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RC Plane Attack 'Foiled,' Say German Authorities
garymortimer writes with this excerpt from Sky News as carried by Yahoo UK: "German authorities are holding two men of Tunisian origin who they say are facing possible charges for the 'preparation of a serious, state-threatening act of violence.' Prosecutors say the men are suspected of 'procuring information and objects to commit Islamic extremist explosive attacks with remote-controlled model airplanes,' prosecutors added. Police investigating the terror plot on Tuesday launched a series of raids in Stuttgart and Munich in southern Germany and Saxony in the east. They also carried out one raid in Belgium. No-one was arrested. The suspects had been under surveillance for more than a year and authorities had recently detected 'an increased interest in explosives and model aircraft,' according to an unnamed security source quoted by a German news agency."
if i read the article, could i be accused of ''procuring information to commit Islamic extremist explosive attacks with remote-controlled model airplanes,' - i mean, if they go into detail about what was planned..... oh oh! they could even say "ive downloaded it onto my computer" with the cunning use of a cache.
I wonder if the German government stores a database of every one of their citizens phone? If they do, was that database used to catch these guys? Why can the Germans catch Islamic extremists using remote control planes, but the American government cannot catch Islamic extremists using pressure cookers?
sudo make me a sandwich
...state-threatening act of violence.
Unless the model plane is the size of a 747 or the explosive is anit-matter, how is that a "... state-threatening act of violence." Is Germany in such dire straits that a single model aircraft can topple a whole country?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Yeah, I've only flown r/c planes for 40 years. They can NOT carry a big enough payload to do any substantial damage. Even full-sized Cessna's have been ruled out as not being able to carry enough explosives to be a real threat.
Really - did anyone in Washington bother to think about the fact that by repeatedly demonstrating to terrorists how easy it was to use 'remote-controlled model planes packed with explosives' to cheaply kill people that you otherwise couldn't easily reach ("Drone Strikes") that the terrorists wouldn't eventually try variations on the same idea themselves?
Say goodbye to RC as a hobby.
I guess terrorists play too much Grand Theft auto at this point...I seem to recall that mission early in Vice City using R/C helicopters...
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
It takes only one RC plane combined with an official state ceremony to wreak havoc on a scale which can be a threat to the state. If it sprays a highly toxic chemical it may even stay undetected. You can use this method to attack army bases, parliament, officials at home, etc.
What is an Islamic extremist explosive attack? How is that different than an American extremist explosive attack? Or any other type of person, extremist or not, "explosive attack"?
So now the Germans are in favour of government surveillance?
"..became radicalised by watching jihadist propaganda on the internet..."
Became "radicalised"??!! WTF?
You'd have to be mentally unstable in the first place to believe that kind of thing.
The only "propaganda" is blaming the internet in the first place.
Mind you I've seen Iron-man 3 so hey you never know.
If "likes to blow shit up" is the metric against which dangerous people are measured maybe a wall should be built around the US so they can't get out.
The suspects had been under surveillance for more than a year and authorities had recently detected 'an increased interest in explosives and model aircraft,' according to an unnamed security source quoted by a German news agency."
Whoah there, fellas! So basically you've admitted to spying on innocent people for years, in who-knows-how-big of a trolling operation, and you finally caught two small fish who so far have done nothing more than "shown an interest" in something that might count as illegal?
I realize the FP doesn't involve the US, but I also thought Germany had gotten rid of the whole Stasi thing back when the wall came down.
Evidently not.
It takes only one RC plane combined with an official state ceremony to wreak havoc on a scale which can be a threat to the state.
Power is too distributed in any western country for that. Luttwak debunked your claim in 1968.
You could blow up parliament and the state wouldn't be threatened. Sure, it would be in shock and all that, but nothing important would stop to function and we'd simply elect a new parliament the next month.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I am sure Germany has all words to do with anything controlled/remote logged due to acts like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Herrhausen
beam of infrared light or triggers via photographic flash units, engineering of shaped metals or RC are well known and any keywords around that tech would be tracked.
You also have movies like The Dead Pool.
West Germany has always had huge database options, resident registration and lots of cash.
The tracking and tapping of East German spies/helping the USA/UK would have made West Germany think about easy call tracing during all national telco upgrades.
A physical location eg one "Internet exchange point" for all intra-German Internet traffic would make tracking ~95% of the German internet trivial.
As mentioned by the European Parliament: Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System (pdf).
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The trouble with all of these plots, is that the RC plane is already at its maximum load with its fuel.
A quick back-of-your-head calculation (smack!) reveals that if you take a sizable plane with say a mere five minute runtime and cut that down to two minutes you can utilize the space saved for explosives.
I suspect, like the Rezwan Ferdaus plot, this is a case of find an angry muslim / give muslim explosives and plot / arrest him for your plot. Germany because the Germans are angry at being spied on, so they need a story about how the spies saved them from evil plot to kill them style story.
I agree, but there's simply no basis for claming that a weaponized R/C plane cannot be constructed by a talented and interested hobbyist. And let's not forget that R/C aircraft also includes helicopters and quadcopters, some of which are now carrying significant loads.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Oh yeah, the terrorist thing too, but the actual story here is that people were under surveillance for more than a year without giving cause for their arrest. Particularly since the raid didn't result in an arrest, and the conclusion that the "terror plot" is at best a flimsy excuse to justify the surveillance is almost inevitable.
As a citizen in Germany, I honestly feel more threatened by that than by someone allegedly planning to put explosives onto a toy plane.
Until your ideological side stops insisting on private ownership of instruments of automated mass murder, you should probably keep quiet on the whole "blowing people up" thing to avoid hypocrisy.
The trouble with all of these plots, is that the RC plane is already at its maximum load with its fuel.
I suspect all the RC airplanes you've seen were at Radio Shack. A couple of random examples:
http://www.nitroplanes.com/90a234b-j3-cub-100cc-blue.html?gclid=COKLxdvAhLgCFck-MgodhEgAKA
http://www.rcplanet.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=GPMA1290&click=109537&gdftrk=gdfV23720_a_7c1734_a_7c7524_a_7cGPMA1290&gclid=CIj8z__AhLgCFfA7MgodDEEAMQ
select name,address from PRISM.maildata where body like '%plane%' and body like '%explosive%' and header like '%.tn%';
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
In precog we trust.
none
However, public broadcaster SWF quoted unnamed sources as saying that the two were studying aeronautics in Stuttgart and were suspected of trying to develop techniques for remotely piloting model planes using GPS technology.
What, they couldn't find DIY Drones?
public broadcaster SWF quoted unnamed sources as saying that the two were studying aeronautics in Stuttgart and were suspected of trying to develop techniques for remotely piloting model planes using GPS technology.
Wow, who would ever guessed someone studying aeronautics could have an interest in that [/sarcasm]
I also don't see anything spectacular in their supposed interest in explosives. Watching things blow up spectacularly is lots of fun as is proven by the success of Mythbusters a success that at least in part can be attributed to this. Crap! Grant Imahara better stay out of Germany.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
The NSA and other agencies have a lot to answer for, but that is not an example of one of them if the story is to be believed. You can say "agents supplied", but the fact appears to be that Mr. Ferdaus procured the illegal and incriminating material from an unwisely chosen source. Or do you think they said out of the blue "here; take these machine guns and hand grenades or we will kill you right now".
And it's complete nonsense to say that you can "see" that plane is not carrying anything dangerous. It looks like any other model plane to me. It has a hollow fuselage with opaque surfaces. You could put anything in there that fits and that it could lift. Do you know how compact and light a hand grenade is? That is well within the carrying capacity of a plane like that. Model planes do not use "runways". You can throw them into the air or lift off a small grassy patch. They are not limited to "short range". Every day in normal use they can fly easily for a half hour at 60 mph, which would be 30 miles in a straight line. In point of fact if you know what you are doing you can do a lot better than that. In 2003 a 6 foot 11 pound autonomous plane build by a 77 year old hobbyist flew 1882 miles from Newfoundland to Ireland in 39 hours.
Who told you that? It's hogwash. This thing can lift 4 pounds of payload and it is VTOL and powered by electric motors using lithium ion batteries. A conventional model plane could do at least as much. It just so happens that most recreational model plane flying does not require any payload to be lifted. That doesn't mean they CAN'T do so.
Do you think maybe you could get hurt a little by a hand grenade (call it one pound)?
What is actually possible is not limited by what seems plausible to you.
IMO the case of Mr. Ferdaus is an example of an actual threat caught and foiled, cherry picked from maybe a hundred false leads.
Depending on your target, half a ton of high explosives can easily be an overkill.
Ezekiel 23:20
Be fair though. The 77 year old had been launching planes towards Ireland for decades. IIRC the successful one was #12 or so.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
but only if you sell your soul and lie out of both ends.
Sounds reasonable. Walls are among the things I like to blow up.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You could you know, use more than one r/c plane.... all carying the same payload, waypoint hardware/software/settings/calibration, and make your attacks in series. 1 plane may not do the job, but 10? 20? 100? once someone figured out what was going on, they coudln't do anything about it... you going to scramble F16's at building altitudes? how will you shoot them down w/o shooting into civilians?
Payloads can be pretty high, most have no idea. For foamies, up to 5 lbs ish on some models.. This is a model at only 4' wingspan. When you get into medium / giant scale, you really cary a LOT of weight. With batteries and fuel, you only need to cary enough to get to your destination... so your voltage / c rating would be high, but physical pack size could be quite low & for gas, you just fly on 1/4 tank and get that much more payload. The smallest human carying plane is smaller than many of the largest R/C planes. Drones are just a little bigger than large R/C Planes, but also smaller then many of the largest.
Tech has come a long way, we can use mems gyros to level a plane in a 30 mph wind on a foamie weighing 2lbs.. for under $40 and that only gets better results the bigger the plane. You can get all kinds of on screen display's (HUD like view for FPV flight), Auto return, waypoints, GPS, auto land, it goes on... This stuff starts to get pricey at the top end, but like every product, there's clones for Asia that are a lot cheaper and still work well. Oh, and a payload carying plane can also be built not purchased, drastically lowering their cost.
Unfortunately, these possibillites have all come to light before. Now my hobby is under constant scrutany... Regulations on how many batteries I can take on a plane when traveling. First person view and AV has been restricted already in some areas. RC no flyzones even in safe places all around DC. The AMA is fighting for us, but we will lose in the end. Non hobbyists are pretty freaked out by what I can put together for $1000.
Cue 400 posts from enthusiastic slashdotters with RC experience explaining exactly where they went wrong.
Expect discussion of cargo capacity, range, optimal fuel mixes, construction materials, markings proven to increase terror...
So basically you've admitted to spying on innocent people for years, in who-knows-how-big of a trolling operation, and you finally caught two small fish who so far have done nothing more than "shown an interest" in something that might count as illegal?
Right. Most FBI-reported "terrorist plots" are like that, especially the ones that involve informers. They get a report of some loser mouthing off about blowing up something, and they investigate. They get some informer close to the jerk and encourage the wannabe to push their plan forward, often providing resources to help. Then they arrest the loser and announce they've foiled a "terrorist plot".
The most notable example of this kind of FBI activity was the "terrorist plot to blow up the Sears Tower" in 2006. Even the FBI Director said it was "more aspirational than operational".
When Al-Queda set up the 9/11 attacks, they had good operational security. Nobody talked in public about the plan, and many of the participants didn't know the details until hours before takeoff. What the FBI is doing wouldn't stop a real terrorist organization.
My grave concern has been people flying RCs or drones (one or more) into the intakes of jet engines during approach or take off. If a large bird can take out an engine, no extra payload would be needed (save maybe a few pieces of titanium).
Yes, most countries have 'significant infrastructure' along navigable waterways. Yes, you could build a quite large bomb into most boats.
However it's not considered as much of a risk because you're still looking at well under 1% of infrastructure is actually close to such a waterway, and while I could construct less ideal circumstances for setting off a bomb, I'd have to think about it to build something less ideal.
The thing to remember is that explosive power drops roughly with the square of the range. While there's lots of infrastructure 'along' waterways, it's not normally ON the waterway, so you can only get so close. Compounding this you generally have a wall or shore, so your boat is sitting lower than the infrastructure, up against a wall that's designed to be able to hold back tons of rushing water from the same direction your explosion will come from, while there's wide open space behind and around you. So 'most' of the explosion will end up deflected away from your target, limiting effectiveness.
An RC plane can be used to attack almost anywhere, and can bypass such defenses as sea/river walls and various obstructions used to prevent vehicles from driving too close to sensitive buildings.
If you're going to bring down a building, from most standpoints it's best to bring down an important one; some random fish processing factory doesn't have the value a government building would.
I don't read AC A human right
You are right with $1000 you can do a lot, especially if you concentrate on one thing. But I wish there more extreme RC builders out there, people are very stuck in their old ways. IMHO.
Okay, time for a quick explosives lesson.
Explosives are(mostly) rated by how fast they burn/oxidize. 'slow' burning explosives tend to push stuff, while 'fast' burning ones tend to shatter them.
As a result, they've divided explosives up into two categories:
Low explosives - subsonic deflageration; needs to be contained to truly 'explode'
High explosives - supersonic detonation - needs no container.
Gun powder is interesting in that it's more of a mechanical mixture and can very between a low level high explosive all the way down to low end low explosives, depending on the mix. Chemical proportions, how long it's been mixed, grain size, grain formation method, and more all play factors.
The container doesn't have to be all that strong either - the fuselage itself might be enough.
I don't read AC A human right
1+ million dollars and the weight of a full sized car. What RC model aircraft are you suggesting that replicates that?
http://videokatalog.dmax.de/Leben/Freizeit/video-Die-Modellbauer-Episode-1-Teil-1-Homepage-Motor-Dmax-Serie-Reportage-Doku-112781.html - aren't US model builders into big things?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I don't think a few CCs of acid "can be a threat to the state", so what liquid did you have in mind?
I know writing this down can be seen as plotting a terror attack, so let me begin with stating that this is a thought experiment in the name of harm reduction.
That said, fitting a RC helicopter with a can of dioxine or a comparable cancerous toxin and have it spray that over the congress barbecue, or using a quad
copter to drop a canister of mustard gas would seem to have a high success rate as once it is airborne, the only way to avoid disaster is taking over
control of the RC.
Writing this down it actually makes me a bit sad that I need to include this PC crap stating that I am not a terrorist. Free world, huh?