How to Hide from Killer Drones

Dazzle camouflage doesn't work on killer drones. Even civilian LLMs recognize that the object on the photograph is a military truck, except they can't explain why it's been painted to resemble a zebra. Most dedicated machine vision models easily lock in on a boxy shape moving along a road. If anything, the stripes make the trucks easier to see.

The real answer to killer drones is a CIWS that can cover 2pi steradians and attack multiple drones at the same time, because otherwise it will be just swarmed by drones that quietly glide towards it, engines off, from several directions before entering the final dive.

After WW II German u-boat captains said they were never particularly bothered by dazzle camouflage. Ten years from now I have a feeling we'll get the same information from drone operators.

As a bonus it will also repel horse flies.

https://www.science.org/content/article/zebra-stripes-confus...

Twenty four years later I'm still looking for ways to evade the spider drones deployed by PreCrime in Minority Report.

Oh, so dazzle camouflage is back. I wonder if the more sophisticated "classic" patterns would work better. They certainly do for human observers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage

A tip from a 2024 Google paper[0]:

> It's important to note that the risk of misuse is significantly lower for individuals who have never had typical speech patterns

How to Hide from Killer Drones:

It's important to note that that the risk of being riddled with drone bullets is significantly lower for individuals who have never had human physical characteristics.

[0] https://research.google/blog/restoring-speaker-voices-with-z...

This title scared me, not for myself but more thinking about how kids will probably need to learn these things next. We are such strange 'intelligent' creatures who have figured out everything but not to be at peace with each other.

You don't

/r/CombatFootage (NSFL)

Half the time it is the nighttime and the things are in IR https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47000051 . You may still try to camouflage and decrease your IR visibility - stealth planes try to do it, and there are some IR-decreasing covers for tanks and people.

The night time hunt using IR is widely practiced today in Ukraine and even was widely practiced by US and USSR in Afghanistan and Iraq as surroundings gets cooled down and cars, people and say donkeys used to transport weapons in mountains become highly contrast against the surroundings and thus easy to spot visually and to lock IR seeker of a weapon. Saddam used USSR anti-ship missiles, old even then, to attack Iran oil storage tanks at night as the missiles were easily able to lock on that large bright IR emission of the tanks still hot from the day against the cold night desert.

If you're really interested in this kind of thing, Grand Thumb on YouTube has a couple of videos about it. I think it was Dirty Civilian on YouTube that had a good video on how to prepare hide sites and the impact of using the right laundry detergent as to reduce or eliminate IR brightener chemicals, etc.

If anyone here is into drones, manufactures, ideas, or wants to either use their drone piloting skills or learn how to pilot drones. Ukraine is recruiting for positions.

https://usforces.army/en

This is an odd article that tries to elevate some random grunt in the field painting their truck white stripes to grand battlefield strategy in the face of autonomous AI killer drones. Neither are the latter real nor is the former actually in widespread use, and it obviously is not effective, not least because the drones it's talking about barely have the resolution at altitude to resolve that detail.

Machine Learning CAPTCHA https://m.xkcd.com/2228/

Censorship is alive and well on this cursed site

After WW II German u-boat captains said they were never particularly bothered by dazzle camouflage. Ten years from now I have a feeling we'll get the same information from drone operators.

As a bonus it will also repel horse flies.

https://www.science.org/content/article/zebra-stripes-confus...

Twenty four years later I'm still looking for ways to evade the spider drones deployed by PreCrime in Minority Report.

Oh, so dazzle camouflage is back. I wonder if the more sophisticated "classic" patterns would work better. They certainly do for human observers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage

A tip from a 2024 Google paper[0]:

> It's important to note that the risk of misuse is significantly lower for individuals who have never had typical speech patterns

How to Hide from Killer Drones:

It's important to note that that the risk of being riddled with drone bullets is significantly lower for individuals who have never had human physical characteristics.

[0] https://research.google/blog/restoring-speaker-voices-with-z...

You don't

/r/CombatFootage (NSFL)

Absolutely this will work, it's all over social media.

Remember, in WWII Carrots were the secret weapon used to defeat the night fighters.

The difference is that a neural network you can fit on a drone is going to be a lot less capable than an LLM you can run on a desktop.

"stay inside" scare... from late 2019...

Prescient.

This film predated the Ukraine war, and it felt like fiction six years ago.

This is absolutely coming.

The government is concerned about who might print a 3D gun, but this is the real danger.

If anyone here is into drones, manufactures, ideas, or wants to either use their drone piloting skills or learn how to pilot drones. Ukraine is recruiting for positions.

https://usforces.army/en

Just beware that being part of the drone team isnt some comfy safe job far from danger, they are the most hated type of unit currently since they are deciding large part of this war (and any future war it seems). I see videos of ie glide bombs used by both sides targetting specifically positions of drone teams.

If all this is clear and you go ahead, all the power to ya, fighting evil in this world is highly commendable.

>not least because the drones it's talking about barely have the resolution at altitude to resolve that detail.

the drones are used in groups. That is for example how we have a lot of footage of the drones hitting targets. The drone observers or especially the intelligence drone guiding the group would frequently carry much better camera than the actual kamikaze drones (especially when it comes to high-resolution IR cameras which are expensive). In the fully autonomous AI mode the drone is usually given small target area where to operate (in particular because they aren't yet smart enough to differentiate Ukranians from Russians, so you'd like to confine their operations to a limited area and not letting it into the totally free hunt) and regular 4K camera is sufficient there. Again, there is a lot of footage on YT an TG.

Machine Learning CAPTCHA https://m.xkcd.com/2228/

Absolutely this will work, it's all over social media.

Remember, in WWII Carrots were the secret weapon used to defeat the night fighters.

"stay inside" scare... from late 2019...

Prescient.

This film predated the Ukraine war, and it felt like fiction six years ago.

This is absolutely coming.

The government is concerned about who might print a 3D gun, but this is the real danger.

The Ukraine war started in 2014.

If all this is clear and you go ahead, all the power to ya, fighting evil in this world is highly commendable.

And drone operators aren't taken prisoner either as a rule.

Like sharpshooters, the drone operators are usually executed instead of being taken POW.

> fighting evil in this world is highly commendable

Except more often than not it is fighting not evil but sleeping civilians who don't support this war, which is not even war in the strict sense of the word, but a deliberate meatgrinder set up to devour as much human beings on both sides as its orchestrators can get away with, for as long as possible.

Yes, media see a snapdragon running a YOLO and go off writing "AI apocalypse autonomous killer drones" articles.

See it for yourselves: https://x.com/RALee85/status/2071537561059692956

Some object detection and (human triggered) terminal guidance. It's essentially there to solve latency and control issues for a fixed wing platform with a spotty data link.

>not least because the drones it's talking about barely have the resolution at altitude to resolve that detail.

Username checks out :)

Censorship is alive and well on this cursed site

Until drones deploy counter-blinkenlights. As someone who has built a realtime people tracker art installation in a disco: Stroboscopes are highly effective at confusing these models.

The difference is that a neural network you can fit on a drone is going to be a lot less capable than an LLM you can run on a desktop.

You can fit a Jetson Orin Nano on a winged drone. It has plenty enough power to run a vision model.

Doesn't a fiber tether give its drone desktop-class computing?

Close-In Weapon System

The Phalanx defense systems you see on naval vessels.

Username checks out :)

You can fit a Jetson Orin Nano on a winged drone. It has plenty enough power to run a vision model.

The Ukraine war started in 2014.

True, but I think OP's core message is that the movie pre-dated the broader invasion and subsequent drone-heavy combat.

Predated the widespread use of small drones in Ukraine

And drone operators aren't taken prisoner either as a rule.

Like sharpshooters, the drone operators are usually executed instead of being taken POW.

> fighting evil in this world is highly commendable

Is there any evidence suggesting that Ukraine is targeting civilians?

And what 'orchestrators' exactly do you think benefit from sending their soldiers through a meat grinder? Yes, Russia (not Ukraine) has done a lot of that, but you seem to think that getting their own soldiers killed was their goal..?

Only the russians are targeting civilians.

Yes, media see a snapdragon running a YOLO and go off writing "AI apocalypse autonomous killer drones" articles.

See it for yourselves: https://x.com/RALee85/status/2071537561059692956

Some object detection and (human triggered) terminal guidance. It's essentially there to solve latency and control issues for a fixed wing platform with a spotty data link.

If it works, who cares how it's made?

You are mixing more things. There's lots of ISR drones flying around, from DJIs at 50-150m altitude to bigger fixed wing platforms at 1000-1500m. Their point is to find targets, do BDA and monitor, but not autonomously; it's guys sitting in Discord calls and entering data into BMS.

Most kamikaze drones are FPVs. They can not do anything autonomously because at $300 a pop in a totally GNSS denied environment, after 10 seconds past takeoff none of them have the faintest clue where they are. That's why you see all that footage, they just skip the part where for the first 20 minutes some guy with goggles is navigating them. The bigger fixed wing kamikaze drones like the Hornet above might have better onboard options like VO or triangulating radio beacons, but by all the evidence they are still guided by operators and triggered to dive manually. The biggest issue for all these systems is maintaining their video data link; if they were truly totally autonomous, nobody would bother.

Any comment about Gaza getting flagged in under a minute

Until drones deploy counter-blinkenlights. As someone who has built a realtime people tracker art installation in a disco: Stroboscopes are highly effective at confusing these models.

Disco or death? It's not an easy choice.

Ya, things always evolve, and can't always be perfect, especially against adapting enemies. Strobes; ya - would be interesting to see what these do vs us, not tried.

Doesn't a fiber tether give its drone desktop-class computing?

Fiber tethered drones don't need to be AI controlled.

A starlink tethered drone can have a (orbital) datacenter guiding it.

Close-In Weapon System

The Phalanx defense systems you see on naval vessels.

Yeah, just a smaller version, naval CIWS are designed to shoot down missiles.

Disco or death? It's not an easy choice.

Ya, things always evolve, and can't always be perfect, especially against adapting enemies. Strobes; ya - would be interesting to see what these do vs us, not tried.

A starlink tethered drone can have a (orbital) datacenter guiding it.

Yeah, just a smaller version, naval CIWS are designed to shoot down missiles.

True, but I think OP's core message is that the movie pre-dated the broader invasion and subsequent drone-heavy combat.

Predated the widespread use of small drones in Ukraine

Is there any evidence suggesting that Ukraine is targeting civilians?

Only the russians are targeting civilians.

If it works, who cares how it's made?

Any comment about Gaza getting flagged in under a minute

Flagging irrelevant comments isn't censorship...

Fiber tethered drones don't need to be AI controlled.

They can have AI enabled graphics in the goggles of the operator.

how else would you control 2M drones at the same time? Mechanical Turk? Or aerial fight with an enemy AI, thus much quicker reacting, drone.

> Is there any evidence suggesting that Ukraine is targeting civilians?

Don't you know that big bad Ukraine forced innocent little Russia into this war?! (Do I need to add the sarcasm mark?)

> but you seem to think that getting their own soldiers killed was their goal..?

Actually, to some extent, that is the case. Russia has been conscripting violent criminals (generally murderers and rapists), who, unlike normal prisoners getting conscripted, don't have a way to "earn" their freedom and are instead sent into the proverbial meat grinder.

They can have AI enabled graphics in the goggles of the operator.

how else would you control 2M drones at the same time? Mechanical Turk? Or aerial fight with an enemy AI, thus much quicker reacting, drone.

Flagging irrelevant comments isn't censorship...

> Is there any evidence suggesting that Ukraine is targeting civilians?

Don't you know that big bad Ukraine forced innocent little Russia into this war?! (Do I need to add the sarcasm mark?)

> but you seem to think that getting their own soldiers killed was their goal..?

Russia emptied the prisons years ago. The able bodied men of Donetsk and Luhansk were rounded up and fed to grinder years ago as well. The wanton slaughter of their own people has been startling and depraved for their unending exuberance.

A stylized illustration of a large cargo truck, representing transportation, logistics, or freight delivery.

Illustration: The Economist/Exilenova+

Jul 8th 2026|3 min read

IN RECENT MONTHS Russian military lorries in Ukraine have begun sporting a striking new colour scheme of vivid black-and-white stripes. As camouflage goes, it is not much use against human observers. But then, it is not intended to fool biological eyes. Its aim is to frustrate the machine-vision systems that are fitted to the Ukrainian drones that zip around battlefields looking for prey.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Hiding in plain sight”

From the July 11th 2026 edition

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