Bloomberg: Attack of the Zombie Drones, July 2012

“One of the greatest advantages of drones—for gathering intelligence, patrolling borders, doing weather research, or killing terrorists—is that they can be piloted by people who are on the ground and far away. They can do dangerous, difficult, tedious tasks without requiring the risk of human lives. For their critics, there is a flip side to this: Drones risk making it too easy to kill without perceived consequences, or spy, or monitor every instant of everyone’s lives. Now there’s something new to worry about. If we can control our drones at a distance, what’s to ensure that someone else won’t do it, too? How easy would it be for someone to hijack a drone and Svengali-like, get it to do what they wanted, instead of its mission? Not as hard as one might hope. That’s what a team led by Todd Humphreys, an assistant professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and head of its Radionavigation Laboratory, proved last month.”

Continue Reading the Bloomber Businessweek Technology article.