Preparing Countermeasures For Terror Attacks Using Drones (remotecontrolproject.org)

An anonymous reader writes: You can add terrorist-controlled drones to the list of dangers we need to be prepared for, says the Oxford Research Group. Its new report contains information about over 200 current and upcoming unmanned aerial, ground and marine systems, and evaluates their capabilities for delivering payloads (e.g. explosive devices), imaging capabilities (e.g. for reconnaissance purposes), and their general capabilities. Even though the report notes that commercial drones have a limited flight time, range of movement, and payload capacity, and that their operators still have to be relatively close to a potential target, the researchers are particularly worried about the possibility of drones being used as remotely controlled explosive devices. They say, "The technology of remote-control warfare is impossible to control; the ultimate defence is to address the root drivers of the threat in the first place."

Comments

Better Idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop destabilising foreign nations and victimising populations and there won't be any terrorism (except the false flag variety, which is almost all of it anyway....so stop doing that too....)

Root Causes Important, but You have Crime & Cr

[Koreantoast]

For those who are trying to hand wave the issue with a broader "well, we shouldn't do things that make people angry *tsk* *tsk*", while addressing the root drivers will help mitigate the numbers of potential incidents, in a world where people have differing opinions, you'll always have a few folks who disagree strongly enough that they may just try to do something like deliver a dangerous payload via unmanned platform. Very least, you're going to have criminal elements that are going to try and exploit this technology for recon or more direct support in committing crimes, maybe even violent support. Therefore, you're going to need this technology to some degree whether through jamming or even outright shooting it out of the sky.

who really cares?

[nimbius]

Im sure for anyone who bought a "drone" 2 weeks ago at christmas, this article is neat. However fearmongering aside Terorrism in 2015 killed only 34 people in the United States, the country with the most drones. heck, in 2014 auto accidents alone killed 34,000 people here...and by comparison terorrism is almost a non-issue when pitted against heart disease, which kills 610,000 per year. Unlike terrorism, which is costly to defend against, most of the cases of heart disease in the united states that claim a life could have been prevented by simple diet and exercise. Hell, in 2013 there were 33,000 firearm related deaths in the US, almost 1000 times the number of terrorism related deaths.

but, you know...terorrism...gotta stop those terrorists.

Re:who really cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cars, dumbass. Enough with your rhetoric about terrorists "destroying our nation". If the best they can do is kill 34 people a year then they're obviously not very good at their job. Let's concentrate on important things and save our money instead of wasting it in a fruitless attempt to stop terrorism entirely, which is a literall impossibility.

Re:who really cares?

[gweihir]

And that is exactly what reality looks like: Terrorism is not a relevant threat in the west, unless a power-hungry political class, a press serving them and a population that does not get it makes it one. The mechanism at work here is that a population in fear is easy to rule, as a population in fear is dumb.