[[{"id":"phhg4e\/node\/223190","site":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/","hash":"phhg4e","entity_id":223190,"entity_type":"node","bundle":"basic_content","bundle_name":"Basic content","ss_language":"und","path":"node\/223190","url":"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/ask-us-anything-are-there-electronic-defenses-against-drones-video","path_alias":"ask-us-anything-are-there-electronic-defenses-against-drones-video","label":"Ask Us Anything: Are There Electronic Defenses Against Drones? [Video]","content":"

In the summer of 2012, a small robotic helicopter, painted Texas Longhorns orange and white, climbed into the air above the team\u2019s empty football field in Austin. Then the device suddenly plummeted toward the grass, its controller overridden by a team of university-sanctioned hackers. A few days later, in the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the same group (with permission) easily hijacked the university\u2019s $80,000 military-grade drone.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cNo one had ever done the attack that we did before,\u201d says Todd Humphreys, director of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. At least not in the declassified world. But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not easy to replicate. Humphreys\u2019s team used a relatively simple hand-built radio device to exploit a major loophole in drone security: the devices\u2019 reliance on unauthenticated position data beamed from GPS satellites.<\/p>\n\n

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