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Johannesburg - Parliament’s controversial cellphone signal jammer could have struggled to even deter a toy drone never mind a military one, say experts.
The State Security Agency (SSA) has been cited as being responsible for placing the jammer in parliament during President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address (SONA), after an outcry from opposition parties and the media.
Responding to the signal jammer controversy, Minister of State Security David Mahlobo released a statement on Wednesday saying “there was no executive or political decision to interfere with the free flow of information” and that the SSA “was responsible for the threat and risk assessment and supporting the SANDF (South African National Defence Force) efforts to enforce the airspace security”.
Mahlobo then referred to a National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS) statement on February 11, a day before SONA, that said there was a no-fly zone over parliament.
Mahlobo’s statement also mentioned drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles.
“The airspace security plan was also properly approved to supply security measures against low speed, low energy threats as well as the drones with minimal disruption to commercial aviation and related aspects,” Mahlobo said.
On Thursday, Mahlobo comments about drones were further reported on.
"There are unmanned machines [drones] that are flying all over that can kill people," Mahlobo said.
"The example of how USA actually managed to track Osama bin Laden and they continue to do so. Some of them are flying above the radar and below the radar," he said.
However, drone enthusiasts are questioning the efficacy of a signal jammer against any type of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Schalk Heunis who heads up Pretoria’s House 4 Hack - an initiative to bring together technology specialists - told Fin24 that a signal jammer could be ineffective, even against the most basic unmanned aerial vehicles.
Heunis, who builds quadcopters as a hobby, said these unmanned aerial vehicles can be programmed to fly autonomously, meaning they don’t require a signal to operate.
"Once you've taken off and you've put your mission there, this thing will complete the mission on its own. It doesn't need any control signal to the plane,” Heunis told Fin24.
Furthermore, even basic unmanned aerial vehicles have the ability to switch among various frequencies, rendering a signal jammer as useless.
"It's very difficult to jam the entire radio frequency, like the whole spectrum,” Heunis said.
Riaan Huysamen of Skypixels.co.za, which specialises in taking photos from RC Multi-Rotor Model aircraft, explained to Fin24 that the devices his business uses do not subscribe to the "drone" definition as such. But Huysamen said he has knowledge on the signal technology that affects even basic unmanned aerial vehicles.
"The radio controlled ones nowadays have got what they call frequency hopping for the very fact that they know that there are so many people out there using radio-controlled drones,” Huysamen told Fin24.
"These things have what they call frequency hopping so that they can't actually be hijacked or blocked in that respect because you don't want the device going out of control and then obviously having a public safety issue or harming somebody,” Huysamen said.
Huysamen also said that it seems as if Mahlobo is talking about military controlled drones, which Huysamen says are even more immune to signal jammers because they rely on satellite to be directed.
In the meantime, it is unknown what make of signal blocker was used in Parliament while the exact reasons for its use are not entirely clear either.
Nevertheless, a departmental investigation is underway by state security officials while President Jacob Zuma and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) have described the signal jammer incident as unfortunate.
