You choose your own destiny. I make my living happily working with Linux..

I can (and do) build drones out of 3 sticks, 4 motors, 4 speed controllers, one flight controller, one receiver and 4 props with 30 minute flight times and 10km range.

What are you babbling about again? transponderwoohoo??

I make my living happily working with Linux. Why would you "put up" with something that you don't enjoy?

And boom goes the dynamite.

You're better off using lithium polymer. Flight time depends heavily on the speed of the motors, the weight of the frame and the size of the propellers. Mini quads run for 5-10 minutes while larger quads can run for 20-30 minutes.

I would add one more threat: a sophisticated, targeted attack. While very rare, these threat actors represent a serious risk. It's important to note that smaller, less known companies are typically not at risk

No kidding. It takes him 2 minutes to say something that takes ordinary folks one or two sentences.

Not only that, but he talks as if the technology he's playing with is cutting edge; it's not.

"Where are the cheetos?"

"Roll the dice to see if I'm getting drunk!"

Classic - awesome.

I really enjoyed all the Star Trek series that followed TOS. I loved Voyager and even Enterprise was entertaining to watch. I really wish a new "official" Star Trek series starts again soon.

I wouldn't call it a rigid standard by any means. I think of it more like common sense. I'm not accounting for those that are typically more paranoid than most.

Nothing about security is absolute; it's all about risk management. Sure the impacts are huge here, but what are the likelihoods? When protecting yourself (digitally or physically), everyone takes a reasonable approach and draws the line on what is acceptable to them. In this specific case, if your second factor is compromised, your first factor is still intact because it's different for each resource. If you use strong keys for your first factor, then you would have to be specifically targeted for both factors to be compromised. Unless you're someone really important, the likelihood of that happening is next to zero.

Still well within the confines of acceptable risk. Now, if you're personally being targeted, then that's another conversation.

It's not a huge risk if you're simply using the dongle as a second factor.

I agree. It's probably just kids with Phantoms doing crap they shouldn't be doing in the first place - not serious hobbyists.

Typical drone ground stations w will use circular polarized, directional antennas for live video signal, however you won't have a CP directional on the drone (for obvious reasons) and will use omni directional instead (not very directional). This means that it's pretty easy to disrupt a 1.3, 2.4 and 5.8GHz signal (or even 900MHz) with simple, cheap hobby gear when you're closer to the drone than the operator.

For control (usually 433MHz or 2.4GHz), you won't be using directional antennas on either end-point. Therefore, it's pretty simple to disrupt that signal using cheap, hobby gear as well.

You're right about the GPS when using autopilot and waypoints, that's another story. GPS receivers on most drones can only be disrupted when there's a strong RF signal (or resulting harmonic) in the drone's near vicinity. I'm not sure what kind of gear you would need to blast a point in the sky with ~1500MHz to disrupt the GPS.

Commonly used GPS units on drones rely on GPS lock to function. These are also radio frequencies which can be overwhelmed in small areas. I know this because using an overpowered 1.2GHz transmitter on the drone will negatively effect GPS satellite lock. Knock the sat lock down to below 6 and you got yourself a lost drone.