Train up top gun drone pilots? Or there's always that bloke with the shotgun...
Drones are dropping drugs into prisons and the US govt just doesn't know what to do
The US Federal Bureau of Prisons has appealed for help in stopping contraband-laden drones from flying over prison grounds. The bureaucrats insist they're not after formal proposals nor price quotes. Instead, they want to hear your suggestions for the best ways to stop people from using quadcopters to smuggle items in and out …
COMMENTS
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Saturday 7th November 2015 00:09 GMT dan1980
Re: Kaboom
@Aqua Marina
Let's put aside the 'shoot them down' part because there is still the question of exactly how you would accomplish that. I'm not saying it's impossible - just that it is something that would need at least some measure of discussion on which method or technology would be best.
The first part of your comment, however, is SPOT ON. You start by making some laws restricting drone use in sensitive areas.
That's a roll-a-six-to-start because if it's not illegal then what right to you have to stop the drones flying overhead in the first place?
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Saturday 7th November 2015 14:21 GMT Paul Kinsler
Re: OTOH you don't stop people who are already breaking laws by giving them more laws to break.
Hypothetically you might, /if/ the new law that they will now (also) break enables you to either (a) disrupt the specific lawbreaking activities more easily, or if it (b) enabled you to catch and/or convict them more easily.
But you are right that merely passing the law is not what will stop them - its the enforcement that counts. But enabling easier or simpler enforcement can still be beneficial.
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Saturday 7th November 2015 02:57 GMT Mark 85
Re: Kaboom
That's probably the most easy answer since there's no money for development costs. The only problem is the "shooting down". Most prisons in the States these days don't have high walls nor the staff to fully patrol the fence line. You definitely don't want someone with a shotgun (goose gun, maybe?) inside the fence line. Since the prisons are designed to keep the prisoners in and generally not to keep things out, it's a problem. More staff.. full-time... three shifts with night googles... one guard every (back of the napkin calculation...) 200 yards or so?
The problem is detection. These things are so small and fast.
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Thursday 26th November 2015 02:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
What the hell..
Prisons are the places where drugs are needed the most... Why would they want to spoil what little fun those people have left in their lives?
Hand out extacy, make them feel good, they'll rehabilitate that much faster.
Oh crap, I forgot that nobody is really interested in rehabilitation. Running prisons is way too profitable to want to loose customers who's stay is fully paid by the government.
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Friday 6th November 2015 22:39 GMT Nunyabiznes
alternatively
Let out all the non-violent drug offenders. Legalize all the drugs - I don't care anymore what you do to yourself.
For those people that have done something that really requires lockup - let them do all the drugs they want. Just don't intervene when they OD. Lots of problems solved right there.
I'm only kidding a little...
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Saturday 7th November 2015 15:13 GMT Roq D. Kasba
Netting but also fine cotton or kevlar or whatever steamers hanging all around. Get one of those in a propeller and it'll quickly gum up the works (as anyone who ever had to recover a C120 cassette from the heart of a tape player will attest). Combined with some suitable, angled shade netting, I'll bet you can reduce the problem by 95% in a week.
Preventing yard access if a drone is spotted, or found in the yard seems an obvious option, sure there's a reason they don't rely on that. Control signals are probably fairly easy to detect, to set off the 'clear the yard' alarm.
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Saturday 7th November 2015 15:19 GMT Crazy Operations Guy
A large mosquito net laid out in a circus-tent like form would work quite well. Plus now you can prevent the people inside from getting sick via mosquito-borne illnesses. Make it out of metal to resist the drones from just cutting the net open, with the added bonus that you just created a Faraday cage so that only approved and cleared cell phones can be used inside (using a femto-cell like arrangement inside that filters which phones can get out).
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Saturday 7th November 2015 18:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Some of these prison yards can get pretty large. How do you prevent the netting from getting too heavy, especially if you try the metal thread approach? I suspect anything you can deploy that covers the entire yard will have to be too light to effectively stop a drone delivery. It'll either cut its way through or deploy a payload with a spike or sharp blades underneath to take advantage of gravity.
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Monday 9th November 2015 19:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Chicken wire?
"Seems to fit the bill. With a few supporting poles here and there weight is no problem, and immune to blades etc"
The supports cannot be in the yard else someone can climb them, use the wire as a weapon etc
the issue is not as clear cut as it looks
safety and escape prevention will stop 90% of ideas
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Monday 9th November 2015 11:40 GMT Squander Two
Re: Dungeon ?
Hey, if it's good enough for federal pension bureaucrats, why not prison guards?
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Saturday 7th November 2015 00:44 GMT Dadmin
Re: Drone cannon
Also there is GPS navigation, so harder to jam that. Seriously, what would they do if you just launched a box of pills and hash cookies from a trebuchet into the prison yard? Or a homing pigeon loaded with contraband pr0n on microfiche? Holy crap, this sounds like a challenge to me!
The only real xyz-axis solution is that all prisoners shall be tied up with piano wire, then put into small, electric, cyclone-fence cages, while armies of fake drones drop decoy contraband upon the yard like leaves in autumn.
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Saturday 7th November 2015 19:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Drone cannon
" Seriously, what would they do if you just launched a box of pills and hash cookies from a trebuchet into the prison yard?"
There was a lo-tech attempt reported in England this week - using a fishing line.
http://news.sky.com/story/1580343/fishing-line-used-to-smuggle-mcmuffin-into-jail
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Friday 6th November 2015 23:01 GMT elDog
The problem is that prisons are mainly two-dimensional
We have long relied on the fact that most two-legged animals can only traverse easily in the x and y directions. Once you add the z component (digging tunnels or jumping over fences) the fences become less effective. Of course you can increase the height/depth of the fence but it doesn't eliminate the ability to fly something higher or dig a tunnel deeper.
Totally enclosed (x*y*z) would work in these three dimensions as it mainly did in the Truman Show. However the barriers can still be breached over time (t).
For the best protection the inmates would need to encapsulated in a total x*y*z*t shield. Some type of suspended animation might work but would be very expensive for the US prisoner population (the largest in the world.) I can't think a another ultimate solution.
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Saturday 7th November 2015 00:56 GMT Danny 2
Re: The problem is that prisons are mainly two-dimensional
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Zone
The Phantom Zone was discovered by Jor-El and used on the planet Krypton as a method of imprisoning criminals. Previously, criminals were punished by being sealed into capsules and rocketed into orbit in suspended animation with crystal meths attached to their foreheads to slowly erase their criminal tendencies
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Saturday 7th November 2015 09:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The problem is that prisons are mainly two-dimensional
"Of course you can increase the height/depth of the fence but it doesn't eliminate the ability to fly something higher or dig a tunnel deeper."
Well, down has a practical limit. If the wall goes down to bedrock, the only way under it will be rock-drilling equipment: harder to come by and subject to physical limitations: you can be fast or quiet, but not both.
As for up, that poses a problem, too, especially if the drone users get wise and start applying lexan shields around their drone, making them extremely difficult to take down. The lexan will require ammo of a gauge large enough to penetrate that if they miss they risk "bullets fired up" collateral damage, the underside is protected by the payload, and the top is not exposed when it flies above everyone. Radio-based attacks will require an FCC exemption since they count as jammers, and I see someone's already thought about the old-fashioned trebuchet (the only catch is it's not as stealthy as the drone, which can be launched covertly from some distance away and can even be cheap enough to send on a one-way trip, making it tougher to trace the source).
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Monday 9th November 2015 14:19 GMT Karl Vegar
Re: The problem is that prisons are mainly two-dimensional
Lexan shield hanging under the drone?
Yeah, should be pretty sure the drone won't get shot down... since it will never take off.
The propellers create lift by pushing air down. The mentioned air going down will be pushing down on the shield and create a negative lift that will be aprox of equal the positive lift generated, and kind of negate any upwards mobility.
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Friday 6th November 2015 23:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
1. Shield the drone electronics
2. Use laser wireless, and have a comprehensive algorithmic fall-back, should the control signal be blocked.
3. Fly up very high and release the contraband as a free-fall bomb.
4. Minimize mechanical noise of motors, and aerodynamic noise of propellers.
5. Camouflage coatings
6. Decoy drones and payloads