[ktizo]

The scariest thing about drones is that if both sides have drones, the winning strategy would seem to be in having millions of cheap drones directed by the sort of algorithms currently used in high frequency trading. Putting humans in the decision making loop for all of those just slows them down and vastly increases the expense and manpower requirements.

[starpilot]

There's very, very little work going on with AI in drones. We're not there yet. We're still working on getting the sensors right and dealing with datalinks. The vast majority are remotely piloted, some are remotely directed (point and click to location, the drone maneuvers to get there), all are controlled by humans.

This "robot drone aircraft freakout" sounds as silly to me as an aerospace engineer as worries about malicious hackers shutting down the US power grid sound to you.

[rdl]

I'm fairly knowledgeable about computer security and slightly to somewhat about power distribution, and for a well-resourced hacker ($10-50mm), shutting down the US power grid actually wouldn't be terribly difficult.

Leaving aside any attacks on the control system, the actual physical infrastructure is quite vulnerable. It operates close to breakdown on many days anyway, so it would just take the loss of some critical lines and maybe substations to cause (if lucky) widespread controlled blackouts and load shedding, or if unlucky, uncontrolled massive blackouts.

Since 9/11 they've fortified certain pieces (in the late 1990s, a 3 guys with crowbars and pistols could have broken into major grid operations centers and shut them down), but a lot of it is still fairly vulnerable.

[DanBC]

The UK experienced chaos when a small group of farmers and lorry drivers blocked oil refineries.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_protests_in_the_United_Kin...)

Some aspects of security are purely reactive (One man with a shoe bomb? All passengers now remove their shoes. One man with an underwear bomb? All passengers now go through millimetre wave scanners) and so this vulnerability has been fixed. Other protests were much less successful.

[ktizo]

I am not pointing out current capabilities, I am just hypothesizing on what is likely to develop in drone war when more than one side has drones.