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UAV Operator Blames Hacking For Malfunction That Injured Triathlete

Posted by timothy on from the convenient-line dept.

jaa101 (627731) writes "The owner of a drone which fell and reportedly hit an athlete competing in a triathlon in Western Australia's Mid West has said he believes the device was 'hacked' into." From the article: "Mr Abrams said an initial investigation had indicted that someone nearby "channel hopped" the device, taking control away from the operator. ... Mr Abrams said it was a deliberate act and it would be difficult to determine who was responsible as something as common as a mobile phone could be used to perform a channel hop. The videographer added that there had been a similar incident when the drone was flown earlier in the day."

1 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. He probably believes it; he's probably wrong by harryjohnston · · Score: 5, Funny

    Reminds me of a student, many years ago, who told me very seriously that hackers regularly broke into his home computer to mess with him. The evidence? Visual Studio (IIRC) kept changing between "inserting characters" and "overwriting characters" when he typed.

    I asked if he might be accidentally hitting the Insert key. He had no idea what the Insert key did.

    To his credit, when I explained, he acknowledged that this might have been the cause and perhaps there weren't any hackers in his computer after all.