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Boeing Tests X-Box-Controlled Laser Cannon
Drones have been turning up in strange places lately.
For instance, back in April, a mailman delivered a campaign reform letter to Congress by landing a drone on the Capitol lawn and just a few days later, a radioactive drone turned up on top of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s office (Kuroda paradropping yen?).
Then, in May, a drone showed up in Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids, Michigan and literally rained down money from the heavens.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, a Delta flight and a JetBlue flight had close encounters of the drone kind over JFK, avoiding collisions by just 100 feet.
Well apparently Boeing had had just about enough of people “flying their drones where they shouldn’t” (to quote Wired) because the company has now developed a drone-killing laser cannon which it tested in New Mexico earlier this week. Here’s more from Wired:
The aerospace company’s new weapon system, which it publicly tested this week in a New Mexico industrial park, isn’t quite as cool as what you see in Star Wars—there’s no flying beams of light, no “pew! pew!” sound effects. But it is nonetheless a working laser cannon, and it will take your drone down.
People keep flying their drones where they shouldn’t. In airport flight paths. Above wildfires. Onto the White House lawn. Luckily, there haven’t been any really bad incidents—that is, no one has been killed by a civilian quadcopter or plane, yet.
But governments and militaries around the world are terrified by the prospect of drones carrying explosives or chemical weapons (and now, pornography) into places where they shouldn’t.
There are lots of theories on the best way to deal with the drone threat. An Idaho company has developed special anti-drone shotgun shells. Some agencies are working on jamming technology to block communication from the operator to the aircraft. Firefighters in New York kept it simple, aiming their hose at a pesky drone hovering near a house fire.
Forget all that. Boeing thinks the best way to kill a drone is to zap it with a precision laser, burn a hole in it, and bring it down. So it created a weapon system to do just that—and the result could someday be installed everywhere from LaGuardia to the Pentagon.
But as Wired goes on to note, Boeing appears to have taken all the fun out of the whole idea of a "laser cannon":
No explosions, no visible beam. It’s more like burning ants with a really, really expensive magnifying glass than obliterating Alderaan.
Ok, so that doesn't sound very exciting, is there anything fun about this thing?
The laser is controlled with a standard Xbox 360 controller (“If it breaks, just head to the barracks to get a replacement!”) and a laptop with custom targeting software.
That's more like it - here's a military grade, precision laser cannon that has that video game feel to it, which we imagine will come in handy when the Pentagon decides it's time to test this thing out on targets which are, how should we put this... oh, yeah.. human combatants.
Of course, considering how lucrative sales to foreign countries are for America's military industrial complex, our only question now is how long it will be before someone "loses" a laser cannon in the Middle East only to see it used by former CIA "strategic assets" to down a Predator.
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Yes! I want one of those. Neighbors and random flying objects beware.
I've heard that quadcopters and hexacopters are running drugs across the border. Gotta stop those pesky things.
Just get some mirrors and attach them to your drone. Problem solved.
So shields, then. I think I see where you're coming from, Beam Me Up Scotty.
No explosions, no visible beam. It’s more like burning ants with a really, really expensive magnifying glass than obliterating Alderaan.
Cool, now if we could just aim it at the cockroaches that infest 251 H St NW, Washington, DC 20001.
LTER, I just wish I could come up with some shields to protect us from the shit hitting the fan. Thats where we need the most protection.
We're at full power, and she can't stand the strain.
Captain! Captain!!! She'sa commin' apart! We Canna' Make it!
Bernanke: Stand in there son, we'll be doing this for decades.
You suppose Scotty was a drinking man?
"Captain! we've got a fochin core breach fer fochs sakes. Gravitational forces are pulling this lassie apart, we're fresh outta Scotch, and the Romulan Ale's run dry! What the foch am I s'pose tah dou, shit some fochin dilithium crystals outta mah arse?!!?!?
Hah, this is perfect. Now wait, some civil servant in a cost-cutting and brain-dead decision will set this system up at LAX and attach the system to the internet so that some fool hacks into it and starts burning holes in actual planes.
Depending on the type of laser, mirrors could increase effect of the laser.....
The only thing that matters is whether the laser can be mounted on sharks.
unfortunately, no, you will still have to settle for highly mutated sea bass, which are also very ill-tempered
"You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic greenskeeping colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! "
I like the way both of you think. Throw me a frickin' bone here!!!!
LTER, can you suffix the word Paul to the end of your name? It would be much more fun.
My username has nothing to do with the entitled corporatist son of Ron Paul.
Ha! Son of Paul..../giggle
LTER's name is all about the Russian immigrant Alyssa Rosenbaum, who's character LTER frequently assails, in an attempt to demonstrate his/her own misgivings about Rosenbaum's philosopy. Unfortunately LTER's jabs totally miss the mark about where Rosenbaum went off the rails...every friggin time. I have failed to educate LTER. Therefore I have failed you. /hic!!!
All the philosopher Alyssa Rosembaum wanted was for private property rights to be protected by the courts and for people to be left alone and free to trade.
She failed though to define or explain what is property, what are rights, what are the courts and what is protection.
be good for precision cutting of bikini straps at the beach
In a country where 22% of the children live in poverty, is this really what we should be working on?
http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html
Yes, we should lazer the privates of the stupid bitches who had thoses 22% welfare chillins.
Don't forget the sperm donors either.
You are definitely right! We should focus instead on deporting a big bunch of those impoverished people.
Yeah, especially the 6th and 7th generational poverty stricken in Appalachia, need to go back to Scotland.
(/Different Strokes 21st century mode with evil grin) WTF you talkin' about Willis?(/end mode) They grow excellent weed and handle snakes in church like no other. It's "the Man" holding down us honkies. A general smashdown of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Not even the 30's Depression kept them out of them, thar hills. The upcoming depressionary Tsunami will test almost everyone, but it's another day in the park for those people. Besides, think of the country and bluegrass tunes yet to be written about the upcoming economic shakedown. They can sing it with smiles on their faces to outdo the Bubbleheads on Bubblevision while bank$ters jump out of really tall buildings! Life can still be wonderful and I suspect the glass is more full for these hardened people in Appalachia.
The one bad thing though.. No more Sears catalogs to wipe with, and those shiny pages in some travel magazines ain't a good substitute. Furthermore, they're not exactly in NY Times territory to use it properly for something besides bird cage filler.
Ahem, do any of these people have any real-world experience?
http://www.nccp.org/nccp_directors_message.html
http://www.nccp.org/about/staff.html
And do they have to search for a parking spot each day or do they each have one at Columbia University? Just remember that Columbia is the school that gave the "Mattress Girl" a degree and credit for her outcry over her so-called treatment. Just go to:
http://www.redonkulas.com/
and watch the video about Alum Emma Sulkowicz. Oh and what happened to the "Trillions" of dollars that we have spent on the war on poverty? Oh did it go to the Koch brothers? All I see is a lot of overweight poor people looking for more free stuff. That and my dead mother's relatives in Massachusetts need more stuff as well. Keep on working everyone, so we can support them. Thank you.
compatible with an everyday average run of the mill Xbox 360? Do you dumbasses comprehend just how stupid and dangerous a product you just designed? Hackers ought to have a field day with this one never mind the first one to fall into the wrong gamers hands
The controller is what they used. All they need is a joy-stick to control pitch and yaw.
An xbox controller just happend to be a cheap and readily available device.
What could be scarry is that since they have used an xbox controller we can make a guess that they might be using CIL and .Net/Mono
both of which incredibly easy to reverse engineer.
I would be scared to see what scars this device could inflict.
Bank$ters already do an outstanding job of scarring people financially, and that's no scarcasm intended.
I have to salute the genius involved in using an easily-available device to inflict this, and the Ying/Yang effect of a foe getting their fingers on the same, which shall happen in due course (Harris Corporation - eventually your "non-disclosure clauses" will haunt you worse than the ghosts of farmers against Monsatan! Federal Judges are already throwing out cases due to your arrogant hubris, and I salute them! [showing the "tongs" in their general direction as they do in Scotland])
2016 BlackHat Conference Item: Zeroday exploits on Boeing Compact Laser System
Like the one to kill skeeters from Intellectual Ventures, only different.
Creepy. The weaponry that potentially exists and is unknown to us is something too disturbing to even think about. As far as things that are known, are you aware there is a crowd control weapon that can make everybody shit their pants? In the 21st century this is what our intellectual resources are spending their time on, pray for a EMP.
The crowd control weaponry operates on very different frequencies than your standard microwave oven. Ironically, a Wi-Fi operates on the same frequencies as your ordinary microwave (2.45 Ghz +/- a few Mhz, the resonant frequency of the water molecule) yet the crowd control operates on 95 Ghz and functions by PAIN. It's related to the depth of human skin and how that frequency reacts to it. It's very much line-of-sight and should be defeatable by appropriate shielding. There have been experiments using the technology and have been publicly broadcast before.
1st we had subs, well uboats.
Then we had nuclear subs...
Awesome now we have hunter killer subs that sounds like a serial killer on steroids.
It's an arms race is all.
uboats = drone and who created the first uboats and who created the first drones any similarity?
Crowd control.
Cool. I want one.
Looks like Kent is still touching himself...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyZ4gGCCqss
This is an escalation of force.
Nobody mentioned that this can bring down helicopters and manned flights as well.
Nothing special about an X-Box controller. I've been writing custom I/O drivers for them since the first generation console came out. They have excellent software support. UAV drones themselves are often controled with standard consumer grade controllers. Reaper drones had support for Playstation gamepads since day one.
Laser weapon tests had also been going on for decades. None of this is news.
Just a few steps from linking "Call of Duty" to some robot in the middle east. 20 - 40 year old overweight pimply basement dwellers - The new army.
Long silver paint.
Are you having a problem with Drones: Make a big spark gap transmitter with a beam antenna for the gigahertz range. Or train your eagle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-xBtVU4lg
Suicide pigeons!
Very cheap.
Gamma ray laser cannon .... yee haaa!!
Cheap Microwave oven?
The Microwave Oven Was Invented by Accident by a Man Who was Orphaned and Never Finished Grammar School
What's Kernal on your O/S?
The first one they heated intentionally was popcorn kernels, which became the world’s first microwaved popcorn.
The magnetron would then shoot into the metal box, so that the electromagnetic waves would have no way to escape, which would allow for more controlled and safe experimentation. He then placed various food items in the box and monitored their temperature to observe the effect.
Cavity Magnitron
Radar Basics> Microwaves.
Scramble the signal.
So, if I took the door off my microwave oven and bypassed the safety switch, I could aim it at a drone and scribble its brain?
Inquiring minds want to know...
YES!, Literally this has been done before in eastern Europe. I forget the citation (that of an eastern European nation's military having jerry-rigged a microwave oven and aiming it at a drone), but that citation was given nevertheless in regard when Iran pwn3d one of America's own drones. The signal is not at all spectrally pure, so I can't say how effective it would be in the event of spread spectrum, but nevertheless intriguing!
Pretty much.
If you take the magnitron and wrap/encase it in an aluminum tube, you can effectively disrupt the signal controlling a drone.
Now the signal is probably oscillating from the controller, but when the drone gets close, microwaves take over.
Microwaves are ultra high spectrum, and will disrupt anything in their path. Encription doesn't matter.
Laws of Physics. Long waves, get disrupted by short waves.
Short waves have very finite target areas. If some Dikhead Is flying his drone over your back yard, and your magnatron is strong, he'll loose control in your airspace.
The longer frequency waves from his control will be interupted by the intense magnatronic waves. I'd bet you could control your airspace out 200 meters, if you shielded the magnatron gun properly.
Be like Boris Bitchez
Yes, a MIRROR SHIELD should do nicely.
I remember when Radio Shack sold a 'Solar Cigarette Lighter".
It was a concave ellipsoidal bowl with a very reflective metallic surface.
In the center of the bowl was a fold down fork to hold the end of the cigarette.
The idea was to focus the sunlight on the tip of the cigarette reflected off the concave bowl.
It worked.
Think about that.
Years ago when I still smoked, I would use my eyeglasses to light cigarettes in direct sunlight. When I did this in public, it would get various responses, especially at the horse race track around the drunkards. After all, not everyone's spectacles could pull this off, nor did many people have extreme farsightedness as I still do.
With today's styles of eyeglasses being more rectangular and compact, more direct sunlight around high noon seems to be required to pull it off. Either the aviator or Coke-Bottle type lenses worked awesomely for me. If someone asks for a light for their smoke and I'm not wearing contacts, I'll take off the glasses and borrow their cigarette (not even puffing the thing, although that helps it start even faster) to get the smouldering start they're after. It's timeless, almost wicked entertainment that comes in handy at a campsite not too thickly forested on a sunny day, and for the same reasons!
Easy there Mortimer. The magnitron was invented/developed as an outward looking radar, during WWII.
After the war there was a huge surplus of spare magnitrons, and some ingenious Lad learned how to vibrate(heat molocules, containing water) matter with MicroWaves.
Microwaves are very tight on the light spectrum. If you look at the stealth technology employed currently, the coatings on aircraft absorb microwaves, as the leading edges and reduced heat signature offer additional reduced cross+ section overview.
Most of what you said is correct, although microwave energy on the UHF spectrum isn't visible. There's nothing really to prevent someone from using spread spectrum technologies outside of the 2.45 Ghz band for more secure control of their drone to avoid the general weaknesses inherent in the over-the-counter technologies. Don't think I've not considered this in the baking of the cake as I have just enough background to sneak around that, although I'm quick to admit some available frequencies have significant drawbacks too. All that has to be considered in what gets used. I pray the Air Force and their drones "get that" now!
Mirrors do not reflect all of the light, less so if they are not pristine clean. When metal cutting lasers cut metal 90% of the energy is reflected, scattered, from the ablation zone.
But laser light doesn't go through smoke, or even a little water vapor.
Put one of these in your backyard and there'll be all sorts of shit incoming.
You guys know about drones, and Apaches, and Warthogs, and Hellfires, and Pentagonia, successor state to 'Murrica?
Quadrocopter surveillance will set you free.
Increase the power by many orders of magnitude and it might then be more than just an extremely expensive, long-range hot dog cooker.