An electronic device – later confirmed to be a Quad Copter drone – breached the electronic perimeter fence of the White House and crashed on its ground on 25th Jan 2015. This indicates that the drone passed undetected through the anti-air missile system surrounding the White House. The drone was operated by phone and it flew at a low altitude before it crashed.
The White House has faced several security breaches including one where an unhinged knife-man was able to enter the compound. Such a security breach erodes the precept of terrain dominance and also points to the existence of a permeable defense. The latest security breach prompted a lock-down of the White House and immediate commencement of investigations to determine the origin and operators of the drone. It was later found out that the drone was operated by a government employee in a recreational manner.
Evaluation conducted by SIN has shown that the current White House perimeter electronic fence is outdated and needs to be restructured and updated. SIN security experts state that the installation of an electromagnetic perimeter fence would better protect the White House because it would utilize its intrinsic capabilities to jam communications and disrupt the command-and-control features of alien smartphones and related mobile technologies. These phones have the abilities to launch, guide and operate quad-rotor drones to deploy explosives, capture videos and relay real-time data to its operators. However, if the above-mentioned virtual fence is in place, the phone-operated quad-copter could not breach it as it would lose its communication links with the command-and-control center.
A Standard electronic fence must incorporate jammers whose “white noise” emissions are of the same frequencies as the surrounding cell phones, drones and other sources of electromagnetic waves emissions. This ensures that the “white noise” incapacitates the command-and-control functionalities and also block off communications links of devices that could be used to serve the purposes of assailants.
To avert the future occurrences of a similar incident; it is advisable for the White House to update their current electronic fence and restructure their electronic jammers. Moreover, the US government must put in place proper policies and regulations to control the sale of drones, their registration; and also limit their range and use.
