The College Fix

Drones, drones, everywhere a drone.

Since the government recently cleared the way for private and more widespread use of unmanned aircraft over U.S. skies, privacy and security experts have spent plenty of time questioning the wisdom of this brave new drone-filled world we’re about to create. One of the biggest concerns is whether the government can actually secure these aircraft and keep them from being sabotaged or controlled by America’s enemies. For those who share that concern this latest bit of news will come as no consolation:

A group of researchers led by Professor Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas at Austin Radionavigation Laboratory recently succeeded in raising the eyebrows of the US government. With just around $1,000 in parts, Humphreys’ team took control of an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the US Department of Homeland Security.

After being challenged by his lab, the DHS dared Humphreys’ crew to hack into their drone and take command. Much to their chagrin, they did exactly that.

Humphrey tells Fox News that for a few hundreds dollar his team was able to “spoof” the GPS system on board the DHS drone, a technique that involves mimicking the actual signals sent to the global positioning device and then eventually tricking the target into following a new set of commands. And, for just $1,000, Humphreys says the spoofer his team assembled was the most advanced one ever built.

“Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane,” Humphreys tells Fox. The real danger here, however, is that the government is currently considering plans that will allow local law enforcement agencies and other organizations from coast-to-coast to control drones of their own in America’s airspace.

“In five or ten years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace,” he tells Fox News. “Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.”

Hmmmm–30,000 potentially hackable drones swarming America’s skies, operated by local governments and other organizations, all just waiting to be turned into 9/11-style missiles. Why do I get the feeling that Homeland Security, the FAA, the Department of Defense–none of these organizations will want to take responsibility for the first hacked drone terrorist attack. But they will be the first to move to ground every drone in the country if disaster strikes–and will act as if it never occurred to them that such an attack were possible.

Technology is making the world smaller, and making us all more vulnerable. If a few college students can take control of a drone with a thousand bucks, what could a motivated, mature, and well-funded enemy do?

Dangerous days are ahead. Let’s hope our government officials don’t continue to blindly and arrogantly ignore the potential vulnerabilities of drone-filled skies, as they now appear to be doing.

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