Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • January 26, 2010 9:28 AM

Did anybody spot this little delight,

“The CAA is currently reluctant to license UAVs in normal airspace because of the risk of collisions with other aircraft, but adequate “sense and avoid” systems for drones are only a few years away.”

I can see hours of endless fun with a suitably equipted model plane acting as a sheepdog to the UAV playing flossy the mindless ewe…

I’m not sure if the Gardian has got it wrong or the assistant cheif constable of kent is telling porky pies but,

“Concerned about the slow pace of progress of licensing issues, Kent police’s assistant chief constable, Allyn Thomas, wrote to the CAA last March arguing that military drones would be useful “in the policing of major events, whether they be protests or the ­Olympics”. He said interest in their use in the UK had “developed after the terrorist attack in Mumbai”.

Stressing that he was not seeking to interfere with the regulatory process, Thomas pointed out that there was “rather more urgency in the work since Mumbai and we have a clear deadline of the 2012 Olympics”.”

You notice he tells the CAA that interest had “developed AFTER the terrorist attack in Mumbai” but in another direct quote he says “rather more urgency in the work SINCE Mumbai” he can’t have it both ways it is either since or after, and I know for a fact it’s well befor Mumbai.

Oh and Kents ACC also throws in a reverse “for the children” with a comment directed well and truly towards New Labour Politicians with “we have a clear deadline of the 2012 Olympics” (subtext we don’t want another 7/7).

Oh and it’s not as though they have not tried another political purse string jerker with,

“Previously, Kent police has said the drone scheme was intended for use over the English Channel to monitor shipping and detect immigrants crossing from France.”

Yeh right just how are the cameras going to see down to the locked decks of cross channel ferries where illegal immigrants regularly bribe a fery employee to let them in so they can hide on lorries with security seals they can bypass with a very sharp knife and a spot of super glue (which is one major way in for them).

As the Gaurdian points out with,

“There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a ‘good news’ story to the public rather than more ‘big brother’,” a minute from the one of the earliest meetings, in July 2007, states.

In other words senior Kent Police have a “hard on for the technology” and are going to try every stroke to get their hands on such “pant wetting” technology. Even to the point they are talking about “cost offsetting” with other GA’s and “comercial” organisations with,

“At one strategy meeting it was proposed the aircraft could undertake commercial work during spare time to offset some of the running costs.”

Just how much money does the Kent ACC thinks can be made with “Kent Yokel Speeds 10” videos?

And from a blimp those cameras are going to have to have very very expensive image stabalisers and very very high quality optics to make broadcast quality video.

Big eye optics brings me nicely around to,

“BAE drones are programmed to take off and land on their own, stay airborne for up to 15 hours and reach heights of 20,000ft, making them invisible from the ground.”

Do me a favour “invisible to whom” a one eyed Welsh pit pony. We are talking about a 70ft blimp with navigation lights and radar reflectors.

The human eye has a resloving power of about 1 in 2000 so 20000/2000 = 100 and the blimp is nearly that long so it may well be visable with a cheap pair of binos with x8 magnification and 50mm object lenses. The old “Ok Chaps fly at the Hun out of the sun” does not cut it these days for other simply solvable reasons.

One of which is it is also going to be dead easy to spot with a low cost 3cm (10GHz/X-band) marine radar which you can buy second hand for next to nothing. The modification to the antenna to do this is not exactly difficult…

Better still how about using the reflections of airport radar such as at Lydd using a (possibly) passive receiver and a little software…

The device is also going to be “EM Hot” and thus have it’s own little EM radiator to get data back to the ground. And if you have a ten second think about,

“The surveillance data is fed back to control rooms via monitoring equipment such as high-definition cameras, radar devices and infrared sensors.”

You will realise that every single one of those “Big eye” EM sensors will have “rabbit eye” problems.

A suitable telescope and IR or other laser would have it’s position dead on even if it is 20,000ft up.

All that said, the chances are they would muck up various other parts of the design to make it “easy to use” or “reduce initial cost” or “reduce maintanence cost” or “Easy use” for on the ground or in the air forces just as we have seen problems from military UAV’s.

So my guess is apart from the ACPO “hard on” “braging rights” (yup Chief Police officers are most definatly men with very expensive toys if their past track record is anything to go by) these blimps will do general sweeps for this up and comming new local land tax whereby you pay a lot extra council tax if you have a patio etc etc etc. And if you don’t declare it a 20,000GBP fine. Which is probably what the Kent ACC means by,

“there will be “large capital costs” involved in buying the drones, but argue this will be shared by various government agencies.”

Hey ho and proof it’s a boondongle,

“They also say unmanned aircraft are no more intrusive than CCTV cameras and far cheaper to run than helicopters.”

So are Kent senior officers realy saying after spending millions on their previous toy CCTV it is an inefective waste of money…

Oh and,

“Partnership officials have said the UAVs could raise revenue from private companies.”

Yup sounds like raising money through fines to me.

But who am I but one of tbe poor people who will be mugged to pay for it.

Clive Robinson • January 27, 2010 3:53 AM

@ Matt from CT,

“Saying it’s the only effective control is as simplistic as those who say it’s just poverty that causes inner city crime.”

The short reply is “Money is the root of all evil” (or should it be “route” hmm on for the philosphy group me thinks 😉

Howevere it is true that spending in the right places and the right ways will save large amounts later on in life.

For instance a lack of spending on the right teachers in some areas is known to have a detrimental effect on civil order later in the pupils lives (ie they need strong male role models in the class not just on the sports field or perceived to be on the street corners).

Lack of oportunity for people to lift themselves out of poverty is almost a guarenty that some will take the crime road (but not most).

As has been noted on previous blogs the US population is now around 310million twice what it was 50 years ago, and street and other crime has gone up some 10 or more times (the average across all crime appears to be just under 7 times and the Politicos normalise this against population to give 3 times or worse against $/average income such is playing with stats).

The bulk of the crime is low dollar and against others in a poor community. And that used to be fine with most politicos as it does not effect their voters. However with the cost of transportation droping in real terms in the 80’s street crime developed legs and did start to effect their voters.

You only have to look at the comercialisation of US jails to see how the oportunity for “pork” etc to see why some don’t want crime solved by simple things such as keeping the place tidy, improving sporting and academic oportunities and encoraging local businesses run by local people.

I cannot remember who it was who likened going into certain places in the US like time traveling back to the lawlessness of a century before.

But I’m sure some will nod in the direction to the notion that whatever the many causes of crime maybe the fear of living in a lawlessness and opportunity less area akin to one hundred years in the past does make people live in fear which parallises them, the stress causes health problems and untimley death, and lack of education and oportunity keeps them dirt poor and thus suitable prey for others be they criminal, aspiring politicians or big business running profitable farm sized prisons.

By the way I’m not saying this is just a US problem (it most definatly is not) it’s just that the US has all the ellements working together at the moment to make it as bad as it is (the UK for instance is only just starting in on “big business” private prisons and it’s a real disaster).

Sadly sometimes it is also compasionate law to protect those from other countries who have suffered unimaginable deprivation. Others learn that such systems behind these laws work on “points make prizes” and thus know how to work the system to their advantage and take scarce resources away from those for whom it was intended.

The problem is well “complex” but money is very intimate with the process, and with poverty and the issues are so conflated it is difficult to say what is any one path that will produce best value for the dollar. The one thing I do know is that with a scarce resource being fair to every one is not going to work and acknowledging that might just be the first step along the road.

Clive Robinson • January 29, 2010 4:38 PM

@ Peter A.,

“I wonder how hard it is to puncture such a blimp-drone.”

Fairly simple puncture resistance is equatable with excess unwanted weight reducing the potential payload or “Optics Package” (to take a leaf out of the Nuke Camps terminology).

At 70ft long and about 20wide it is likley to have several gas cells of which the lose of one or two will not stop it being brought down moderatly safely.

Just for argument lets say that is the loss of just one cell might bring it’s maximum flight ceiling from 25Kft down to 20Kft, two cells 15Kft etc with say the loss of 1/3rd of the cells making it to heavy to get off the ground.

It is likley that there is a compensatory system of preasure loss and gas replacment etc.

“Would it be possible with RC model aircraft”

Not an “off the shelf” one. Getting to 25-30Kft is not going to be particularly quick or easy. And there is a drag-v-lift / time-v-fuel equation to work out (ie the greater the lift the more drag, thus the slower the climb time and the more fuel required).

Most RC engines are not designed to work at even 200ft let alone one hundred times that. Likewise variable rate pitch props are not standard on RC equipment. It would probably be wiser to splash the cash and get a couple of micro jet engines of the sort the Swiss “Bird Man” uses.

“with some custom-built piercing equipment on board?”

That would be very unwise for a number of reasons. It would be more cost effective and safer and a whole manner of other things to go and find a small caliber semi auto rife with electronic trigger and make a 30 or 50 round mag/feed system. The barrel is likley to be a bit on the heavy side but it would not be to difficult to strip it out put it in a lath and turn it down. A .22 rifled barrel can actually be made of quit thin walled metal that slides inside the barrel of a larger caliber weapon. H&K used to make “converters” for the likes of the BF 7.62 SLR. But you could take and ordinary “air rifle” barrel and turn it down in a lath untill tha wall was only 2 or 3 mm thick 50mm from the breach.

You would then mount this in a suitable tube support frame down the centerline of the aircraft (remember breach end hard mount soft mount for the barrel). You would need two miniture low light BW CCTV cameras and light weight 2.4GHz transmitter with a 20-50mW output. Also a light weight electronic compas & Differential GPS unit.

It would probably take around 12 weeks full time of a single skilled RC modeler to make such an airframe and test it out etc. But not something that has not been done before. During WWII the Germans developed a “fly by wire” drone aircraft to be flown out from the bomb bay of a maned aircraft.

Also various “over head” photo agencies have quite large “RC planes” that are just used to photograph entire strips of land which then get put up on the “Inter web” so we have a fair idea of where to start….

Clive Robinson • January 30, 2010 2:18 PM

@ jacob,

“Would it be easier to simply jam the control signal? Or the video? It can’t be any more difficult than intercepting cell phones.”

Saddly no. You have to think of it this way.

The blimp is at 20Kft, which means it’s coverage area is quite vast (to RF the horizon is about 1.2 times that of the visable horizon)

You have the blimp at a known point and any quit simple program will track it’s position sufficient for high gain LPDA or yargi antenna. Thus the jaming margine would be very very high. Even then some communiction modes (Spread Spectrum etc) add even grater margins. Unless you know where the important sites are jamming is not a realistic option.

Also as the blimp has an auto-pilot it’s path could have been pre-designated and the survalence could be being recorded in the device as well.

“The mars spacecraft (beagle) was driven 6ft into the martian soil by a mathematical error. I still find that humorous. Should have called it the darwin beagle.”

Yes it is a sad but not unknown problem with leading edge development.

Colin deserved a lot more for his efforts than he got when you consider the level of work and commitment he and his very small team put in. It’s a sad sign of the times that others with less effot but greater “public eye” get the acolades and honours.