Opt-Out Attack

Oh how I would love to make one of these devices. There's someone in my neighborhood I sincerely hope it's a child and not a creepy old dude who flies his drone around looking at windows and hovers over my backyard sometimes. He generally leaves when I pull out my cell phone and make it look like I'm calling someone about him. Please basically told me there's nothing they can do unless I can point them to a house. They said call the FAA who's not going to do anything. I wish you could make this open source

So funny I was literally think about looking in this sort of targeted anti-drone defense. I was thinking about RF jamming but I think this is also a legal no-no :)

seems like I should be able to do some of this with my HackRF - any advice where to start?

Could come in handy against those drones the police send up to scan for all our mobile phone ID's during protests. It could also interfere with friendly drones though, like the ones the protest organizers might want to use to get a head count so they can report it accurately. -- Or just to get a cool shot they can post on social media.

I need one of those

Really looking forward to learning more!

Saw the YT short, thank you!

Do you or others have any good ideas with respect to this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HUD9atKkUo

Sent a message on insta today - I figured you had attorneys but it is good to see confirmation of that.

I know you've said you're looking for legitimate needs/use-cases for these in North America and I'll state one. Let me preface this saying I'm a pilot, and no not a drone "pilot", a private pilot. So with that comes an understanding of the FAA's airspace regulations and rules that goes deeper and is more informed than people who are not. So, right now you can find countless examples of people using consumer drones to harass and film their neighbors from directly over their property. It's usually stories on "legal" advice subreddits asking what can they legally do to a neighbor who is harassing them or taking pictures or video with their drone of backyard activities or even in house activities. Because you don't own airspace over your property, there usually isn't anything you can do that immediately solves this because most tactics involve damaging the drone, which is illegal. It bothers me on such a deep level that it's illegal for someone to just use a shotgun and bird shot and blast some pervert's drone out of the sky (you know, so long as you're birdshot won't come back down and hurt someone). Instead people are forced to file complaints or call local cops, and well, as we know...that is a slow process and not always effective. This tool would allow people to simply scramble the video signal of their asshole neighbor or ne'er-do-well. Simple as that. I don't DIY as well as I used to, so I doubt I'd be able to make one, but it's a great idea and should be disseminated before it's regulated.

You are literally influencing legislation now. You've entered a very select group of public tech researchers. Congrats and condolences are in order, I think.

Benn, there might be a new arms race toy for you to play with. Quantum sensors. Supposedly they can prevent GPS spoofing by using INS (inertial navigation systems). I’m not sure what all is involved, but infleqtion has few products. It could be worth looking into. They also have radio tech and time keeping stuff with interesting antenna claims. It’s all too technical for me to understand but yeah.. I am so here for the rebel kick. PLEASE never hesitate to start a gofundme or whatever for any legal fees you incur outside of any insurance or operating expenses from your channel. On that note, I wish more of you cerebrally minded content creators would start funds for academic grants they’re passionate about. You’re my favorite YouTuber to share FYI. We’re in your corner 😊

I'm still trying to figure out how to print out that L plate sticker on my own

Legal or not, I want one!

Herewith, the answer to my previous question to Benn about how to stay motivated as a creator in these dystopian times. Create exactly what's needed. Big attaboy at Benn!

I wish to retain the 12 gauge option for dealing with intrusive drones. Birdshot is a wonderful means of [cough] "disrupting" antagonistic devices. Nonetheless, more research into targeted electronic signal disruption is always welcome. It is, in fact, cat and mouse. In this case, it's closer to armor and warhead.

Does the device disrupt other recording devices? Phones is the obvious example but I'm mostly curious about the new Ray-Ban Meta sunglasses.

Nice prototype. I guess it might have some merit within Kherson region where people are targeted by fpv-type drones. Although they’re highly modified and models vary. I guess in current state it won’t help against “скид” (down throw attack?) but it is only a prototype. Currently, many civilians are using “Чуйка” (chujka) device to locate nearby signals and when it’s close enough you can see a video from drone. It allows you to hide from it or to evade the attack if you in the car.

the exasperated cyberpunk sigh at the end

What if you had a bumper sticker that only resembles a license plate? Would the AI model attempt to read it? If so, AI poisoning could be used on it. The original license plate would then be legible, but the poisoning would eventually cause the model to stop functioning properly? In such a situation, would a court deem such cameras unreliable and ban their use by law enforcement?

I wish you could main-channel this one, but solid move keeping it less accessible.

Currently in Ukraine, unfortunately, drones mostly are no longer operated with radio but with optical wire :/

That’s sick tech. Raytheon had some similar platforms. what’s the range? The samples in the video are wayyyyy inside the pitbul or is dead stick and relying on the payload splash.

okay, what am i bookmarking?

One wonders if it might be possible to simply trigger the return to base response. Probably easy enough to do with commercial drones using the same chipset. Probably harder with bespoke/hardened drones built for security forces. Also - have you been playing Watch Dogs recently? ;)

The opt-out is briliant as it is still safe to use. On a related note, effective personal protection against drones or any other potentially harmful robotics will also pretty fast become a necessity so I hope these devices will get legislated and allowed with caviats or safety before it is too late!

Another reason why i'm happy to live in germany. You're only allowed to transmit 25mW at 5,8ghz in the EU instead of 1W in the US. (Data from ChatGPT)

OMG I love this, I have been constantly thinking about drone defence since I had my first dji 😅 thry're just too good to feel safe in the same universe they exist 😃 I hope that there are people with required skills to build such devices to protect their people in ANY war zone 🙏

Interesting concept. I'll be interested to hear were this goes...

I have been dreaming about something like this for so long. I cannot believe Benn just dropped the proof of concept. Thank you for all you do to protect our freedom.

This is tricky: if you can't open-source the implementation and instead can only hint at the solution, then only well-resourced organizations will be able to act on the information. Those are precisely the organizations that tend to have a stake in mass surveillance, so the potential solution to increase citizen privacy is going to be circumvented before it can reach mass market. And indeed it is going to be very difficult to apply this technology in a legal way when all the different use cased from police, ICE, military, media is using the same technology path as the use cases for fire, search & rescue, recovery, discovery, etc. As a citizen, you have no idea who is trying to surveil you, and whether it is for your benefit or detriment.

If only there was an orphaned github account with some instructions and code....

Thanks, Benn! By demonstrating that it's possible, you've made it possible for others to replicate. At least until some legislator tries to pass a law making interference with state surveillance devices a crime (which I would've thought would be the kiss of death for a political career, at one time, but hey, we've all been young and naive).

I flip off every Flock camera I see and have wished for a forceful and non-destructive enforcement of my rights and freedom.

FCC might also not approve

this is hot

Nice one. What would also be cool is a DIY sonic array locator…to locate drones. I just saw cameras with 64 microphones that locate sound sources.

Next they'll make reflective jackets illegal for making it harder to photograph you 😔

Good work 👏

Did you muck with the video stream via ARP (presumably with scapy or similar)?

Good for you Benn!