Is there a defense against terrorist drones?
A more appropriate question would be: Is there really a threat of terrorist drones?
Terrorist drones would make a sexy Hollywood plot line that would require Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris and Steven Segal to defeat the threat to humanity but what's happening in the real world?
Officials from the US military, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FAA gathered for a DHS “summit” on a danger that had been consuming them privately for years: the potential use of hobbyist drones as weapons of terror or assassination.
That's where this starts. It's because the US government themselves use drones as weapons of terror or assassination. They have become so used to dealing death that they think that's the way everyone else would behave. This is compounded with an incredible ignorance that equates hobby drones with Reapers and Predators.
The whole Whitehouse Phantom incident is nonsense. It embarrassed security nuts by demonstrating that there is no scifi shield around the building. Stray baseballs and frisbees could just as easily get onto the Whitehouse lawn - and they are only slightly less dangerous than a Phantom.
If what was reported in the article was true, the conference was organised by people who are either stupidly ignorant or outright deceptive and intending to create fear and justify further ridiculous "security" measures. Either way they should not be trusted.
The officials played videos of low-cost drones firing semi-automatic weapons.
Sounds like a popular Youtube hoax video - these guys are taking it seriously.
Syrian rebels are importing consumer-grade drones to launch attacks.
Launching attacks with consumer-grade drones??? They can't carry a payload.
Isis used two Phantoms for some amateur grade reconnaissance.
An exercise that pitted $5,000 worth of drones against a convoy of armored vehicles. (The drones won).
That sounds highly improbable.
A buffet of low-cost drones had been converted into simulated flying bombs. One quadcopter, strapped to 3 pounds of inert explosive, was a DJI Phantom 2.
Three pounds is what the Phantom itself weighs. A phantom can't take off with 3 pounds of anything attached.
This shows how fake this threat is. This tricked up Phantom wouldn't be able to fly!
Multirotors make fabulous toys or flying cameras but they have a serious weakness. The payload they can lift is very limited and when loaded, they have a very low range. They just aren't capable of carrying a load. This simple fact is why terrorists haven't used them. They just wouldn't do the job. Instead there are lots of viable options that are simple and effective. Timothy McVeigh used a rental truck, some fertiliser and diesel to do more damage than a thousand multirotor drones could achieve. In Boston it was pressure cookers. The bad guys aren't as stupid as some of the fantasy chasers at DHS are. And in a country with 300 million guns on the ground, the threat from multirotors doesn't even register.
While they are so focused on the fantasy threat of multirotors, they risk completely ignoring very real security risks. If they still want to dream of radio control toys, something with wings can carry more, travel further and faster. Even though radio control planes have been around for 50 years but I'm not aware of terrorists having used them.
There are real threats out there but by wasting resources on this fantasy distraction, that's taking away from real security measures that might achieve something. They may as well set up a unit to protect us from aliens from Mars.
