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While shining a laser at an airplane is serious, laser pointing at anyone I belive should carry the same weight. Try to blind a driver, person you don't like, c

While shining a laser at an airplane is serious, laser pointing at anyone I belive should carry the same weight. Try to blind a driver, person you don't like, cop, firefighter, or anyone period the same penalty should apply. We don't need a class system and should punish them all equally. Maybe, if it is a vehicle driver while the vehicle is in motion it should be attempted murder charge for each person in the vehicle.

tryptophan 5y ago
Its also ridiculously easy to blind someone with a laser. You can buy a cheap, absurdly powerful, chineese laser pointer and blind someone by accident in less than a second.
- mometsi 5y ago
  It's also ridiculously difficult to blind someone with a laser from far away. Assuming a ~$200 fan-cooled 5w engraving laser with an excellent collimating lens focused at infinity, 1mrad divergence, the irradiance would fall off within 500m to a level below any permanent harm (let alone permanent damage in less than a second). This is by the FAA's very conservative standard of 2.5mW/cm^2, which is about 1/50th of the irradiance of direct sunlight. Within 500m, you'd need to be able to aim the beam very precisely to maintain the narrow cone of light to within 1mrad of the victim's pupil. Your hands are too shaky, you'd need something like a motorized telescope mount with active tracking. The risks pilots bear when assholes shine bright lights at their windshield are distraction, glare and temporary 'flashblindness', where your rods and cones lose their low-light adaptation as they adjust to the briefly intense brightness level, and gradually recover over 10s of seconds. These are real risks, but it's not 30km lightsaber beams frying pilots' retinas for $3.99.
  - ewokone 5y ago
    Thanks and excellently written!
taf2 5y ago
Is there possibly a reflective glass for cars and planes that could help mitigate this? I found this doing a quick google https://www.laserpointersafety.com/laserglasses/laserglasses.html https://www.laserpointersafety.com/laserglasses/laserglasses...
- aidenn0 5y ago
  Sort of: laser-glases protect against specific wavelengths. This is great when you are using a laser yourself as you can just get glasses that block the wavelength of your laser. It's better than nothing for pilots, since you can block against 1 or 2 of the most common wavelengths. However if a particular wavelength were standard for protective eyewear, then an attacker would just get a different wavelength.
  - p_l 5y ago
    Unfortunately it wouldn't really do anything for pilots at night. The big effect when a shitty overpowered laser pointer hits windshield is that suddenly you have huge light bloom, blinding eyes prepared to operate in darkness (because you need to see outside).
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      The light-bloom is monochromatic though. For the case of one of (pilot|copilot) wearing one of these during takeoff/landing, that should be sufficient to mitigate much of the harm, right?
- _Nat_ 5y ago
  First thought would be to remove the windows entirely, replacing them with computer-screens. Then those could display the outside (perhaps with augmentations/filters) from cams. Could have multiple cams, some of which might have shielding in different directions, with the screens showing a composite-image from the cams that seem to be working well. Even a poorly-designed system that accidentally shows a laser should at least not hurt the pilots, as the screens wouldn't be able to show anything brighter than white-pixels. Sorta like how someone flashing a laser-pointer in your eyes over a video-call can't actually hurt your eyes. Though a well-designed system ought to be able to maintain a pretty reliable view outside, allowing the pilots to still see outside even while they're actively being hit. Or, maybe allow the pilots to rotate the screens away to reveal windows in the event of an electrical/computer problem. But primarily as a backup -- presumably an augmented-reality display that's protected from issues like laser-attacks would be the preference when everything's working right. Or.. I guess pilots could get augmented-reality glasses/helmets with their own cameras to do the same in modern aircraft, if it's a major problem in the short-term. Perhaps not as robust in the absence of externally-mounted cameras on the plane itself, and perhaps not quite as comfortable if the glasses/helmet are bulky.
toiletaccount 5y ago
I'll bite. Lazing a pilot endangers a lot more than one person's sight. It's not even close to being equivalent with someone doing it to one person who's not flying a plane. I really don't want a regulatory eye turned towards lasers, at least during a media cycle. Determined assholes will just take apart their BDR players. It'll stop most kids I guess, but I think more media coverage could lead to more behaviour like this.
- bawolff 5y ago
  I think it should be assault. Yes its more serious when doing it to someone operating a vehicle, doubly so for aircraft, but that doesn't make it ok to do it to randoms. I dont particularly think we need new laws though, intentionally hurting someone is already illegal. The mechanism shouldn't matter.
  - smorgusofborg 5y ago
    Of course these are all illegal assault, and an assault with high potential of permanent damage is itself very serious, but an assault on a surgeon in the middle of a critical operation is both an assault and one attempted murder, for a pilot considerably more..

tryptophan 5y ago

Its also ridiculously easy to blind someone with a laser. You can buy a cheap, absurdly powerful, chineese laser pointer and blind someone by accident in less than a second.

mometsi 5y ago
It's also ridiculously difficult to blind someone with a laser from far away. Assuming a ~$200 fan-cooled 5w engraving laser with an excellent collimating lens focused at infinity, 1mrad divergence, the irradiance would fall off within 500m to a level below any permanent harm (let alone permanent damage in less than a second). This is by the FAA's very conservative standard of 2.5mW/cm^2, which is about 1/50th of the irradiance of direct sunlight. Within 500m, you'd need to be able to aim the beam very precisely to maintain the narrow cone of light to within 1mrad of the victim's pupil. Your hands are too shaky, you'd need something like a motorized telescope mount with active tracking. The risks pilots bear when assholes shine bright lights at their windshield are distraction, glare and temporary 'flashblindness', where your rods and cones lose their low-light adaptation as they adjust to the briefly intense brightness level, and gradually recover over 10s of seconds. These are real risks, but it's not 30km lightsaber beams frying pilots' retinas for $3.99.
- ewokone 5y ago
  Thanks and excellently written!

taf2 5y ago

Is there possibly a reflective glass for cars and planes that could help mitigate this? I found this doing a quick google https://www.laserpointersafety.com/laserglasses/laserglasses.html https://www.laserpointersafety.com/laserglasses/laserglasses...

aidenn0 5y ago
Sort of: laser-glases protect against specific wavelengths. This is great when you are using a laser yourself as you can just get glasses that block the wavelength of your laser. It's better than nothing for pilots, since you can block against 1 or 2 of the most common wavelengths. However if a particular wavelength were standard for protective eyewear, then an attacker would just get a different wavelength.
- p_l 5y ago
  Unfortunately it wouldn't really do anything for pilots at night. The big effect when a shitty overpowered laser pointer hits windshield is that suddenly you have huge light bloom, blinding eyes prepared to operate in darkness (because you need to see outside).
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    The light-bloom is monochromatic though. For the case of one of (pilot|copilot) wearing one of these during takeoff/landing, that should be sufficient to mitigate much of the harm, right?
_Nat_ 5y ago
First thought would be to remove the windows entirely, replacing them with computer-screens. Then those could display the outside (perhaps with augmentations/filters) from cams. Could have multiple cams, some of which might have shielding in different directions, with the screens showing a composite-image from the cams that seem to be working well. Even a poorly-designed system that accidentally shows a laser should at least not hurt the pilots, as the screens wouldn't be able to show anything brighter than white-pixels. Sorta like how someone flashing a laser-pointer in your eyes over a video-call can't actually hurt your eyes. Though a well-designed system ought to be able to maintain a pretty reliable view outside, allowing the pilots to still see outside even while they're actively being hit. Or, maybe allow the pilots to rotate the screens away to reveal windows in the event of an electrical/computer problem. But primarily as a backup -- presumably an augmented-reality display that's protected from issues like laser-attacks would be the preference when everything's working right. Or.. I guess pilots could get augmented-reality glasses/helmets with their own cameras to do the same in modern aircraft, if it's a major problem in the short-term. Perhaps not as robust in the absence of externally-mounted cameras on the plane itself, and perhaps not quite as comfortable if the glasses/helmet are bulky.

toiletaccount 5y ago

I'll bite. Lazing a pilot endangers a lot more than one person's sight. It's not even close to being equivalent with someone doing it to one person who's not flying a plane. I really don't want a regulatory eye turned towards lasers, at least during a media cycle. Determined assholes will just take apart their BDR players. It'll stop most kids I guess, but I think more media coverage could lead to more behaviour like this.

bawolff 5y ago
I think it should be assault. Yes its more serious when doing it to someone operating a vehicle, doubly so for aircraft, but that doesn't make it ok to do it to randoms. I dont particularly think we need new laws though, intentionally hurting someone is already illegal. The mechanism shouldn't matter.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  Of course these are all illegal assault, and an assault with high potential of permanent damage is itself very serious, but an assault on a surgeon in the middle of a critical operation is both an assault and one attempted murder, for a pilot considerably more..