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The resource cost and limited availability constraints for helicopters that apply now will not necessarily apply in future, which means that the surveillance th
by _djo_ 14y ago
The resource cost and limited availability constraints for helicopters that apply now will not necessarily apply in future, which means that the surveillance they provide will become far more persistent.
I am not assuming drones won't be abused, in fact I assume they will be. See my other comments on this post for my views on the undesirability of persistent police surveillance. But as I pointed out with my reference to vehicle-mounted optronic masts, that surveillance will happen with or without drones, so the focus should be on the surveillance and not on the drones.
As an aside, you failed to back up the claim that the 'commercial air traffic beacons' would be disabled.
- ck2 14y agoIt's not a claim but an educated guess - here's why: Commercial traffic beacons are extremely easy for hobbyists to listen in on and decode - and that's going to annoy cops because people are going to know when they are being watched, just like a weather-alert radio. There's one super easy way for them to "fix" that little problem, because they know they are untouchable. I'd guess future generations of top-shelf radar detectors might have traffic beacon decoders in them and then use a wifi network to your cellphone to download/share the IDs.
- _djo_ 14y agoNonetheless, there's no way the FAA would permit that to happen, especially not with the huge hurdles that users are having to jump through to get the FAA to permit the use of UAVs in civilian airspace. It's already dirt-simple to track ADS-B broadcasts along with smartphone apps that display the aggregated data.
- mindslight 14y agoSo police will demand that the FAA works to implement "secure ADS-B", using a secret key with tamper proof transponders. Police departments won't go rogue for very long, but disconnecting the tracking is a good metaphor to demonstrate the actual motives at play.
- _djo_ 14y ago"Secure ADS-B" would require ATC systems around the world to make dramatic and expensive changes to their software to accommodate it. It's not going to happen. The FAA is not an organisation that is pushed around easily, nor is the ICAO.