Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • July 24, 2024 1:53 PM

@ Bruce, ALL,

The idea is far from new.

Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s as I’ve mentioned before I did various jobs involving “VIP Protection” and “Remote Bomb Disposal”.

I’ve mentioned before the use of very broadband jammers and the problems with distance [1].

I’ve also mentioned the problem with the “Bomb Disposal Wheelbarrows” that are still the current devices used.

A major problem is that they have “issues” like they are only of use on near flat ground, and they are not autonomous so require “Intelligent Control”(IC).

But also they need to not put out an electronic signature as this can be used to detonate the device intentionally or otherwise taking out the wheelbarrow. Or slightly smarter hostiles can just jam the frequencies used by the wheelbarrow if “Radio Controled”(RC).

Which as they are very far from inexpensive are not a resources where any particular unit is going to have two or more available in some ways they are considered more valuable than “man power”…

So in the main they are controlled by a heavy duty umbilical cable which because it can not realistically be “dragged” has to be “payed-out” from the wheelbarrow. Which has quite a number of issues. The primary one being the operator has to “reverse it back” and “reel it in” so in effect to be of use the wheelbarrow operator has to know where the device is, it can not go searching or roving around.

Which is why there is a lot of interest in AI-Drones to work “off leash”.

Even though this has been talked about since the 1980’s for some uncountable reason there are those that think this is “oh so super secret”.

Well the spot of bother at the East of Europe should have given even the dimmest of dimwits a heads up by now.

Which is why I find this so laughable in a very sad way,

“NEO can enter a potentially dangerous environment to provide video and audio feedback to the officers before entry and allow them to communicate with those in that environment,” Huffman said, according to the transcript. “NEO carries an onboard computer and antenna array that will allow officers the ability to create a ‘denial-of-service’ (DoS) event to disable ‘Internet of Things’ devices that could potentially cause harm while entry is made.”

Back in “The Troubles” in N.I. back in the 1970’s the British Government tried to ban “radio control”(RC) equipment used by enthusiasts in the UK and other European countries and the US. As a policy it failed. So soldiers were given backpack jammers that jammed the half dozen RC frequencies. As a prevention that not just failed but actually gave a “heads-up” to terrorists that troops were in the locality (so surprise element given away).

Eventually the powers that be realised they had lost this electronic watefare battle when the terrorist ECCM beat all the ECM that a “world power” could muster. When one terrorist group used small telescopes light detectors and a photographic flash gun (remember this was before lasers were available).

Some may know about “Smart Weapons” of the early “Joint Direct Attack Munition”(JDAM) “bang-bang” strap on guidance kit that converts “big iron” drop, or “dumb bombs”, into semi-glide style precision-guided munitions. Where some “laser jock” “paints the target” with an IR light source which in later versions was pulse modulated with a “secret code” to limit ECM. The detector head in the strap on nose flipped side to side and up and down to locate the “painted target” when it was found it fliped the strapped on tail fin left right and up and down to “glide down the beam” and hit the target.

The fact the actuators had only binary positioning so “banged back and forth” gave it the “bang bang” name not the fact it was anything to do with munitions/armaments. Later JDAM systems use a more positioned system and can thus not just glide further, can also not fly a simple glide path that made gunning the bombs down easier for defenders as even a “mechanical computer” made with gears could compute the position of the bomb as it glided in.

[1] In essence the issue that is relevant here is that of “range”. If your jammer is the equivalent of a CW system and puts out a continuous Power of P over a Bandwidth of B the effective power per unit of frequency is P/B and as Range R decreases by the square of the distance, the Range is,

R = P/(B.R^2)

The thing is that as you do not know

1.1 If there is an RF detonated device or not.
1.2 The frequency of operation if there is a device.
1.3 The power the effective power the hostiles have.

You have major issues so you want the jammer to be as close to any potential device as possible as Power is always limited on mobile devices.

There is also the issue you don’t want to be jamming everything “From DC to Daylight” as that causes many many others way way more problems than an explosive device will in most cases.