What you need to know about police drone surveillance at protests against police brutality

[Mercenary_Garage]

I’m familiar with that story and I’m aware that balloons contribute to the problems of plastic ingested by wildlife and an abundance of micro plastics in the environment. And I also understand that helium is getting scarce.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting anything like a mass balloon release.

What I am suggesting is distributing a helium balloon to a percentage (off the top of my head, say 5%) of protesters, held by a thin thread perhaps 5-7 metres long. The idea being that the balloons would swing around randomly in the breeze and the threads would create a flight hazard to any drones below that altitude.

I’ve no idea if it will work or not, but it’s simple and it’s cheap and it seems plausible.

And as generic_name pointed out, it has built in plausible deniability.

[Khordas]

Helium is scarce and expensive. Hydrogen’s not scarce though: aluminum or zinc pieces in a soda bottle half full of dilute hydrochloric or sulfuric acid will fill balloons. If there are connecting lines between the balloons as well as the people holding them, you can cover more area with fewer balloons, as well as covering area that looks safe to fly through.

[Doctor_Faustus]

@stinkyfoot

However, even if they had, GLONASS receivers (the Russian GPS) are cheap and hardly controllable by any non Russian entity.

Or Galileo, the only GNSS technology being controlled by a democratic entity.

[Doctor_Faustus]

Eh, they’d construct prosecution for carrying incendiary devices out of anything filled with hydrogen.

[Khordas]

You’re not wrong. If the evidence is a balloon though, getting rid of the evidence is pretty simple.

[lizard-of-oz]

@stinkyfoot

Just be sure to always wear masks and immediately remove the battery, any battery , to avoid being recognized/followed.

You can’t be sure you disabled all tracking devices without disassembling the drone.

You could wrap it in tinfoil, that should block GPS and mobile reception.

If you must unwrap the drone again, I‘d look for a basement, cooling chamber, metal shipping container or an underground parking lot.

[stinkyfoot]

Yes, yes and yes. I’d be very cautious also about any supercapacitors and flat shaped cells hidden inside. Capturing the drone using a (metallic?) net launcher, then putting it into a metal box and dismantling it in a underground place might be effective and safe. I would however get rid of the recognizable parts ASAP then document anonymously any reverse engineering or just details about the construction, weak points etc.