[HN Gopher] Portable drone jammer uses a Raspberry Pi tactical S...
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       Portable drone jammer uses a Raspberry Pi tactical Software Defined
       Radio
        
       Author : protik49
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2025-02-16 19:57 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
        
       | mystraline wrote:
       | I tried looking for how they're attacking ELRS (control link),
       | and I'm seeing nothing.
       | 
       | There's Joachim's LoRa library. However ELRS uses the 2.4GHz and
       | its a blend of LoRa and FHSS. Basically you need a BladeRF or
       | better to attack the control link properly.
       | 
       | And given the RPi platform, they're likely using RPITX as the SDR
       | transmitter. Lucky to get 1MHz bandwidth... And you need 80MHz
       | minimum.
       | 
       | And the RPi doesn't have the horsepower to properly do 20 or more
       | LoRa channels, with 112MHz mode on Blade.
       | 
       | Until I see a BoM, code, or demonstration, I'm going to consider
       | this to be hogwash.
        
         | jdietrich wrote:
         | Anyone who cares about signal integrity is using dual-band, so
         | you'd also need to cover the 915MHz/868MHz band. It might be
         | possible that there's some kind of hideous vulnerability in
         | ELRS, but there's a pretty high-stakes jamming contest going on
         | right now.
        
         | therein wrote:
         | I do wonder if it is using something like this [0], but then
         | there is always PrivacyLRS[1].
         | 
         | [0] https://www.nccgroup.com/us/research-blog/technical-
         | advisory...
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/sensei-hacker/PrivacyLRS
        
         | geerlingguy wrote:
         | It looks more like someone built a fun cyberdeck-style build
         | with some neat hardware, and have a use case in mind... but
         | until I see any code or evidence it does what it says, I'd be a
         | little doubtful.
        
         | 05 wrote:
         | No way in hell anyone using drones for military purposes is
         | even using non-modified ELRS, at the very least the hopping
         | sequence is sourced from a CSPRNG and there's packet
         | authentication.
        
       | mint2 wrote:
       | Wouldn't intentional interference be very illegal to do at
       | random? Sure, hard to get caught but isn't it illegal?
        
         | thatguy0900 wrote:
         | Jamming is very illegal in the US at least.
         | https://www.fcc.gov/general/jammer-enforcement
         | 
         | Now might be the time to do it though, maybe everyone at the
         | fcc will be fired before your caught.
        
           | smitelli wrote:
           | If you've got bored hams around, they'll catch you.
        
             | reaperman wrote:
             | I doubt the FCC will be disbanded in a way that prevents
             | any enforcement of anti-jamming rules. But the only thing
             | local hamsters would do is report you to the FCC, so if it
             | were dissolved as GP posits, it wouldn't matter which hams
             | find you.
        
         | Etheryte wrote:
         | Drones are used in active warfare as we speak, legality in
         | civil use is pretty irrelevant in that context.
        
           | mint2 wrote:
           | So you're clarifying that for 0.1% of HN the legality is not
           | an issue as if those in war zones were wondering?
        
         | internet101010 wrote:
         | I feel like I should have the right to block someone trying to
         | use a drone to look inside of my windows.
        
           | brokenmachine wrote:
           | Nobody is doing that.
           | 
           | But the legal way to do that is by closing your blinds.
        
           | rukuu001 wrote:
           | I know a guy (Australia) who does this regularly. If a drone
           | flys over his back yard he activates his jammer and the thing
           | makes a controlled vertical descent to his lawn.
           | 
           | 100% of the time its neighbourhood kids trying out their toy,
           | and they need to come beg for it back. Then he has the chat
           | about privacy etc etc.
           | 
           | The jammer itself came from Alibaba I think.
        
       | jimmySixDOF wrote:
       | Unfortunately the probable countermeasure to things like this
       | pushing more autonomy to the drone so expect a lot less human in
       | the loop control where jamming is a problem i.e active conflict
       | zones.
        
         | 05 wrote:
         | Fiber optics is already a non-ML solution to jamming (and RF
         | based detection).
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-16 23:00 UTC)