Why Protestors Crashing A Surveillance Drone With Laser Pointers Isn't The Future Of Dissidence

Chileans have taken to the streets these days to protest the rising fares of public transit, though that has also evolved into a larger protest into economic inequality.

And now they're taking a page out of the Hong Kong book to tackle the high tech surveillance measures in place.

u/toyspilot - Reddit

Check out this video for instance where protestors managed to fell a police drone patrolling overhead. They didn't chuck or shoot anything at it. Rather, they just shone a crap ton of laser pointers at it, causing it to crash.

It's not likely the lasers pointers actually caused any damage like a weaponised military laser would, which is something armies around the world are developing. What's more likely rather is that the lights blocked out the feed from the drone's camera, blinding the human operator, causing him to lose control. Or, if it was an automated drone, they interfered with its altitude sensors, causing it to lose height calibration and forcing an emergency descent.

It's similar to how the Hong Kong protestors have been using laser pointers to block out head-mounted and drone cameras during their own protests. That's meant to deny the local police their use of facial recognition software, which they've been using to track down and arrest protestors.

It's another example of the futuristic arms race taking place across the world, as civilians attempt to combat high-tech digital surveillance methods using home-grown tools and techniques.

According to Christopher Williams, CEO of US-based Citadel Defense Company, laser pointers aren't really the future of anti-surveillance. "Use of these types of lasers is more hazardous and disruptive to humans than it will be for drones. There are many other technologies that are less disruptive that provide a superior, more scalable, more reliable and more cost-effective countermeasure," he told NextGov.

However, laser pointers are cheap and easily available, not to mention easier to conceal, so it's hard to imagine any of the other countermeasure he's thinking of becoming more popular than this particular one. But it's also logical to expect drones to find a way around this temporary laser annoyance with software updates or newer models in the coming months.