Slashdot Mirror
White House Drone Incident Exposes Key Security Gap
HughPickens.com writes The Washington Post reports that the intrusion by a recreational drone onto the White House lawn has exposed a security gap at the compound that the Secret Service has spent years studying but has so far been unable to fix. Commercial technology is available that can use a combination of sensitive radar and acoustic trackers to detect small drones, though coming up with an effective way to stop them has been more elusive. "To do something about the problem, you have to find it, you have to track it, you have to identify it and you have to decide what to do with it," says Frederick F. Roggero. "But especially in an urban environment, it would be tough to detect and tough to defeat kinetically without shooting it down and causing collateral damage." Most recreational drones, like the one that crashed Monday, weigh only a few pounds and lack the power to do much harm. Larger models that can carry payloads of up to 30 pounds are available on the market and are expected to become more common. The FAA imposes strict safety regulations on drones flown by government agencies or anyone who operates them for commercial purposes. In contrast, hardly any rules apply to people who fly drones as a hobby, other than FAA guidelines that advise them to keep the aircraft below 400 feet and five miles from an airport. "With the discovery of an unauthorized drone on the White House lawn, the eagle has crash-landed in Washington," says Senator Charles Schumer. "There is no stronger sign that clear FAA guidelines for drones are needed."
Because nobody with bad intentions defies FAA guidelines.
The Secret Serpents need X millions of dollars to provide a 100% effective defense against a $50 toy. Because terrorists!
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
I suspect you could also use an unregulated trebuchet to launch something over a fence, or perhaps an unauthorized weather balloon with a payload to drop something on your neighbor's lawn from altitude. Or a slingshot (although those might be illegal within city limits). The notion of a serious "security gap" is farcical because any reasonably intelligent person could come up with a number of clever ways to outwit fences and exclusion zones.
keep your drone offa my lawn!
I'm sure they can figure out a way to shoot a net with weighted ends that could probably knock one of these out of the air, and not cause any or too much damage if it misses.
Seriously, regulate the entire country because somebody's toy landed on the lawn at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave ?
It could easily carry 3 or 4 nail files and we know how dangerous they are.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
TFS says that they don't have a good way to stop a small drone or remote-control plane.
Therefore, we should make it illegal to fly a hobby toy _______. (Fill in the blank with your favorite regulation).
I guess they didn't notice that the bad guys don't CARE whether or not it's illegal to use this toy in the city / at night / near Washington / without permission / whatever. The vexing thing about terrorists is that they don't follow the rules, so hanging the rules doesn't effect them - it only effects us.
It's a toy helicopter. We don't need the FAA to do anything about this - but nannies never let a good "crisis" go to waste...
Do you have ESP?
The word "drone" itself conjures up all sorts of fear in the general public, so of course they're going to milk this situation for all it's worth.
Let's be realistic though... You could probably drive a small radio controlled car up to the front entrance of the White House too, with some payload like a bomb on it -- and that's been possible for long before the toy drones/helicopters were available on the mass market.
There's probably not anything you can or should do about this stuff beyond the systems they've got in place. (A bunch of human beings paid to try to protect the president and the grounds.) New FAA restrictions? That will mean nothing to someone bent on mis-using a drone to cause destruction at the White House!
Just use a water cannon to shoot the things down. The government already consider them safe to use on crowds. It would be very effective against drones. I can't be the only person who thought of this.
Seriously, why was the person flying the drone at 3AM?
The only reason I can think of is it was someone who had a motive to embarrass the security.
A claymore mine is significantly heavy. A small autonomous drone is incapable of achieving the lift necessary to carry one. A drone large enough to carry one would be military grade hardware anyway. Military grade drones can be spotted quite easily.
The scenario you have painted here is a farce.
The typical payload of a domestic RC plane (the usual device to be refit as a domestic drone) is around 2 ounces. The extended battery and the flight control system take up the vast bulk of this. Hobby "Drones" can't carry much more than a ball point pen around.
Really, you should be having more of the reaction the Russians had to the "Penis copter" event, and less of the "OMAHAGARD! TURRORISTS!" reaction that we americans seem to have to EVERYTHING since september 11.
A shotgun firing light shot (like #9, commonly used for skeet) can powder a clay target but quickly loses energy.
Where I used to shoot clay targets they had a duck tower, basically a target thrower mounted on tower of 25' or so. You'd shoot the targets from various stations around the tower. The idea was to simulate shooting flying ducks, so everyone shoots up at a steep angle.
Back out front of the clubhouse you would occasionally hear pellets hitting the metal roof of the building and once in a while feel one hit you. It felt like someone had tossed a small pebble in the air, almost not noticeable. The max shot they allowed was #7.5 target loads which is what we used on games with the most distant targets like the duck tower. #9 was better for skeet because of the short ranges and larger shot pattern.
I know people who have been hunting pheasant (relatively more powerful loads, like #4 shot) and been downrange of other hunters and hit by shot loads fired into the air. I forget what the distances where, but they described it as feeling like a light rain.
The scenario you have painted here is a farce.
While I don't support regulation of drones outside of keeping them away from normal airplane traffic and outside private property, this is hardly a farce.
This is a 4-lb payload drone that doesn't look more than 1 meter wide. There is even a video showing it dropping a small watermelon from 250ft.
A M18 Claymore is 3.5 lbs, so this drone could carry one without issue.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
The most powerful IED that could be transported by a recreational drone would be one carrying a model rocket engine. These contain PETN solid fuel, which is a high explosive. With clever design, this solid fuel engine could be used to make a small explosion.
The problem? This would be at most enough to damage a few windows, and maybe maim somebody at point blank range.
Thinking like yours would lead to the pre-emptive banning of not only hobby RC controlled aircraft, but also hobby rocketry, and a whole shitload of other innocent hobbies-- all because "Whoooo! Something spooky but unlikely COULD happen, so in order to be "PERFECTLY SAFE", All those things have to be preemptively banned! You dont want somebody to be HURT do you!?"
When considering civil policy, one has to weigh in the direct AND indirect costs of a policy change on the standard of living and quality of life of the people who are going to be living under that policy. There is too much collateral damage for policy of this kind to justify it, even if it could maybe, theoretically, save a life.
Other things that can be used to make IEDs? A bag of flour and a box fan with a cigarette lighter.
You REALLY need to distance yourself from the "MUST FEEL SAFE AT ANY COST!" programming that the government has been pushing. Rational evaluation of that kind of policy shows, consistently, that it leads to a less desirable future than allowing the "Oooh, scary!" things to exist.
The NY Times' article on this said a "government employee" (no name, no affiliation) had come forward to claim the drone and said he was flying it recreationally and that the Secret Service had interviewed him and said that all evidence indicated this was the case.
This seems odd -- who flies a drone recreationally in the vicinity of the White House at 3:30 AM? Or anywhere in DC for that matter. And a government employee? If you were a government employee, wouldn't you generally choose to avoid flying your drone around ten zillion government buildings
Why was he identified as a "government employee"? How likely is that the Secret Service is going to just accept a "oops, my bad" explanation?
Something about this seems off.
Solution: make it illegal for amazon to deliver mines to the whitehouse using drones.
Just look up the "DC FRZ" - it's illegal to fly any sort of RC device in a 30-mile circle around DCA. That absolutely includes the White House grounds, and large swaths of the surrounding suburbs.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.