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Criminals Used a Fleet of Drones To Disrupt an FBI Hostage Operation (fortune.com)

Criminals have discovered another use for drones -- to distract and spy on law enforcement. From a report: They recently tried to thwart an FBI hostage rescue, Joe Mazel, chief of the FBI's operational technology law unit, said this week, according to a report by news site Defense One. Mazel, speaking at the AUVSI Xponential drone conference in Denver, said that criminals launched a swarm of drones at an FBI rescue team during an unspecified hostage situation near a large U.S. city, confusing law enforcement. The criminals flew the drones at high speed over the heads of FBI agents to drive them away while also shooting video that they then uploaded to YouTube as a way to alert other nearby criminal members about law enforcement's location.

2 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. "Just trust us"! by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'The incident remains âoelaw enforcement-sensitive,â Mazel said Wednesday, declining to say just where or when it took place. But it shows how criminal groups are using small drones for increasingly elaborate crimes.'

    Just trust us that this took place.

    This, from the same organization that keeps claiming that encryption on cell phones should be open to the FBI and that this doesn't present any risk to normal users' security.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  2. Re:Drones as weapons, go figure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One can only hope that they would be that stupid. Drones can't carry much of any payload, a few pounds at most. Which makes for a pretty wimpy IED strapped to an extremely expensive piece of electronics. For example, you can buy a $1,000 drone and strap maybe a one or two pounds of explosives to it (a hand grenade worth maybe) and maybe kill a few people, or you can buy a junker car for $500 and load it with hundreds of pounds of explosives and kill dozens.