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Texas College Calls DHS Bluff – Hacks Drone In Front of Them

The Federal government has taken steps to make sure that our skies are filled with possible terrorist missiles. In fact, this year the FAA Reauthorization Act was signed with the thought of developing regulations in regards to drone flight in American skies. The FAA claims that they are expecting to have 30,000 drones in American airspace by 2020. The Department of Homeland Security is happy about this and like the naked body scanners that they claim are both safe and vital in securing the flying American public, they also were over confident about the security of the unmanned drones. That is until their bluff was called by a Texas college.

RT reports,

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 owned by the college, all in front of the US Department of Homeland Security.

After being challenged by his lab, the DHS dared Humphreys’ crew to hack into a 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 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,” Humphrey’s said. “In five or ten years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace. Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.”

The drone that was hacked was not a government drone, but rather a UAV owned by the university. However, the drones that will be in the air will not just be military drones but also commercial ones as well.

While the drone overtaken by the College for a mere $1000, but Humphreys theorized, “What if you could take down one of these drones delivering FedEx packages and use that as your missile?” Humphreys asks. “That’s the same mentality the 9-11 attackers had.”

Yes, I feel safer already, don’t you?




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  • pmrii

    There are at least half a million drones flying in American airspace. They are called radio controlled (RC) aircraft. In fact there is an RC aircraft organization. DHS needs to wake up. Whatever is devised by man can be accessed by man.

    • Libertarian58

      Totally wrong! These models are NOT autonomous and fly only by line of sight and must be in direct visual control by the pilot. The organization is primarily for safety and insurance purposes. Stop trying to turn American hobbyists into a bunch of terrorists! The fear mongers have gotten to you and you are afraid of your own shadow.

  • bigjack1

    So the US government wants to put 30,000 drones in the sky over the country,
    what for? Can it be they are wanting to do something about illegal aliens, oh I forgot , undocumented workers, I don’t think so. For what purpose then? Will they be looking for terrorists? Does that mean terrorist have already entered the country? How? Could it be they just walked across the border? Who knows, is anyone watching the border? Boy , it makes you wonder. I guess the way it stands now, most liberals don’t care who comes across the borders and would probably not be inquisitive about the drones as long as it doesn’t interfere with their gravy train. 30,000 spies in the sky, go figure, big brother at work again, who’s watching the shop? Certainly not our elected officials.

  • Doc

    Drones will replace Border Patrol agents who are instructed to run and hide.

  • rob

    take them all down over us cities

  • lorlan4

    I want one of those kits!!! Should make that school rich.

  • Blair

    If a Texas college can do it, so too, can Al-Qaeda.

  • The Brigadier

    We need a new law. First,the absolute ban of military drones over our airspace. Posse Comitatus laws don’t allow the military to conduct operations on domestic soil unless there is declared invasion or a widespread insurgency. Operating drones is a violation of the Posse Comitatuts laws. Giving those drones to Homeland Security is an end run around the PC laws.

    One solution to the drone problem is to eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. It was designed as an adjunct to the Treasury Department back in 2003.The government realized the countries debt accrual system had only six or seven years left before our entire system became insolvent. They were going to crash the dollar in 2009 and replace it with the “Amero” our answer to the Euro. Homeland Security was created to to help the introduction of the new currency and the securities related to them and maintaining public order when the public revolted over this.

    This switch to the Amero hasn’t happened yet because of Obama selling six trillion dollars to the Chinese to keep our dollar barely afloat. If he is elected to a second term, the greenback will be allowed to crash and all of your values will be wiped out and recalculated. We will have lower levels of salaries and costs to around ten percent of what they are now under the new higher value Amero, about 100 bucks to 1 Amuck (my term). Everyone will be broke for several years when this happens. if you have gold and silver and will probably do alright until things stabilize.

    Both Geithner and Bernanke are both complicit in this flotation of our current bankrupt system which is only going to make the transition much worse. When we fire Obama in November we can get rid of Tim and Ben and send Nappy and her Homeland crew packing as well. Hell, I’m for giving each of them a severance bonus of a couple of extra Ameros.

  • LK

    D.H.S thought transfer It’s called voyeurism a group who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others or a person who gains sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity. They are all reprobates . How low can your new SAT SEE right threw the walls.

  • gingercake5

    Ah yes, our humane president decides right away (upon taking office) that mistreating terrorists is off limits. So instead he and his gang members put drones in the skies to assassinate them from afar. So…no interrogation, no trial, no witnesses. Perfect! So much better than mistreating inmates. We need to be thankful for leaks, I guess, or we would never know the truth about this stuff.

  • Bob McCormick

    Even law abiding citizens will feel the prying eyes of Big Brother upon them. How long before some bored cop goes looking for women sunbathing in their back yard, peeking into peoples bed rooms. Keep your robes cinched up and the drapes closed, Big Brother is watching YOU.

  • bleedinell

    The DHS is an unconstitutional body of gubment stooges that need to be disbanded.
    They are a threat to our liberty.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Wayne-Bauer/100000780337244 Wayne Bauer

      They are ILLEGAL and a huge distraction, NO worthwhile purpose but control of lemmings.

  • URKiddinMee

    While the drones have elevated the public awareness at how obtrusive Big Brother has become, little attention has been paid to the ubiquitous spy cameras which provide authorities with access to so much of our daily movement. Start noticing how far from city traffic these units are now spread.

  • jimpeel

    The United States of America: Supplying their enemies with the weapons to be used against them for over a century.

  • Randy131

    The federal government and the TSA has usurped our 4th Amendment rights at airports, with the excuse they need to do so in order to make us safe during a flight, and they have now expanded those 4th Amendment usurpations to bus depots, train stations, and ship debarkation areas, as well as also setting up check points along our Interstate Highway System. And now they’re are filling the skies over the USA with surveylance and tactical drones? It seems that the only thing Americans now need to be made safe from is our federal government, and to do that we must all insist that the federal government and all it’s employees abide by and obey the US Constitution, whose only reason to exist is to protect the American people from it’s ‘OWN GOVERNMENT’, which we are now in dire need of. Janet Napolitano and the DHS, head of the TSA, has yet to explain why they purchased 600 million rounds of ammo just since the beginning of 2012, enough to shoot every American citizen twice.

    • AD Roberts

      I thought John Roberts was going to be a fortress to protect us. Now it turns out that HE IS A PART OF THE PROBLEM.

    • Randy131

      Judges, even those on the US Supreme Court, can be ‘Impeached’, while others can be recalled or not re-elected to their posts. There needs to be a conserted effort, by the Tea Party I hope, to impeach, recall, or elect other judges, other than these liberal judges who reverse the American people’s will through voiding laws that were mandated through elections, or legislating their liberal policies and agendas from their ‘Bench’. A movement needs to be started to do this if we are ever going to be able to return our country to what the ‘Founding Fathers’ left us as our ‘Heritage’.

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