The U.S. military has been working for a while on tiny, buglike drones — to serve as miniature flying spies, Defense Department robot-makers say. But this video, from the Air Force Research Laboratory, shows that the military is also interested in turning these "Micro Air Vehicles," or MAVs, into biomorphic weapons that can lie in secret for weeks at a time — and then strike an adversary with lethal accuracy.Coming soon, to a militarized police department near you.
Theoretical exercise: How would you defeat these things if you had to?
[Via Paul W. Davis]
29 comments:
"How would you defeat these...?
The easy ANSWER is with EMP.
I don't know if it's that "easy." How do you generate an emp pulse powerful enough to secure an area, plus, if these are small, how do you know when they're flying in to generate the pulse?
No potential for misuse here...
An improvised airlock procedure is an easy fix for indoor operations. Commercial air curtains would do the trick where you needed quicker ingress/egress without searches. Heck, even rubber split curtains like the entrances to commercial cold rooms.
Very strong magnets in an outdoor AOE? They're modeled after bugs - I'm sure there'd be a way to develop a MAV-zapper. It even has a ring to it! Nighttime (when your human element is not outside) salt (NaCl) or caustic (NaOH)sprays? If one is captured, something could be developed to destroy them passively with little more than harware store chemicals and some light lab work.
In some areas, hanging sheets of mosquito netting...
We USED to know better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn,_Invisible_Boy
hanging sheets of mosquito netting...
Use grounded wire mesh mosquito netting and also prevent radio control of the robots if they do get in.
Also has the benifit of preventing signals from leaking out of a location preventing Van Eck phreaking, cordless phone and wifi evesdropping.
Flyswatters.
Yeah, just turn your house into a Faraday cage. Sure you won't be using WIFI or your cell phone, but then you're not getting zapped by micro bugs either..
How about one of these...?
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone-jammer2.htm
It seems unlikely that these would be deployed on us, not because I trust our government in any amount or form, but because they'd be superfluous.
Google "roving bug" if you want to see what I mean.
With upwards of 64GB of data in a thumbdrive, and full processing power in an object the size of standard dice, the potential for self-contained, pre-programmed, auto-learning, autonomous bots, encased in titanium shells is definitely very high.
The limitation is in the sensors that they have. Our eyes, ears, and nose, and the brain they feed information to are quite unique, and as yet, no sensor, or array of sensors feeding a processor is able to duplicate that.
The counter will be somewhere down the lines of spoofing and deception of the sensors, perhaps to draw them into a trap that destroys them.
If you capture one, how would you know that it is not transmitting its position back to an intel processing facility. Or, how would one know that it's not programmed to detonate once constrained for a set length of time?
Worse yet, a mix of different bots let loose in a single dispersion could work together to attempt to defeat "standard" entrapment and deception measures.
Not an easy problem to solve.
"Do not fight the way your enemy fights best".
As above, Farady cages would be good. Could also make Faraday bug-catching nets out of metal screen to grab the things if you see them buzzing about. Super bright infrared LEDs-- either in fixtures around the area or worn on the person as lapel pins or something --might be a good way to overload their video sensors too.
"How do you generate an emp pulse powerful enough to secure an area"
http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb3.htm
Popular Mechanics also did an article on this in 2001.
A Faraday cage around any area you would need to secure would be better, though. The EMP would damage your own equipment (not to mention that explosions are rather noticable).
-Jake
"Roving bug" meet Faraday Bag.
True, you can't receive calls/msgs until you take it out...
Also perhaps one of these over the microphone...
Part of me is tempted to look at this thread and scold myself for it being Sunday, and here I am going through hypotheticals on a "what-if?"--but that's hardly the point of this thread, is it?
I think every person has a duty to themselves to develop and exercise a resistance mindset. Something like this just provides an opportunity for some play time at creative brainstorming. That attitude won't hurt if the time comes when the problem is bigger than bugs, and price we pay will be higher than spending a few minutes reading and posting blog comments.
Trained Falcons...the kind with feathers and talons.
I think every person has a duty to themselves to develop and exercise a resistance mindset
Beautifully stated. And a topic of HUGE scope.
radio detection and jamming would be a good place to start.
Okay,
Let's throw JSTARS into the mix. A Faraday cage will show up like a neon sign on a JSTARS radar screen.
JSTARS will be used in conjunction with MAV's.
If you don't do the "what ifs" you will be woefully unprepared for the next conflict.
BTW, unless your own electronic equipment is EMP hardened, you will blow the circuitry in it with your EMP bomb.
it's easier to publish a paper that theorizes how one of these might work, causing interested adversaries to waste their time worrying about dealing with them, than it is to actually build and deploy it successfully.
Disinformation works both ways.
Birdshot
Best bet is to have one to hack before proposing solutions. It will likely be noisy and severely restricted by the limitations of energy density with our current power technologies.
You know what else lies dormant for a long time, and strikes an adversary "with lethal accuracy"? A landmine. Those are a lot cheaper, too. It's not too much of a problem hiding one in an urban environment, either. All they have to do is stick it under a copy of the Constitution. But then the desire to spit and stomp on it might be too great for some government employees, and the casualty rate would be unacceptably high for the home team.
There is also the question of what we can do. I'm thinking about some sort of X Prize for the use of technology that helps bring about the return of the Republic. Nothing dangerous, mind you. My own idea is a set of robots with integrated voice-recognition and wireless Internet access. They will be programmed to call certain politicians to complain about issues, and when one of those representatives employs the bold not-in-my-district evasion strategy, the robot will forward the call to its peer. This will continue until a robot is reached that is actually in-district. That robot will then continue to press the question.
When the robot's location is ascertained and subject to a police raid, it will stick its little metal arms in the air while disgorging itself of a payload of sheet metal, chains, plastic ties and duct tape. (This is understood to be a "machine gun" in some circles.) The robot, now disarmed and no longer dangerous, will then be left alone to carry on its business.
Start shooting skeet on a regular basis.
Well - I'm always catching shit from a relative about my smoking around delicate electronics...
Maybe Ayn was onto something!
Theoretically speaking.. If I were concerned by such a threat being used against US citizens, I would focus on the places of manufacture first, then shift to the users of such devices. My method may be crude, but I lack the mad hacking skills that would be required with the more “polite” ways of dealing with this threat.
I’m with Kent McManigal on this one. My first thought was flyswatter. However, A hammer would also probably suffice if you catch one perched somewhere other than your wife’s expensive glass-topped coffee table.
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