However fun and challenging, the trouble with a shoot-down policy is that the drone is likely already considered by the operator to be expendable, and shoot-down 'success' simply sends the miscreant to another potential target, with a different drone. The longer-term strategy should be to build in a large disincentive to anyone considering this type of recon and theft; as there won't be many people willing to steal in this way, the cost of doing so has to be borne by those who are--and seen to have been borne by them--in order to prevent the method from moving into the mainstream. Perhaps a honey pot, but one created after the fact of the recon having been spotted (to work around the get-out-of-charges because entrapment business).
In thinly-populated areas, the most economical means of spotting such drone-based casing is to use camera-based security. It will devolve into a technological cat-and-mouse game, though. Unfortunately, too, the net effect of the application of video cameras in defense against remotely-controlled video cameras is to create a hyperactive-self-surveillance society.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
