Anti-Drone Measures: A Bit Like Enterprise Cyber Security?
April 5, 2022
The big news is that whatever anti-drone technology is being used by “the West”, it is not working at 100 percent efficiency. The Wall Street Journal, published on April Fool’s Day, the story “Drones Evade West’s Air Defense.” I could not spot the exact write up in my online resources, but this particular item is in the dead tree edition. If you go to an office which has humanoids who subscribe to the hard copy, you can check out the story on Page A-9. Story locations vary by edition because… advertising.
There is an online version with the jazzy title “NATO Investigates How Russian and Ukrainian Drones Bypassed Europe’s Air Defense System.” You might be able to view the article at this link, but you probably will either have to pay or see a cheerful 404 error. These folks are in the money business. News — mostly like the Ford 150 — is cargo, and it has a cult I believe.
The point of both write ups is that both Russian and Ukrainian drones have not be interdicted by anti-drone systems. How did those in neighboring companies know that Russian and Ukrainian drones were entering their air space and zipping through their anti-droned borders?
Drones crashed. People walked up and noted, “Okay, explosives on that one.” Another person spots a drone in a field and says, “Looks like this one has cameras, not bombs.”
Countries whose borders have been subject to drone incursions include Romania, Croatia, and Poland. There may be others, but some of the countries have areas which are a difficult to reach, even for an Eva Zu Beck type of person.
NATO is looking into the anti drone measures. That makes sense, since most vendors of military grade anti drone systems have PowerPoint decks which make it clear, “Our system works.” Should I name vendors? Nah, remember Ubiquiti and Mr. Krebs. (That sounds like a children’s program on a PBS station to me.) Slide decks become the reality until a drone with explosives plops down near a pre-school.
My immediate reaction to these Wall Street Journal stories was, “Maybe the anti-drone defense vendors operate with the same reliability as the vendors of enterprise cyber security systems?” The PowerPoint decks promise the same efficacy. There are even private YouTube videos which show drone defense vendors systems EMPing, blasting, or just knocking those evil constructs out of the sky. (Check out Anduril’s offering in this collision centric method, please.)
For several years I followed drone technology for an investment outfit. I learned that the information about the drone described devices best suited for science fiction. I read patents which were not in the fiction section of my local library. I watched YouTube videos with nifty DaVinci Fusion video effects.
The reality?
NATO is now investigating.
My point is that it is easy to sell certain government types advanced technology with PowerPoints and slick videos. This generalization applies to hardware and to software cyber systems.
I don’t need to invoke the SolarWinds’ misstep. I don’t need to recycle the information in the Wall Street Journal stories or the somewhat unusual content in Perun’s drone video.
Is procurement to blame? Partially. I think that Parkinson’s Law (1958) gets closer to the truth, particularly when combined with the observations in the Peter Principle (1971). Universals are at work with the assistance of fast talkers, PowerPoints, and video “proof”.
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2022
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