewhere then that will end the current craze for a very, very long time, all because of the rush to market.

And yes, there are ways to bring these puppies down intentionally, even with their "secure sat links" even at altitude.

Could become an olympic sport. Paint a bulls eye 500 metres diameter somewhere remote. 4 unmanneds orbiting at fl 30. Invite Iran, China, NK, Russia and 4 teenagers to compete. Award points for closest to the bull, my bet would be on one of the teenagers, given enough cheeto's and soda. No cheeto's, advantage to Romanians.

At least it would be more entertaining than curling!

[iRaven]

Like I have said many times, the first time one goes astray and hits something/someone/somewhere then that will end the current craze for a very, very long time, all because of the rush to market.

Best we cease all manned aviation immediately, then? :ugh:

This accident last week with a manned aircraft killed 7 people on board and 4 people on the ground

ASN Aircraft accident Fokker F-27 Friendship 400M A-2708 Jakarta-Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport (HLP) (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20120621-0)

iRaven:p

[Lima Juliet]

A Fokker F-27 transport plane was destroyed when it crashed in a residential area of Jakarta, Indonesia. All seven crew members were killed, as well as four persons on the ground.
The F-27, operated by the Indonesian Air Force, departed Jakarta-Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport (HLP) on a training flight at 13:10.
The airplane was preparing to land on runway 18 when it crashed about 14:50.
The airplane came down in the Rajawali housing complex, the Indonesian Air Force's housing area, near the airport. Nine houses were destroyed by the ensuing fire.

Yes, Flt Lt, piloted aircraft are safe as houses? Aren't they?

LJ :ugh:

[fltlt]

Never said that LJ. From way up the food chain on this side. Obviously there are other folks out there somewhat concerned, just FYI:


The Office of the Secretary of Defense wants to engage the aerospace engineering community in conversations on how to integrate unmanned aircraft in U.S. skies safely, government databases show.


It is inviting engineers and researchers to present ideas for building a “sense-and-avoid” system that would prevent collisions between drones and other aircraft, according to a solicitation (https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=88982e310b359dc2b056a2a081564f10&tab=core&_cview=0).
The Federal Aviation Administration this year cleared drone aircraft for widespread use (http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2012/04/congress-to-faa-dont-let-domestic-drones-spy-on-americans/51068/) in domestic airspace, triggering concerns (http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2012/04/pilots-drones-pose-major-safety-threat-civilian-air-space/55455/) that they would pose an aviation hazard to military and commercial pilots.
Defense has established a panel of scientists to engage the wider research and engineering community to address the security issues. The panel is requesting informational briefs on how to implement technology, operations procedures and algorithms to build a system that would to help drones avoid crashing into other planes. “OSD recognizes that a key challenge to integrating [unmanned aircraft systems] into the National Airspace System is a means for UAS to sense and avoid other aircraft,” the solicitation reads.
The panel is also interested in metrics to measure the effectiveness of complex sensor systems and the risk of software glitches in computer programs used to command the unmanned planes.
The selected presentations will be made in November at research organization MITRE in McLean, Va. Responses are due August 31. To facilitate conversations, Defense has requested that submissions be unclassified.

[fltlt]

This is an indication of how important it is to the manufacturers to be allowed to operate in manned airspace, otherwise it will all wither on the vine:



"The Unmanned Systems Caucus (http://unmannedsystemscaucus.mckeon.house.gov/about/purpose-mission-goals.shtml) – a Congressional network dedicated to the promotion of drones – is drawing in big lobbying bucks, KPBS reports (http://a%20href=http//www.kpbs.org/news/2012/jul/05/drone-makers-friends-washington/).

The caucus is chaired by Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., who also chairs the House Armed Services Committee. Its 58 drone caucus members received a total of $2.3 million in contributions from political action committees affiliated with drone manufacturers since 2011, according to data obtained by KPBS from First Street Research Group, a Washington-based company.

Twenty-one members of the drone caucus are from border states, the report notes. These members collected around $1 million in campaign contributions from large aerospace contracts during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, according to campaign finance data collected by the think-tank Center for Responsive Politics.

The top five donors to the drone caucus members from border states from 2010 to 2012 were Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics, the report states.

The caucus includes eight members of the House Committee on Appropriations. The committee in May pushed to maintain (http://appropriations.house.gov/news/documentprint.aspx?DocumentID=294116) $278 million in funding for Global Hawk Block 30 drones, which the Pentagon had originally purged in its 2013 budget request, according to a statement".