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The Security Implications of Robotic Surveillance Pigeons

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s both! The security implications of robotic surveillance pigeons

By Neil Ashdown and Anjuli Shere (March 2021)

Do intelligence agencies dream of electric pigeons?

Robot pigeons are spying on us. That is the premise of the UK website Pigeons Aren’t Real.(1) It is similar to that advanced by the US website Birds Aren’t Real.(2) Both websites articulate satirical conspiracy theories about lifelike robotic birds being used for government surveillance.

The claim that pigeons are spying on us is lent some plausibility by the long history of using animals in warfare, for communication as well as for intelligence collection. Pigeons’ swift flight and homing instinct have saved human lives (3) and seen them honoured with the Dickin Medal (the Victoria Cross for animals).(4)

Technological advances have given rise to a long tradition of cameras being attached to homing pigeons, (5) including the CIA’s Operation Tacana in the 1970s.(6) More recently, there have been reports of the French (7) and Chinese (8) militaries retain- ing pigeon forces for emergency communication, and calls for the US to consider the same.(9) One country that clearly anticipates a pigeon-borne threat is India, which has suspected multiple pigeons of Pakistani espionage in the last decade alone.(10)

Nonetheless, the idea that the world’s birds have been replaced with digital doubles spying for the government is clearly intended to be ridiculous. The claim that machines are masquerading as birds is itself deceptive, a satire masquerading as a conspiracy theory (with merchandise).

In the age of QAnon, it might be too much to hope that everyone who visits the website is in on the joke. However, these particular faux conspiracy theories have a bigger problem – as technology evolves, it is becoming increasingly likely that their once clearly outrageous claim could turn out to be true. Robot pigeons could actually be spying on us.

There are now tiny flying technologies shaped like members of the natural world: false dragonflies (11) designed with funding from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to swarm and capture drones, (12) and imitation doves deployed by the Chinese state to conduct aerial surveillance across the country.(13) These drones – not alive, but live-streaming – present a novel risk of surveillance. Moreover, as the gap between satirical conspiracy theories and genuine security concerns narrows, the risk grows that adversaries could seek to weaponise uncertainty about what is and is not a real threat.

Robots in disguise

There are various advantages to disguising a drone as an animal. Drones used for monitoring agricultural production might be designed to resemble birds or insects for cosmetic reasons, much as mobile telephone masts are sometimes constructed to resemble trees. Similarly, the company that builds the dragonfly drone cites news articles about the potential uses of technology that mimics the form and movements of living beings for both agriculture and the emergency services.

However, as the pigeon’s military and intelligence pedigree suggests, another moti- vation might be to surveill a target without attracting attention. Indeed, the dragonfly project’s endowment of MoD funding indicates that there are potential military and intelligence uses for tiny volant technologies. The Guardian revealed (14) in March 2021 that a separate drone research programme (15) that was also purportedly earmarked for agricultural purposes was in fact partially funded by the UK’s domestic security agency, MI5.

As people become sensitised to the risk of other forms of surveillance, a convinc- ingly disguised drone could circumvent existing protective measures, and potentially even exploit resultant security behaviours. For example, there is increasingly media coverage of both consumer (16) and industrial (17) networked devices malfunctioning or being exploited in a way that violates individuals’ privacy. While it seems as though the public are slowly becoming cognisant of these risks, looking to the skies has not yet become an entrenched security behaviour in all countries.

Highly targeted populations, such as journalists,(18) are responding to the connected security threats around them by relying on well-established analogue practices.(19) These include swapping Notes apps for notebooks and having confidential conversations outdoors, away from internet-connected devices. However, in the future, meeting outside could expose at-risk groups to this new aerial threat model featuring minuscule, faux-natural devices.

Disguising a drone as an animal is only useful for surveillance if the disguise is convincing. China’s Dove drone might pass for a real animal at a distance and while in flight. After all, it is well-documented that bystanders on the ground cannot distinguish between birds, planes and Superman.(20) Building a drone that credibly mimics natural wing movements, particularly in take-off and landing, is more challenging (21) but has nonetheless gotten closer.(22) Technology is improving and the miniaturisation of components, the roll-out of 5G networks, and ever-longer-lasting batteries have all contributed to the decreasing size of connected devices. As such, there is every reason to think that it could soon be possible to build an autonomous or remotely controlled vehicle that would pass as a pigeon to a human observer (fooling the pigeons may be harder).

Coming down to earth

Just because something is possible, however, does not mean it is a good idea. While it might be possible to disguise a surveillance drone as a pigeon, or some other animal, there are all sorts of operational and strategic reasons why it would not make sense.

First, given the size limitations imposed by the design, it is unlikely that such a drone would be useful for military or intelligence collection at distance in denied areas, or in foreign states more broadly. High altitude, long endurance drones used for surveillance, and reconnaissance by militaries are much too large to disguise as birds or insects for use in overseas intelligence missions. This suggests that the use- case would primarily be for domestic surveillance or to support military forces on the ground.

However, even here it is hard to see how the disguise would add advantage. Technically advanced adversaries are unlikely to be fooled by the drone’s appearance. The drone’s communications and internal electronics would produce emissions that could be detected and jammed by a defender. Against an adversary who is already conducting measures to counter drones there would probably be little benefit in disguising a drone as a bird. The most predictable outcome of using pigeon drones for recon- naissance against a hostile military would be a precipitous decline in the local pigeon population.

At the other end of the spectrum are individuals and groups that already lack the resources to protect themselves against high-end technological surveillance. Against these groups, disguising the drone as a pigeon adds little value – they are already surrounded by sensors that can be used against them and there is little that they can do to defeat overt drone surveillance. The direction of travel in terms of technology miniaturisation suggests that if surveillance and reconnaissance are the only goal (as opposed to, for example, hosting a shotgun (23)) then the technology may already be small enough that disguising it as a pigeon would only draw greater attention.

For people in this position, the possibility of the disguised drone is yet another example of an technological development that poses a virtually unmitigable risk to their security, on top of the much more pressing threats such as zero-click iPhone exploits (24) or rubber-hose cryptanalysis.(25) Further, designing and implementing measures to protect yourself against the robot pigeon adds yet more work (and stress) to an already high-stress existence. For journalists, civil society activists, and human rights defenders, these costs are steadily mounting. (26)

The costs of uncertainty

Surveillance of this kind is “visible” in the sense that we are aware of its potentiality, but “unverifiable” in that we cannot know when we are observed – as Foucault observed, it becomes “permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action”.(27) Similar forces are at work with deep fake technology. We worry about the potential risk of undetectable deep fakes on society, even as far more rudimentary mock-ups (28) seem to be just as effective. The real risk is cheap fakes, not deep fakes. (29) By the same token, the security risks posed by disguised drones are likely to be far less significant than the costs that worrying about those risks could impose on already vulnerable groups. Notably, there is a risk that targeted groups grow hyper-aware of these threats, becoming paranoid and applying defensive tactics that are ill-advised because they do not accurately reflect the likelihood and severity of potential attacks.

It is hard not to see how adversaries could exploit this dynamic. What could be better than to have your opponent wasting time and resources trying to mitigate high- impact, low-probability threats, (30) with all the associated psychological costs, rather than focusing on manageable security measures intended to combat the most likely threats?

Pigeons Aren’t Real and other similar memes are intended to mock real conspiracy theories. However, other actors might seek to publicise outlandish threats for more malicious reasons than selling t-shirts. As technology enables new attack vectors and challenges our ability to distinguish real from fake, perhaps the most important challenge facing individuals and societies is maintaining a proportionate view of the threats that we all face.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own, and may not reflect the opinions of the Sciences Po Cybersecurity Association.


Image source: Andrew Testa for The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/world/europe/drones-eagles.html

1. Pigeons Aren’t Real [in en-GB], accessed March 24, 2021, https://pigeonsarentreal.co.uk/ about/.

2. Birds Arent Real [in en], accessed March 24, 2021, https://birdsarentreal.com/.

3. Lawrence D. Freedman, “Operation Columba—The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe” [in en-US], February 2019, issn: 0015-7120, accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2019-02-12/operation-columba- secret-pigeon-service-untold-story-world-war-ii.

4. PDSA Dickin Medal [in en], accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we- do/animal-awards-programme/pdsa-dickin-medal.

5. The History of Pigeon Camera Photography [in en-US], May 2012, accessed March 24, 2021, https://twistedsifter.com/2012/05/history-of-pigeon-camera-photography/.

6. Gordon Corera, “CIA unveils Cold War spy-pigeon missions” [in en-GB], BBC News, September 2019, chap. US & Canada, accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada- 49692534.

7. Catherine Rickman, Carrier Pigeons: the French Army’s Unsung Heroes are Still on Duty [in en-US], Section: Video, October 2017, accessed March 24, 2021, https://frenchly.us/carrier-pigeons- the-french-armys-unsung-heroes-are-still-on-duty/.

8. Jiang Chengcheng, “China’s Most Secret Weapon: The Messenger Pigeon” [in en-US], Time, March 2011, issn: 0040-781X, accessed March 24, 2021, http://content.time.com/time/world/ article/0, 8599, 2049569, 00.html.

9. Frank Blazich, In the Era of Electronic Warfare, Bring Back Pigeons [in en-US], January 2019, accessed March 24, 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/in-the-era-of-electronic-warfare- bring-back-pigeons/.

10. India: Officials claim Pakistan ’spy’ pigeon captured [in en], May 2020, accessed March 24, 2021, https://news.sky.com/story/india-officials-claim-pakistan-spy-pigeon-captured-11994659.

11. Skeeter: flapping wing micro-drone [in en-US], accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.animal- dynamics.com/skeeter.

12. Mike Wright, “Peregrine falcon-style attack drones funded by Government to prevent airport shutdowns” [in en-GB], The Telegraph, November 2019, issn: 0307-1235, accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/06/peregrine-falcon-style-attack-drones-funded- government-prevent/.

13. Stephen Che, China’s robotic spy birds take surveillance to new heights [in en], Section: News, June 2018, accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2152027/ china-takes-surveillance-new-heights-flock-robotic-doves-do-they.

14. Dan Sabbagh, MI5 involvement in drone project revealed in paperwork slip-up [in en], Section: UK news, March 2021, accessed March 24, 2021, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/ 06/mi5-involvement-in-drone-project-revealed-in-paperwork-slip-up.

15. Tommaso Polonelli et al., “A Flexible, Low-Power Platform for UAV-Based Data Collection From Remote Sensors” [in en], IEEE Access 8 (2020): 164775–164785, issn: 2169-3536, accessed March 24, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3021370, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ document/9184913/.

16. Avast Blog on November 6 and 2020, IoT Attacks Intensified By Covid-19 — Avast [in en-US], November 2020, accessed March 24, 2021, https://securityboulevard.com/2020/11/iot-attacks- intensified-by-covid-19-avast/.

17. Jason Koebler and Joseph Cox, Hacker Tried to Poison Florida City’s Water Supply, Police Say [in en], February 2021, accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.vice.com/en/article/88ab33/hacker- poison-florida-water-pinellas-county.

18. Gill Phillips, How the free press worldwide is under threat [in en], Section: Media, May 2020, accessed March 24, 2021, http://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/28/how-the-free-press- worldwide-is-under-threat.

19. Anjuli R. K. Shere, Jason R. C. Nurse, and Ivan Flechais, “”Security should be there by default”: Investigating how journalists perceive and respond to risks from the Internet of Things” [in en], in 2020 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW) (Genoa, Italy: IEEE, September 2020), 240–249, isbn: 978-1-72818-597-2, accessed March 24, 2021, https: //doi.org/10.1109/EuroSPW51379.2020.00039, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9229668/.

20. Its a bird…it’s a plane, it’s Superman! [In en], accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=ySvAs5ppkRw.

21. Soft biohybrid morphing wings with feathers underactuated by wrist and finger motion — Sci- ence Robotics, accessed March 24, 2021, https://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/5/38/eaay1246.

22. Is it a bird, a plane? Not superman, but a flapping wing drone [in en], accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200722142724.htm.

23. Gareth Corfield, British Army develops AI shotgun drone with machine vision for indoor use [in en], accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/british army shotgun drone ai/.

24. Thomas Brewster, Apple Security Warning: ‘Zero Click’ iPhone Hacks Hit 36 Al Jazeera Jour- nalists [in en], Section: Cybersecurity, accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ thomasbrewster/2020/12/20/apple-security-warning-zero-click-iphone-hacks-hit-36-al-jazeera- journalists/.

25. Randall Munroe, Security, accessed March 24, 2021, https://xkcd.com/538/.

26. Becky Kazansky, “‘It depends on your threat model’: the anticipatory dimensions of resistance to data-driven surveillance” [in en], Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, Big Data & Society 8, no. 1 (January 2021): 2053951720985557, issn: 2053-9517, accessed March 2, 2021, https://doi.org/10. 1177/2053951720985557, https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951720985557.

27. Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish – Panopticism [in en-US], accessed March 24, 2021, https://f oucault.inf o/documents/f oucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism/.

28. Pelosi slams Facebook for not taking down doctored video that makes her look drunk or impaired [in en-US], accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pelosi-slams-facebook-for- not-taking-down-doctored-video-that-makes-her-look-drunk-or-impaired/.

29. Cheap Fakes beat Deep Fakes. Deepfakes are risky for information. . . — by thaddeus t. grugq — Medium, accessed March 24, 2021, https://medium.com/@thegrugq/cheap-fakes-beat-deep- f akes- b1ac91e44837.

30. Joseph Trevithick, Here’s The Six Super Weapons Putin Unveiled During Fiery Address [in en], accessed March 24, 2021, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18906/heres-the-six-super- weapons-putin-unveiled-during-fiery-address.


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