9 ms·

Turkish drone shooting heralds a new age of civillian counter-surveillance

151 points by radley 13y ago

radley 13y ago
via Boing Boing: http://boingboing.net/2013/06/22/turkish-cops-shoot-a-protester.html http://boingboing.net/2013/06/22/turkish-cops-shoot-a-protes...
kghose 13y ago
The second video is definitely cool. At the end I was waiting for a crack in the glass, or the drone tumbling out of control and then the static screen, but was disappointed. The first video of the "shooting down" looked very simulated and kind of dumb.
- pondababa 13y ago
  What do you mean by "simulated" in this case? What makes it look that way? It just looks to me as if one of the rotors got knocked out.
adelpozo 13y ago
That is a very nice drone. Does anyone know it's make/model?
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  I bet contacting the owner via Twitter (@Jenk1907) would help. Or the email address shown in the video (jenk1907@me.com).
- blutack 13y ago
  It's a DJI Phantom. They are a consumer-ready quadrotor - almost anyone can fly one. http://www.dji-innovations.com/product/phantom/ http://www.dji-innovations.com/product/phantom/
  - e3pi 13y ago
    I looked a tech spec, could not find a flight duration. Have you any idea of flight aloft duration?
    - blutack 13y ago
      This information is incredibly hard to get from most multirotor makers, because it's always really bad and they don't like to be compared to each other. From the battery size & numbers for this general class of quad I'd guess 15-20 minutes (confidence +/- 5 minutes), although that depends whether you put a camera on or not, and if so what. Our DJI S800 airframes will go to 30 minutes with a full load of batteries, but they are much larger and more efficient.
    - quaz3l 13y ago
      It says at the bottom of the "Features" (http://www.dji-innovations.com/feature/phantom-features/ http://www.dji-innovations.com/feature/phantom-features/) page 10-15 minutes of flight time.
VladRussian2 13y ago
militaries are getting ready to fend off attacks of [relatively cheap compare to the cost of existing anti-aircraft missiles] drones: http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/u-s-navy-laser-blasters-shoot-drone-130408.htm http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/u-s-navy-las... I think we can expect deployment of smaller systems to police forces as well as civilian drones becoming more and more widespread
- blutack 13y ago
  A cruise-missile is a UAV that crashes deliberately. From a security standpoint, these things are a nightmare. Mostly radio-transparent, cheaper than a handgun, pretty much untraceable if you build them yourself.
  - lotharbot 13y ago
    a cruise missile is a UAV that crashes deliberately, and carries an explosive payload. A UAV that's big enough to carry a grenade or something equivalent, plus the grenade itself, probably won't be much cheaper than a handgun, and it's a single-use weapon. It does have the tactical advantage of being difficult to detect or trace, and of allowing the attacker to be a long distance away when making the attack.
    - ChuckMcM 13y ago
      You make a couple of reasonable, but unwarranted, assumptions. You assume that 'grenade' refers to something like an infantry grenade. However in weapons circles, things have a 'CEP' which is the circular error probability that describes the probability that your target will be destroyed based on various distances from the activation of the weapon. In the case of drones, since one could, in theory, manually fly it in very very close to the target, the CEP could be quite small for the device used. Small CEP devices can be made more easily than large CEP devices, and they are lighter. My thought was to fly a drone up and video my daughters graduation from college, but my wife pointed out to me that it would probably end poorly for the drone (and completely change the tone of memories she should have of her graduation). So I decided against it :-)
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
A very interesting future awaits us. I do think however that if drones get to be a problem government authories turn off data feeds to drones by snooping in on cell phone tower data streams. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that their weakness? They can only be controlled from a distance by having a data plan and being connected to a cell phone tower. That opens up all sorts of terrorist possibilities, and the only way of really combating terrorism in a world of drones is by recording cell phone data streams.
- electrograv 13y ago
  It's entirely possible (and in fact would be a very fun hobby project for me some day) to build a hybrid autonomous drone (via GPS, gyro, accelerometer, compass, range finders, etc) that takes a queue of commands or even little high level command scripts and executes them. Video would be stored locally as well as broadcast back in real-time, in case of jamming attempt. Edit: Apparently, according to other commenters, there are already open-source autonomous quad-copters you can hack on, which is great news to me! (And you can buy the hardware preassembled).
  - blutack 13y ago
    We've got a lab full of them, and if you've got $600 dollars, you can have one tomorrow. http://www.udrones.com/product_p/acrtf2.htm http://www.udrones.com/product_p/acrtf2.htm The amateur UAV community is awesome for hackers. See: ArduPilot: http://ardupilot.com http://ardupilot.com Paparazzi: http://paparazzi.enac.fr http://paparazzi.enac.fr OpenPilot: http://www.openpilot.org/ http://www.openpilot.org/ Plus PX4, MultiWii, UAVDevBoard and all the others I've forgotten
    - ISL 13y ago
      Upvoted for awesome. Looks like the linked site claims availability of 1-2 wks?
  - elteto 13y ago
    Indeed they exist. See Arducopter [1] for a very popular open source implementation. Their solution already supports pretty much everything you said. [1] https://code.google.com/p/arducopter/ https://code.google.com/p/arducopter/
nathan_long 13y ago
Nice quote: >> Governments are fond of the question: Why do you mind us watching, if you have nothing to hide? As both the size and price of this sort of technology decreases, it may reverse the roles of citizen and ruler. If five tiny camera drones hover over a clash between protesters and police, whichever side chooses to gun them down may invite that very same question.
avar 13y ago
Interesting that none of the news articles I've read about this cover the aspect that police is shooting guns in the air in a populated area. Aside from the drone issue that's highly dangerous behavior, you don't know where those bullets are going to land.
- ihsw 13y ago
  Such indiscretions will be forgiven by the courts because the police will have acted in the interest of public safety, look at the Chris Dorner fiasco in Los Angeles, USA for example.
  - avar 13y ago
    Yes, if they're actually acting in the interest of public safety, e.g. if a stray bullet meant for a dangerous gunman hits an innocent civilian. The Chris Dorner fiasco came about because the LAPD fired on civilians they believed to be Dorner, they were incompetent in doing so, but firing on a suspected dangerous gunman is not a bad thing in principle. But as far as I can tell the cops had no reason to suspect that there was any imminent danger from these flying robots, and were firing in the air just because they didn't like being recorded. Firing into the air in a civilian area seems to me to be a much bigger issue than them trying to suppress news coverage of protests.
- LoganCale 13y ago
  Considering that they've been recorded intentionally firing teargas canisters at the heads of protesters, I don't think they're overly concerned about their wellbeing.
- maxmcd 13y ago
  I was under the impression that firing into the air, especially in limited amounts, was generally non-fatal. The Wikipedia article on Celebratory Gunfire seems to confirm my assumption. Deaths and injuries are possible, but usually only accompanying large amount of gunfire. There actions are still not without fault, but I can imagine a few more important aspects of this issue that we could be debating. "Highly Dangerous" seems excessive
glaugh 13y ago
Skipping to the intense part of the second video in the article, the actual footage from the drone: http://vimeo.com/68229603#t=5m23s http://vimeo.com/68229603#t=5m23s Really amazing to see watch a movie-like, birds-eye view of a conflict (water cannons, tear gas, etc.), and definitely thought-provoking.
caf 13y ago
It might extend their expected lifespan a little if you painted the underside white/grey.
- dghughes 13y ago
  Or use the MeCam micodrone shown in the article that's about 1/10 the size of the drone in the video.
- iaskwhy 13y ago
  A thought I just had: a very small cheap camera on the top of the drone to capture the color of the sky and a way to paint the drone (or at least the bottom, using maybe LEDs) to use the color captured by that camera. Might be expensive though.

151 points by radley 13y ago

via Boing Boing: http://boingboing.net/2013/06/22/turkish-cops-shoot-a-protester.html http://boingboing.net/2013/06/22/turkish-cops-shoot-a-protes...

kghose 13y ago

The second video is definitely cool. At the end I was waiting for a crack in the glass, or the drone tumbling out of control and then the static screen, but was disappointed. The first video of the "shooting down" looked very simulated and kind of dumb.

pondababa 13y ago
What do you mean by "simulated" in this case? What makes it look that way? It just looks to me as if one of the rotors got knocked out.

adelpozo 13y ago

That is a very nice drone. Does anyone know it's make/model?

bobwaycott 13y ago
I bet contacting the owner via Twitter (@Jenk1907) would help. Or the email address shown in the video (jenk1907@me.com).
blutack 13y ago
It's a DJI Phantom. They are a consumer-ready quadrotor - almost anyone can fly one. http://www.dji-innovations.com/product/phantom/ http://www.dji-innovations.com/product/phantom/
- e3pi 13y ago
  I looked a tech spec, could not find a flight duration. Have you any idea of flight aloft duration?
  - blutack 13y ago
    This information is incredibly hard to get from most multirotor makers, because it's always really bad and they don't like to be compared to each other. From the battery size & numbers for this general class of quad I'd guess 15-20 minutes (confidence +/- 5 minutes), although that depends whether you put a camera on or not, and if so what. Our DJI S800 airframes will go to 30 minutes with a full load of batteries, but they are much larger and more efficient.
  - quaz3l 13y ago
    It says at the bottom of the "Features" (http://www.dji-innovations.com/feature/phantom-features/ http://www.dji-innovations.com/feature/phantom-features/) page 10-15 minutes of flight time.

VladRussian2 13y ago

militaries are getting ready to fend off attacks of [relatively cheap compare to the cost of existing anti-aircraft missiles] drones: http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/u-s-navy-laser-blasters-shoot-drone-130408.htm http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/u-s-navy-las... I think we can expect deployment of smaller systems to police forces as well as civilian drones becoming more and more widespread

blutack 13y ago
A cruise-missile is a UAV that crashes deliberately. From a security standpoint, these things are a nightmare. Mostly radio-transparent, cheaper than a handgun, pretty much untraceable if you build them yourself.
- lotharbot 13y ago
  a cruise missile is a UAV that crashes deliberately, and carries an explosive payload. A UAV that's big enough to carry a grenade or something equivalent, plus the grenade itself, probably won't be much cheaper than a handgun, and it's a single-use weapon. It does have the tactical advantage of being difficult to detect or trace, and of allowing the attacker to be a long distance away when making the attack.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    You make a couple of reasonable, but unwarranted, assumptions. You assume that 'grenade' refers to something like an infantry grenade. However in weapons circles, things have a 'CEP' which is the circular error probability that describes the probability that your target will be destroyed based on various distances from the activation of the weapon. In the case of drones, since one could, in theory, manually fly it in very very close to the target, the CEP could be quite small for the device used. Small CEP devices can be made more easily than large CEP devices, and they are lighter. My thought was to fly a drone up and video my daughters graduation from college, but my wife pointed out to me that it would probably end poorly for the drone (and completely change the tone of memories she should have of her graduation). So I decided against it :-)

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago

A very interesting future awaits us. I do think however that if drones get to be a problem government authories turn off data feeds to drones by snooping in on cell phone tower data streams. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that their weakness? They can only be controlled from a distance by having a data plan and being connected to a cell phone tower. That opens up all sorts of terrorist possibilities, and the only way of really combating terrorism in a world of drones is by recording cell phone data streams.

electrograv 13y ago
It's entirely possible (and in fact would be a very fun hobby project for me some day) to build a hybrid autonomous drone (via GPS, gyro, accelerometer, compass, range finders, etc) that takes a queue of commands or even little high level command scripts and executes them. Video would be stored locally as well as broadcast back in real-time, in case of jamming attempt. Edit: Apparently, according to other commenters, there are already open-source autonomous quad-copters you can hack on, which is great news to me! (And you can buy the hardware preassembled).
- blutack 13y ago
  We've got a lab full of them, and if you've got $600 dollars, you can have one tomorrow. http://www.udrones.com/product_p/acrtf2.htm http://www.udrones.com/product_p/acrtf2.htm The amateur UAV community is awesome for hackers. See: ArduPilot: http://ardupilot.com http://ardupilot.com Paparazzi: http://paparazzi.enac.fr http://paparazzi.enac.fr OpenPilot: http://www.openpilot.org/ http://www.openpilot.org/ Plus PX4, MultiWii, UAVDevBoard and all the others I've forgotten
  - ISL 13y ago
    Upvoted for awesome. Looks like the linked site claims availability of 1-2 wks?
- elteto 13y ago
  Indeed they exist. See Arducopter [1] for a very popular open source implementation. Their solution already supports pretty much everything you said. [1] https://code.google.com/p/arducopter/ https://code.google.com/p/arducopter/

nathan_long 13y ago

Nice quote: >> Governments are fond of the question: Why do you mind us watching, if you have nothing to hide? As both the size and price of this sort of technology decreases, it may reverse the roles of citizen and ruler. If five tiny camera drones hover over a clash between protesters and police, whichever side chooses to gun them down may invite that very same question.

avar 13y ago

Interesting that none of the news articles I've read about this cover the aspect that police is shooting guns in the air in a populated area. Aside from the drone issue that's highly dangerous behavior, you don't know where those bullets are going to land.

ihsw 13y ago
Such indiscretions will be forgiven by the courts because the police will have acted in the interest of public safety, look at the Chris Dorner fiasco in Los Angeles, USA for example.
- avar 13y ago
  Yes, if they're actually acting in the interest of public safety, e.g. if a stray bullet meant for a dangerous gunman hits an innocent civilian. The Chris Dorner fiasco came about because the LAPD fired on civilians they believed to be Dorner, they were incompetent in doing so, but firing on a suspected dangerous gunman is not a bad thing in principle. But as far as I can tell the cops had no reason to suspect that there was any imminent danger from these flying robots, and were firing in the air just because they didn't like being recorded. Firing into the air in a civilian area seems to me to be a much bigger issue than them trying to suppress news coverage of protests.
LoganCale 13y ago
Considering that they've been recorded intentionally firing teargas canisters at the heads of protesters, I don't think they're overly concerned about their wellbeing.
maxmcd 13y ago
I was under the impression that firing into the air, especially in limited amounts, was generally non-fatal. The Wikipedia article on Celebratory Gunfire seems to confirm my assumption. Deaths and injuries are possible, but usually only accompanying large amount of gunfire. There actions are still not without fault, but I can imagine a few more important aspects of this issue that we could be debating. "Highly Dangerous" seems excessive

glaugh 13y ago

Skipping to the intense part of the second video in the article, the actual footage from the drone: http://vimeo.com/68229603#t=5m23s http://vimeo.com/68229603#t=5m23s Really amazing to see watch a movie-like, birds-eye view of a conflict (water cannons, tear gas, etc.), and definitely thought-provoking.

caf 13y ago

It might extend their expected lifespan a little if you painted the underside white/grey.

dghughes 13y ago
Or use the MeCam micodrone shown in the article that's about 1/10 the size of the drone in the video.
iaskwhy 13y ago
A thought I just had: a very small cheap camera on the top of the drone to capture the color of the sky and a way to paint the drone (or at least the bottom, using maybe LEDs) to use the color captured by that camera. Might be expensive though.