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

Posted by msmash on from the stranger-things dept.

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.

28 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Drones as weapons, go figure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Its not going to be long before someone figures out how to strap a bomb on a drone and attack a crowd or fly it into a building and set it off. Its just a matter of marrying two existing things together to attack. The only way to counter something like this would be a signal jammer of some kind. All the more reason we need better control and tracking of drones.

    1. Re: Drones as weapons, go figure by mingot · · Score: 1

      No needs to âoefigure outâ how to do that. Anyone who builds DIY drones could do it without a second thought.

    2. Re:Drones as weapons, go figure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      See Hawaii Five-0 S12E15 "The Flight of the Jewels" released on March 1, 1980.

    3. Re:Drones as weapons, go figure by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      So....American drone operators are Enemy combatants, legally subject to murder on sight?
      Are you insane?

    4. 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.

    5. Re:Drones as weapons, go figure by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Car bombs are effective but difficult to get through checkpoints and next to high value targets.

      Get 20 home built $400 drones to suddenly pop over the right fence and you've achieved global headlines.

    6. Re:Drones as weapons, go figure by javaman235 · · Score: 1

      I can't see it. On one hand you've got rotors, wimpy but reusable and comparatively hard to make, on the other you have rockets, not reusable but lift more, and pretty simple to make. Cheap guided rockets might be a terrorist thing, but any drone that can carry enough to be a threat is too valuable to blow up.

      --
      -The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
    7. Re: Drones as weapons, go figure by c6gunner · · Score: 2

      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

      Two things:

      1. You can build an equally capable drone for far less than $1,000. You don't need a fancy 4k camera and you don't need a lot of the hardware and software intended to make them appealing for home users, plus you don't need to make them look pretty. You could build your "hand-grande drone" for $250 easy; less if you're making a bunch of them.

      2. While people tend to think of quadrocopters when discussing drones, fixed-winged models can carry a lot more payload. If you're looking to build a suicide-drone, that's your best option. You can order an RC plane kit for under $200 which would be capable of carrying 10+ lbs of explosives. Slap a camera, a controller, and a 3g modem on it and you've got a cheap heavy lift drone capable of attacking targets many miles away.

      Also, reguardles of the method used, don't forget the advantage provided by air-burst capability. 2 pounds of explosives and shrapnel at ground level in a crowd might blow off some legs and kill one or two people; the same load detonated above the heads of a large crowd could kill dozens.

  2. Re:According to who? The FBI? Why believe them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I know, right? I don't recall seeing any "Law Enforcement Attacked by Drones During Hostage Situation" headlines in any of my news sources. I call BS.

  3. "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!
    1. Re:"Just trust us"! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Just trust us that this took place.

      I do trust them that it took place. I mean this is such an obvious criminal use for drones that it has been part of many movies and TV series. And we do know for certain that drones are already used by criminals for some thing.

      I fully believe it happened.
      I don't support any efforts to prevent it on a legislative level.
      If the FBI is worried about this they should take measures to protect themselves in their local space (signal jamming, buckshot, net gun, etc)

    2. Re: "Just trust us"! by Jahoda · · Score: 1

      The edgy "but muh FBI" is really starting to get fucking tedious. Whether or not you are just an emotionally immature autist, or yet another organized crime whataboutism troll, the fact of the matter remains that you people live in denial about the reality of how the world operates. The irony of course being that I bet you're a "Blue Lives Matter" MAGAt. Fucking disgraceful.

    3. Re:"Just trust us"! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      The feds burned their credibility in the last election. Until a bunch of feds go to prison, the _whole_ organization is assumed corrupt.

      'They' bugged a presidential candidate (for the appointed successor and using fiction produced by that same crook's campaign to get the warrant) less than 2 years ago. All while angling for personal advancement.

      Those feds all belong in 'federal pound them in the ass prison', all of them that knew and didn't 'whistle blow'.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:"Just trust us"! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      'They' bugged a presidential candidate (for the appointed successor and using fiction produced by that same crook's campaign to get the warrant) less than 2 years ago.

      And the source for your information would be? The only thing I've seen that discusses that is the evasive Nunes memo, and even that doesn't say what you claim.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  4. Re:Reminds me of how we caught Moscow Donald by mnemotronic · · Score: 1

    Both of them, hard to say who is more ugly.

    Neither of them. Chelsea Club premmie league.

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  5. Rock Salt by at10u8 · · Score: 1

    It wasn't exactly for this reason that my great grandfather kept a shotgun loaded with rock salt, but I think it would work here, too.

    1. Re:Rock Salt by swb · · Score: 1

      I have yet to meet someone who actually has a shotgun "loaded with rock salt."

      Rock salt isn't available in any commercial loads I've ever seen and I can't think of what you'd actually shoot it at. It's so light that it would have little terminal effect outside maybe 20'. At point blank ranges it would probably produce a nasty wound or even be fatal but would you want to face down someone with real ammunition bearing only rock salt? Or have to explain to the cops how maiming someone amounts to self defense "in fear of your life." You'd also have to clean the barrel right away after shooting anything as the salt would be corrosive.

      Conventional bird loads like you'd use on pheasants would be perfect for drones -- reasonable range, and aimed up the pellets would be harmless. A target range I've been to has a duck tower and you shoot at angles like 10-20 degrees off vertical and the pellets come down near the clubhouse and it's like someone threw fine sand in the air when it comes down.

    2. Re:Rock Salt by javaman235 · · Score: 1

      I heard about it too from my grandpa. They did a lot of reloading, I have no idea how they did it, but reportedly at a certain range it could be shot at animals without seriously wounding them but it would shoe them off.

      --
      -The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
    3. Re:Rock Salt by onepoint · · Score: 1

      Well, Never met anyone. Well, you did now.
      I got shot at with a load of rock salt ( It's road salt ).
      The only purpose is
      A) to scare the shit out of you and
      B) give you a set of welt's and bruise and cut's and a who lot of pain ( and blind an eye or both )

      Got shot by a railroad track employee back in '82 who thought I was stealing from a box car.

      Painful as heck, where it broke the skin i saw screaming like if it was iodine, how I know it's road salt is because it was in my was in my winter jacket.

      --
      if you see me, smile and say hello.
  6. My BS alarm is overloading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This "article" is so insane I'm surprised the author was able to type it as I'm sure they were laughing so hard they couldn't keep their hands on the keyboard. Kind of reminds me of the NYC case where a police helicopter claimed that a drone came straight after them doing maneuvers a modern fighter jet would have trouble accomplishing. Later FAA radar proved that it was the police who went after the drone at much more mundane speed. Or that case (it was in a park over a river of some kind) where a police helicopter claimed a drone was flying wildly and invading their airspace when video footage from the drone clearly showed it flying quite low and slow over a pretty empty park area as the police helicopter approached it from above flying dangerously low and tried to knock it out of the air with its rotor wash. I'm sure that drones are misused, but their potential for misuse is extremely exaggerated by people with an ax to grind and most cases that I have seen the drone owner is the victim of some paranoid idiot with delusions of grandeur.

  7. Attention all Citizens, by CyberRacer · · Score: 1

    Due to an uprising of drone discontent in zone 37, All you're drone are belong to us!

  8. Drone enabled universal criminal brotherhood by Paul+Doom · · Score: 1

    "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."

    That's criminals for you - All criming together in spontaneous coordinated multi-felony attacks. It's for real. You need to watch a this segment from a 80's crime documentary, then think about what would have happened with drones AND encryption! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt33ElBL5nI

    --
    "Life is life." --Laibach
    1. Re:Drone enabled universal criminal brotherhood by Jahoda · · Score: 1

      Let me see if I understand you: you believe that organized crime does not exist and that criminal organizations such as the carel that kidnapped the man in Houston are too dumb/naive to use off the shelf electronics to enhance their surveillenace and intelligence capabities? LOL, ok buddy. Enjoy your fantasy world there in Hobbiton. Again, the complete disconnect you nutjobs have from reality would be charming if it wasn't so patently stupid.

  9. âCriminalsâ(TM)? by bonedonut · · Score: 1

    Or just the FBI doing it to themselves?

  10. Re:According to who? The FBI? Why believe them? by BlueStrat · · Score: 2

    Who says that happened?

    The FBI?

    Got any independent corroboration?

    After reading TFS (I know, I know) that was my first thought as well.

    The plausible likelihood that something like that could happen at all (remember, multiple drones means multiple operators coordinating) in the first place is well into the serious-doubt range, and then in addition, that something so outrageously outlandish to most people that it could be a scene from a bad Austin Powers sequel, and this does *not* hit the news!?

    I suspect government psy-ops until proven otherwise. Since Hoover the FBI has not exactly been known for trustworthiness and it's only been getting worse, especially of late with the extreme partisan politicization of the main federal domestic law enforcement agency.

    If I'd joined the FBI (or any other government agency, department, etc) for all the right reasons and kept my nose clean and done the best job I could, I'd be righteously pissed at upper leadership and would do what I could to expose them and clean up the Bureau (or other government agency, etc) so that there was some honor & pride to be in the organization you're serving instead of the current shame. At least, if you have family, think about the world you want your kids and your grandkids to grow up in.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  11. I call shotgun! by Megol · · Score: 1

    ...

  12. Not rock salt, just salt, to shoot flies, insects by KWTm · · Score: 1

    Not quite what you're thinking of, but I love the Bug-A-Salt, which fires a near-invisible puff of table salt at flying insects. Better than a flyswatter, doesn't splatter the bug, but brings them down. Also good for spiders that sends my lady screaming. Nowadays, when she sees a spider, she screams, and then grabs the Bug-A-Salt and downs the spider. Take that!

    It's so great that I actually hope to see some houseflies around the home. Disappointingly, they have generally steered clear.

    --
    404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
    [GPG key in journal]
  13. Too bad didn't exist earlier by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

    People could have disrupted the Waco incident ... which over 60% of US citizens believe was criminally botched by the Clinton FBI.

    Fasts forward a couple decades and the DoJ is trying to oust an elected president so it can GOVERN-SPLAIN to voters they aren't qualified to pick their own leaders.