University Of Texas Researchers Remotely Hijack Drone

From the New New Internet courtesy of BuzzFlash:

Recently, Prof. Todd Humphreys and his team at a University of Texas at Austin laboratory conducted an experiment to see if they could hijack a drone.

The team used a $1,000 spoofer device to replicate commands a satellite gives a drone for flying, giving the drone false navigation information that appears real, according to John Roberts’ report.

Anyone with the spoofer could hack into a drone and completely control all of its movements and Humphreys told Roberts using a spoofer is similar to hijacking a plane.

Humphreys estimated there could be 30,000 drones in airspace within 5 or 10 years and each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.

A bit more here.

Okay, it's disturbing enough that we use these things for "targeted killings," which is just a euphemism for assassination, and that these "targeted killings" tend to take out a lot of people that aren't the intended targets.  It's also disturbing enough that these drones are increasingly being used by domestic police forces for Orwellian surveillance purposes.  But it's particularly disturbing to note how easily they can be hacked.  Especially when tens of thousands of them are slated to be used in the next decade.

Needless to say, there are some problems with this.

I'm sure the government is going to do its best to improve the cyber-security involved here, but the point is that, once again, the science appears to be outpacing our understanding of what, exactly, we think we're doing with it.  I mean, there is virtually no public discourse on how these drones are being or should be used.  What happens if we start doing "targeted killings" on our own soil?  What happens if ne'er-do-wells start hacking into these things for their own nefarious purposes?

We really do stumble blindly into the future.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$