Secret Service Recovers Small Drone at White House

originally posted by: cArLoSCuBsTaR
When I was a kid we used to call drones "RC Toys". Maybe if we carried on calling them toys then people wouldn't piss in their pants when theres a report of one being found on a lawn.

Questions like what if it had a camera or explosives are ridiculous. You sound like little girls. Strap your head back on and pay attention. You're being manipulated. If it was a true threat, you wouldn't hear about it

Actually most drones/RC Toys that fly these days DO have camera's, or have the optional equipment to mount them as you can see from the thousands of YT videos loaded with cameras from a drone.

You sound like an uninformed poster...strap your head back on and maybe research a bit before making statement than can easily be proven false.

IMHO, most likely it was some guy with a cool new toy trying to get some cool shots/see how far he could get it.



I sure as heck want a drone with a camera to play around with but the missus has said I have already used up my cool toy budget for this year.

Got my son a (small) drone for Christmas and now he terrorizes me with it.

As to security, I guess about all they could do would be put a dome over the White House?

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Indeed, from a CNN article;

"Miniaturizing drones that could negotiate indoor environments has also been a focus of the U.S. military.

Its Army Research Laboratory, known as ARL, in Adelphi, Maryland, are currently working on a project to develop robotic surveillance insects with wings just 3-5 centimeters in length.".

These little menaces have great military potential, obviously.

Little drones the size of ants one day, with little cameras and audio devices, wandering the skirting boards of the Oval Office? Humour with a hint of reality.

What would be interesting would be to have one of those little insect sized CIA drones to fly into the White House.
Just to be 'a fly on the wall'.

a reply to: butcherguy

LOL



It was probably a drone!

Was it part of Dubyas brain?

originally posted by: Jakal26

What type of weapon that could be plastered on one of these tiny drones would be a "threat potential" anyways?
You're gonna need a lot of bang to do any substantial damage....

How about a pound of PETN?

An element of this story that I think discounts the hobby drone theory is the timing - it all occurred in the very early morning hours and the WH was on lockdown until 5 a.m. Then arriving employees were allowed to go in.

It's unlikely someone would be flying a hobby drone at that hour.

What if the goal was to test drive/gather info on the feasibility of getting a drone into an entrance for arriving employees but it simply crashed before it could exit the area? Just conjecture mind you but all possibilities should be considered and ruled out.

I wonder how many drones have entered white house air space undetected and got away?
The ONLY reason the SS know about this drone is because it crashed and was still there.

The drone was found on the lawn. Has anyone thought of the possibility that the reason it lost contact and fell silent on the lawn could have been because a jamming frequency of some sort knocked it out?

They may have already placed countermeasures and that's why it was found inop. I would be more worried if they spotted one operating in the area.

a reply to: Tardacus

Exactly. It's intriguing.

As for who may be responsible....the Obama Administration has been using drones and other UAVs against terrorists for years now so they would likely love some retribution in that regard.

Also, agencies like the FAA have been calling for a crack down/tighter restrictions on the use of drones, this could help usher that into effect.

Any wireless device like an RC drone should be FCC part 15 compliant meaning it must not emit harmful interference and It MUST ACCEPT harmful interference, which means it's got to be a cinch to jam for the secret service if its any consumer brand.

I'm in agreement with the previous poster who suggested it probably was disabled by a jammer of sorts rendering it inoperable and crashing it on the lawn.

I don't believe the drone would have been too much of a threat to the White House, but it would have played hell with the Presidential helicopter, might have done some damage there.

a reply to: Grimpachi

Finally someone with some thought processing, they run on the same signal as a cordless phone in your home. It would have lost contact with the signal once entering the white house grounds. I don't know why some people think that these wireless signals are so magical, if it was made by a human it can be circumvented. In the below video they make a system to track and shoot mosquitoes using consumer available technology.



I think one thing that has to be looked at but has not been mentioned is the size. Someone has mentioned that it was two feet square. That is of a fairly substantial size for a quad copter, it would range from probably $300-4000 depending on the make or components. The majority of drones have cameras with some having FPV capabilities. Essentially you can wear goggles or watch a screen and see live time what the drone sees.
As far as the small drones, one was on either popular science or wired years ago. It resembled a mosquito and had the capabilities to inject a target with a syringe. This was probably five years ago.

cheers, Nuts

a reply to: Grimpachi

Finally someone with some thought processing, they run on the same signal as a cordless phone in your home. It would have lost contact with the signal once entering the white house grounds. I don't know why some people think that these wireless signals are so magical, if it was made by a human it can be circumvented. In the below video they make a system to track and shoot mosquitoes using consumer available technology.



I think one thing that has to be looked at but has not been mentioned is the size. Someone has mentioned that it was two feet square. That is of a fairly substantial size for a quad copter, it would range from probably $300-4000 depending on the make or components. The majority of drones have cameras with some having FPV capabilities. Essentially you can wear goggles or watch a screen and see live time what the drone sees.
As far as the small drones, one was on either popular science or wired years ago. It resembled a mosquito and had the capabilities to inject a target with a syringe. This was probably five years ago.

cheers, Nuts

a reply to: windword



That fly has it's own Facebook page!

originally posted by: balanc3
Any wireless device like an RC drone should be FCC part 15 compliant meaning it must not emit harmful interference and It MUST ACCEPT harmful interference, which means it's got to be a cinch to jam for the secret service if its any consumer brand.

I'm in agreement with the previous poster who suggested it probably was disabled by a jammer of sorts rendering it inoperable and crashing it on the lawn.

I am sure they do jam the hell out of the airwaves when Marine One is flying in but they would cause to many problems if they did it any other time. I wonder if the good Hackers out there have fixed theirs to only accept one frequency that is off the FCC list.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

What if you had a small drone with a simple mechanism to release a concentrated burst of aimed, aerosolyzed agent, one time? Like an assassin drone if you will.

If it could get close enough, it could fly right in front of someone important and release something terrible like anthrax as Flyersfan said, or even something like aerosolyzed ebola (lol),

Wouldn't be too hard to modify a small drone to add a spray mechanism controlled by a button, even in the likely case it was one-use only.