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Take over or hack somones drone.

Dewald

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Hi

I have heard a few stories of drones been hacked or someone taking control of a drone and stealing it. This makes me think twice about flying. Is this at all possible?
 
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Look at this website: MESMER®

EDIT: corrected broken link
 
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Hi

I have heard a few stories of drones been hacked or someone taking control of a drone and stealing it. This makes me think twice about flying. Is this at all possible?
Its highly unlikely that you would ever come across this equipment as long as you fly in safe areas. The public using this stuff is going to affect very few people. Its mega expensive.
 
Can someone boost their remote signal and over power your remote and take control that way?
 
How many RPA's can fly around together on a field day? Lots.
If 'A' controller is not bound to 'A' rpa, than it shouldn't be able to assume any control??
The developers of this item, say that its not just a blanket 'jammer', but it can actually control the rpa....
I find that very interesting.....
 
There are more of this kind ... DroneGun MKII

these are in use at the current Commonwealth Games... news reported an RPV being taken down by one earlier in the week. probably not due to any particular threat, just someone being clueless and flying in a restricted area.
 
Look at this website: MESMER[emoji768]

DJI already has nanny controls over the drones it manufactures. I wonder if this would work on dumb drones: The ones that simply receive information or fly completely autonomous of a transmission signal?

I think layering different anti-drone tech will increase odds of downing a rogue drone.

I sure DJI’s new drones will be hard to mod/hack which will also prevent unauthorized incursions of restricted airspace.
 
I think we already know it, but are too hesitant/scared to comment, that this technology seems useless, if you are an old school RC flyer...
No GPS, No fancy FC, just fly the frikkin' thing where you want it to go???
How is this 'new tech' going to bind and control a strange aircraft?
Far out, 'war driving' went out of fashion years ago when we realised it was too hard to brute force access??
Am I on the wrong track here???
 
Can someone boost their remote signal and over power your remote and take control that way?

In a practical, day-to-day sense without megabuck hardware, no...if not bound to the aircraft...

It would have to determine and then be on the same channel, then at worst the signal would flood out your remote. You could conceivably do the same thing with a wifi transmitter and directional antenna (like a home-made ‘cantenna’) pointed at the drone.

Depending on the drone and how it was configured, it would ‘lose’ your control station and RTH (or land, depending on battery status).
 
Can someone boost their remote signal and over power your remote and take control that way?
As I understand it they can do only two things, make it land or send it out of the area on a RTH. It is a crime to bring a drone down in any way other than a safe landing as it is treated as an aircraft under the aviation rules. This may change in time of course.
 
As I understand it they can do only two things, make it land or send it out of the area on a RTH. It is a crime to bring a drone down in any way other than a safe landing as it is treated as an aircraft under the aviation rules. This may change in time of course.

Depending on the country/jurisdiction...yes.

This likely excludes some law enforcement and military operations against unauthorized flights in sensitive areas. Again, it depends on the sophistication of the equipment used.
 
Food for thought....
My Flamewheel 450, running a mwii fc, doesnt have rth or auto land.....
I need to fly it by the sticks, to fly where I want it to go...

This mob, say that they can TAKE CONTROL....
This is my bug bear..... HOW???

I as the initial takeoff operator may have flown somewhere not permitted....oops, sorry....
Now you take control.......
If you can do this, you are now PIC, not me......
Future responsibility is now yours....
 
My Flamewheel 450, running a mwii fc, doesnt have rth or auto land.....
I need to fly it by the sticks, to fly where I want it to go...

This mob, say that they can TAKE CONTROL....
This is my bug bear..... HOW???

With a recent DJI aircraft no-one claims being able to take control AFAIK, only to cause a loss of communication which would result in the programmed failsafe action to kick in (encryption is pretty good).

I don't know what RC system you use with your F450 but basically every hobby RC system is easy peasy to take control of (reatively speaking, aka therory is simple and it has been successfully demonstrated already) since there is absolutely no protection or encryption against it whatsoever.
 
Yeah this mob says they can take control @Kilrah.
Tell Me More
D13’s MESMER® Counter Drone System, represented in the image below, is a unique, patented, low power, non-jamming, non-line of sight, non-kinetic drone mitigation solution. MESMER® provides a safe and effective method of protecting personnel and infrastructure from dangerous drones. The key differentiator for MESMER® is its ability to manipulate weaknesses in all digital radio protocols. This allows MESMER® to put into effect sophisticated automated detection and mitigation strategies to stop, redirect, land or take control of drones across a range of national security and defense scenarios. The patented technology is built on open source software architecture, which ensures that MESMER® can be seamlessly integrated into existing security and surveillance systems.

If its not bound to the AC, I dont see how.
Sure, I can see how a jammer would work, but what it does to an AC that doesnt have a failsafe mech is anyones guess eh?
 
I guess if enough $ are put into the project, anything is possible.
 
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Yeah this mob says they can take control.
This doesn't tell everything, last I know they can control SOME drones, but with recent DJI machines they can only prevent communications. This can even be seen in the video on the page you linked (in their interface for a Solo there are several actions available like "land in specified area", but for the encrypted link of a Phantom 3 the only available one is "disable controller and initiate failsafe").


If its not bound to the AC, I dont see how.
For non encrypted stuff like hobby gear most of existing protocols have been reverse engineered. So you know what the signal of a transmitter looks like, so you can look for one. When you found one you can read everything, display the channels and read the radio identifier. Someone can look at the channel movements and deduct what channel is what so that he knows how to fly the thing manually like you'd do after starting to transmit his own orders with your radio's identifier.

All machines that are usually considered as threats have flight assistance / GPS so would be flyable that way, nobody's gonna care about a racing quad that flies acro (and if they do then just crashing it is acceptable - he was going to at some point anyway...)
 
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when you can buy one off the shelf, you can reverse engineer anything if you are of a mind to, and willing to bring the required resources to bear. it's all a matter of cost and benefit though, when you're talking about a $1k drone it's probably more of a philosophical exercise as to whether you can actually seize control of it. crashing it would be relatively easy in context.
 
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