This is like broadsheet newspapers all over again. PR release provides most if not all of the content of an article.

"Previous discussion": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3721198

It is so easy to shut these down without making the perpetrator easily known that the idea is ridiculous. If Iran can commandeer a US military drone, I think that this system is a waste of money.

- An EMP would wipe-out unprotected electronics easily

- Targeted energy weapons could fry sensors or the whole ship - The frequencies it uses can be jammed

- A Barrett .50, on the ground or out of a helicopter, could vaporize one of these

- A seemingly normal airplane could "accidentally" ram it

- A similar airplane could use a net and capture it, leaving no evidence

- Hell, if it flies high enough, its onboard GPS device might self-deactivate due to US law.

Assuming these suggestions would be possible, who will condone wasting a lot of military resources on this?

I think though the big picture is that if these are so ubiquitous and easily deployable, then using one of these tactics to take one down is a waste of time and resources. Imagine detonating an EMP bomb 5 miles into the air to kill the surrounding drones (ignoring the possible backlash if an airplane or something else gets caught in the blast and causes an accident), only to have 10 more drones pop back up.

This is all assuming of course that this idea can work.

>only to have 10 more drones pop back up

This only works if TPB has significantly more money than every government and commercial concern that would like to take them offline.

had to check my calender to see if it was April fool's day.

To avoid shutdown, torrent site will host servers on flying drones only to be shutdown by government with predator drones?

Newswire: US Blows Up Another Torrent Site

Seems to me a single storm might be capable of bringing down most all of these drones, wouldn't it? I wonder how they plan to account for this unless they plan to put them at extremely high altitudes.

What a joke. These drones would still have to connect to the internet somehow...you would need radio transmitters on the ground, which would totally defeat the purpose of the drones.

> What a joke. These drones would still have to connect to the internet somehow...

Not really, it's local area intranet. You only need a one-time handshake to connect to the public DHT peer networks.

They could outfit the drones with weaponry and have them do aerial battle with the US air force

How is being shot down better than being shut down?

We'll build a fort out back and eat candy for dinner every night, it'll be great.