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UAV Operator Blames Hacking For Malfunction That Injured Triathlete
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."
This is why, as a professional athlete, I always make sure I'm fielding my own anti-drone drone to take out drones that get close to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If only it were possible to do challenge/response! Using a pre-arranged CERT, so that the drone sends a challenge for each command that has to be encrypted with the shared secret before the drone would accept it!
Oh... wait... it's completely possible.
If it's subject to interference caused by someone broadcasting on the same channel and it can't compensate for it by switching channels or in some way authenticate it's control traffic, then it's a poorly designed toy and shouldn't be used commercially.
Reading the article:
"Operators of all unmanned drones used in a commercial capacity are required to be certified.
Neither Mr Abrams nor his business appear on the list of the 92 operators certified nationally."
So it sounds like he should be charged with some form of negligence if that is applicable to Australia. In the US the FAA would also probably be fining him.
http://hak5.org/episodes/hak5-...
Even if you can't issue commands, you can knock out the control chanel.
If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be respected, sit down and shut up.
Modern 2.4GHz RC gear requires a significant level of tech-expertise to "hijack" in the manner suggested.
Occam's Razor has the answer...
Simple mechanical, electrical or operator failure -- nothing more, nothing less.
Too many would-be "drone" operators have scant understanding of the need for a maintenance schedule and proper planning before deploying even the smallest and most lightweight of craft.
The problem is that far to many people buy these things and then treat them as if they'll just keep working forever -- simply charge the battery and fly!
Unfortunately, props fatigue, motor bearings wear, ESCs can overheat and flight controllers can fail.
There's a hell of a lot more to safely deploying one of these craft than flipping a few switches and wiggling some sticks.
I'm not a commercial operator -- I fly for fun but even *I* am very much aware of the importance of good housekeeping and planning when it comes to using these things safely.
In the US, properly designed 2.4 GHz RC radios, at least for model aircraft,
do in fact authenticate control signals. The best of the lot use a
channel hopping technique that is effectively all but totally imune to interference.
I assume that such equipment is available in Australia, and should have been
used.
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.
I have been flying model airplanes for 50ish years now, and in that time, I have never ever heard of any RC pilot crashing due to pilot error. In every single case, it was "radio failure"
Multicopter pilot here. In short, it looks like the pilot was a hobbyist out of his depth and was performing dangerous maneuvers before any so-called hacking with equipment not meant for the job.
I don't know a lot about the specifics of the accident, but the multicopter that was involved in the accident was using a very outmoded form of technology to control the multicopter (wifi) rather than the far more reliable multichannel failsafe 2.4GHz DSMX systems that are in common use with bigger multicopters. While it may be possible to "hack" the signals controlling the 'copter, it's more likely that the control loss was due to RF interference, either by purpose or accident. I would imagine that a sporting event such as the one where the incident occurred would be awash in wifi signals from dozens if not hundreds of sources.
Secondly, the multicopter pilot was doing something that experienced pilots / cinematographers strongly avoid: flying directly over people. Even the best control systems and multicopters can malfunction, and hovering over a crowd is obviously a bad place for that to happen.
The type of multicopter also gives away the apparent lack of skills or experience of the pilot. Parrot AR 'copters are not professional-grade equipment and they are not devices that someone who earns a good bit of money from aerial filming would use.
(note: apologies for a double post, I forgot to log in to post this reply.)
secondly it is your drone, you are responsible for it, if you can't secure it then you should not be using it around people.
thirdly, it should not have been flown within 30 meters of another person.
fourth (ly?), as it was used in a commercial capacity it should have been certified but neither Mr Abrams nor his business appear on the list of the 92 operators certified nationally.
While learning to fly full scale airplanes it was drilled into me over and over, it is *always* the pilot/operators responsibility.
You either screwed up, or failed to ensure you were using reliable equipment, or failed to account for uncertainties in how you operate it.
Running what is essentially hobby hardware (radios, speed controls, batteries etc.) over top of people is just plain irresponsible.
"Oh, but I haven't crashed before."
Yeah, until you do.
Frequency hopping RC radios are pretty much the standard today among model plane enthusiasts. My dad happens to fly them and IIRC the freq hopping technology went into mainstream a good decade ago, as far as I know you can't even get "old school", fixed-channel controls anymore. It's also low-tech-person compatible technology (my dad most definitely is one), you simply press a button on both sender and receiver to "attune" them and you're set.
The technology is also quite tamper proof. Short of full frequency spectrum static flooding, there is very little you can do to disable communication between sender and receiver, let alone "take over" control of such a plane.
Of course, I don't know what the current tech standard for drones is like. I would have thought, though, that the standard would be higher than it is for toys.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Depending on the model of drone, NO IT IS NOT
The parrot AR drone in particular has no security, and you can't add any ontop of it (We've tried, and it wants to be a black box, and me trying is why posting as AC)
Many of the drones out there are NOT meant to be tinkered with, and I haven't yet seen one (non military) that has any level of encryption at all or really even authentication...
The first good drone that runs something like the Google Android that is going to be for ultra low energy use for smart watches, etc that is suppose to be coming out this summer... or something similar will probably be the first reasonably priced drone with any decent encryption, let alone tinkering