Texas college students hijack drone aircraft

Other discussion frontpaged a year ago:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4212319" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4212319</a>

Why is this story back on Hacker news? There was additional analysis on this here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nakedsecurity.sophos.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;02&#x2F;drone-hackedwith-1000-spoofer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nakedsecurity.sophos.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;07&#x2F;02&#x2F;drone-hackedwith-...</a> and here <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;video.foxnews.com&#x2F;v&#x2F;1706007795001&#x2F;hackers-put-us-drone-fleet-in-danger" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;video.foxnews.com&#x2F;v&#x2F;1706007795001&#x2F;hackers-put-us-dron...</a>

Please correct me if I am wrong - but is the last sentence in the article completely wrong?<p>&quot; It is currently illegal to use drone aircraft in US airspace without special clearance from the FAA, and it might take a little longer than expected for that to change. &quot;<p>Did they meant to say &quot;legal&quot;?

Can someone explain this to me like I&#x27;m five, because what I&#x27;m taking from &quot;unencrypted GPS data&quot; is that the military controls these drones by basically pushing coordinates, and gaining control could be as simple as broadcasting your signal a heck of a lot louder?

I find it a little strange that they outsourced penetration testing like this. (Although maybe they already understood the system&#x27;s vulnerabilities and wanted to see how hard it was for someone else to do it.)

This reminds me of an episode of Castle.