On hacking drones…

Drone The arrival of relatively cheap drones (or unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs) that can be purchased and used by people other than the military and civilian “authorities” raises fundamental questions about privacy and security. To be sure, there is good evidence of the positive role that drones can play, particularly in providing humanitarian assistance, and in delivering supplies to remote regions, but insufficient attention is paid to their darker side. Increasingly, countries such as the UK are wisely seeking to control the use of drones near airports (see for example Civil Aviation Authority) and no fly zones are being created in sensitive areas (see noflydrones and the UK Air Navigation Order, CAP393). However, much less attention is paid to the implications of the use of drones for photographing or tracking individuals without their knowledge or permission. This is especially so when drones are used by those with malicious intent to monitor or photograph people’s activities in their homes or on their properties. In particular their use by burglars to scope properties is becoming increasingly common, and of growing concern to the police (The Guardian, 3rd April 2017).

One fundamental question that requires resolution is why, if people are allowed to fly drones over someone’s property, that person is not permitted to “take down” the drones? There seems to be a fundamental and unfair asymmetry here.

Broadly speaking there are three main ways through which drones can be taken down:

by shooting them out of the sky with small missiles or guns;
by catching them using larger, more powerful drones with nets; or
by hacking their control software.

The first of these is problematic for most people, is probably illegal (except when used by the military and police), and could cause collateral injury to others. The second is undoubtedly feasible, and examples such as Delft Dynamic’s Dronecatcher, and the Tokyo police’s use of nets to catch suspicious looking drones, are becoming increasingly widespread. One of the best defences against unwanted drones is simply to use a more powerful drone fitted with a net to take them down.

Many drones, though, are susceptible to relatively simple hacking that takes advantage of insecurities in the wireless connections between users and their drones. The following articles present interesting advice for those wishing to hack drones and retain their privacy in the face of increasing drone surveillance:

Nils Rodday, “Hacking a Professional Drone” (RSA Conference, 2016)
Sander Walters, “How can drones be hacked? The updated list of vulnerable drones & attack tools” (2016)
Wang Wei, “You can hijack nearly any drone mid-flight using this tiny gadget” (Hacker News, 2016)
Dan Goodin, “There’s a new way to take down drones, and it doesn’t involve shotguns” (Arstechnica, 2016)
April Glaser, “The US government showed just how easy it is to hack drones made by Parrot, DBPower, and Cheerson” (Recode, 2017)
Pierluigi Paganini, “How to hack drones with just a $40 hardware from 2 km away” (Security Affairs, 2016)
Kelsey Atherton, “This DIY device lets you hi-jack drones in mid-air” (Popular Science, 2016)
Phil Sneiderman, “Here’s how easy it is to hack a drone and crash it” (Futurity, 2016)
Ed Darack, “Drone hacking made easy” (Airspacemag, 2016)

Do please suggest additional resources of interest to those seeking to hack drones.

For those interested in the frightening potential for drones to be used as autonomous devices in warfare, this video produced to encourage the banning of autonomous lethal weapons is an absolute “must watch”. Much of this technology is already in existence, and being used to target and kill people who are deemed by the killer (currently most frequently a powerful state) to be undesirable. It is not difficult to envisage their widespread use, not only in warfare, in the future. All those responsible for developing such technologies have a responsibility to ensure that they are only used for good applications.

A more recent update, focusing mainly on “weapons” that can be fired to bring down drones with nets was published by the BBC in October 2018.

“Reclaiming ICT4D” – conclusion to the first chapter

1.4 I was re-reading the introductory chapter of my Reclaiming ICT4D (OUP, 2017) recently just to check that I still agreed with it! Doing so made me think of posting its conclusion here, because this highlights five aspects that make it rather different in approach from many other books on ICTs and development. So, here it is (original manuscript with emphasis added; and including Figure omitted from published book). Hope this makes people want to read more!

“This chapter has summarized the theoretical and practical groundings for the account that follows, and has sought to make clear why this book focuses on five main aspects of the interface between ICTs and development. First, it seeks explicitly to draw on both theoretical and practical understandings of the use of technology in development. It deliberately seeks to build on insights from both theory and practice, and crosses boundaries between different stakeholder communities. This is also expressed in its style and use of language, which consciously seeks to offer different ways of reflecting on these issues.

Second, the book is built on a belief that just describing the changes that are taking place, and how technology has been used in and for development is not enough. We must understand the interests behind such occurrences if we are to change what is currently happening. We must also adopt a normative stance, and be much more willing to say what should be rather than just what is. It is no coincidence that technology is being used to drive economic growth forward as the expense of those who do not have access to it, or the knowledge or interest in how to use it. This book thus has an avowedly practical intent to help poor and marginalized people gain benefits from the use of these technologies, and it does not shy away from making tough policy recommendations as to ways in which this can be achieved.

Third, it emphasizes that there are many different ways in which technology and development interact. I have previously very much championed the notion of ICT for development (ICT4D), but now fear that this has been subverted to a situation where many stakeholders are using the idea of ‘development’ as a means to promulgate and propagate their own specific technologies, or what might be called ‘Development for ICT’ (D4ICT). Hence, I wish to reclaim ICT4D from the clutches of D4ICT. This requires us above all to focus primarily on the intended development outcomes rather than the technology.

To do this, it is very important that this book concentrates on both the positive and the negative, intended and unintended, consequences of the use of ICTs in development. There has been far too much euphoric praise for the role of technology in development, and although the recent UNDP (2015) and World Bank (2016) reports go some way in pointing to the failures, they do not go anything like far enough in highlighting the darker side of technologies and particularly the Internet (although for a darker view of ICT in general see Lanier, 2011). To be sure, ICTs have indeed transformed the lives of many poor people, often for the better, but they have not yet really structurally improved the lot of the poorest and most marginalized.

Finally, as I hope the above has shown, this book argues that development should not be focused on economic growth, nor about the modernising power of technology. Rather, development is fundamentally a moral agenda. ICT4D is about making difficult choices about what is right or wrong. It is about having the courage to be normative, rather than just positive, and it holds on to the belief that we can still use technology truly to make the world a better place.”

Ba’Kelalan and Bario in the Kelabit Highlands, Sarawak

The Kelabit Highlands in Sarawak is an isolated plateau at an altitude of around 1000 m on the border with Indonesia. Named after the Kelabit people who live there, it is also home to the Penan and Lun Bawang. It is a vast forested area, and has been subject to logging for many years. However, until recently it was largely without electricity other than that provided by generators or small micro-hydro plants, and roads have only reached the interior of the region in the last decade. Being so isolated, it is now becoming popular as a tourist location for trecking in one of the last wilderness areas of the world. Rice production dominates in the flat valley floors, but some Penan people still pursue their traditional hunter gathering practices. Some long houses are also still occupied and new ones are being built, although most people now live in individual houses, with many offering homestay opportunities for visitors.

I was recently invited to participate in the e-Borneo Knowledge Fair held in Ba’Kelalan from 25-27 October, and so had the amazing opportunity to visit both Ba’Kelalan and the neighbouring community of Bario. The rapidity of change, mainly brought about through the introduction of roads, electricity (a substantial new solar farm in Bario), and new ICTs, is transforming these communities, and in a few years they will be very different from how they appear now. I hope that the pictures below do justice to these beautiful areas, and to the generous hospitality of my hosts (including Lian Tarawe in Bario).

Ba’Kelalan

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Bario

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Participating in the e-Borneo Knowledge Fair 6 held in Ba’Kelalan, 25-27 October 2017

Far too many ICT4D initiative are thought up by the rich and privileged, often, but not always, with the intention of using technology to improve the lives of poor and marginalised peoples. More often than not, well-intentioned researchers and academics in Europe and north America, or those living in major urban centres of economically poorer countries, try to develop new “solutions” that will help to eliminate poverty or deliver on some aspect of the Sustainable Development Goals agreed by the global elite. Invariably, they have little understanding of the real needs of poor people or marginalised communities, and all too often such initiatives prove to be unsustainable once the initial funding for them has dissipated.

Some initiatives do, though, run counter to this all too familiar tale of woe. One of these is the work of the Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, which has over many years sought to work with local communities in some of the most isolated areas of Sarawak. This action research started almost 20 years ago with the creation of the e-Bario telecentre initiative in 1998. It was therefore a real privilege to be invited to give a keynote presentation at their 6th e-Borneo Knowledge Fair, held on the theme of community-based sustainability in Ba’Kelalan from 25-27 October (EBKF6). The first e-Bario Knowledge Fair was held in 2007, and a decade on the change of name indicates a broadening of its focus beyond the village of Bario to be more inclusive of other initiatives across Borneo.

The central belief underlying these knowledge fairs has been the importance of sharing understandings between communities and researchers in co-creating new knowledge. In a fundamental reversal of the normal conference format, where participants usually meet in major cities of the world, the e-Bario and now e-Borneo Knowledge Fairs have been held in isolated rural communities, with participating academics being encouraged to learn as much from those living there as the latter do from the conference and workshop speakers. To emphasise this difference, outside participants were encouraged this year to travel to Ba’Kelalan on a nine-hour journey along roads cut through the forests initially by logging companies.

The knowledge fair consisted mainly of a series of workshops that placed as much emphasis on the views of the inhabitants of Ba’Kelalan and other isolated communities in Malaysia as they did on the experiences and knowledge of outside academics. Great credit is due to the Co-Chairs of EBKF6, Narayanan Kulathu Ramaiyer and Roger Harris, and their team, for having brought together an amazing group of people. The pictures below hopefully capture something of the refreshing energy and excitement of these workshops (link here to the official video). Many things impressed me about them, not least the commitment of all involved to work together collaboratively to focus on delivering solutions to the needs and wants of people living in these very isolated communities, and ensuring that “development” does not irrevocably damage the essential elements of life that they wish to maintain. It was also very impressive to see three community healthworkers present, who were offering a free service of health checks (blood pressure and blood sugar levels) for those participating.

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The most important feature of the Sixth e-Borneo Knowledge Fair for me was that it was all about working with isolated communities rather than for them. I came away I am sure very much more enriched by the experience than will other participants have been by my keynote! For those interested in what I had to say, though, the slides from my keynote are available here: Safeguarding the interests of the marginalised: rhetoric and reality of global ICT4D initiatives designed to deliver the SDGs.

Thanks again to everyone involved for making this such a special event!