10 ms·

It goes the other way as well: using a drone to commit arson or even an assassination (mounting a weapon is well within the weight profiles of many current devi

by personZ 12y ago

It goes the other way as well: using a drone to commit arson or even an assassination (mounting a weapon is well within the weight profiles of many current devices), is something that is inevitable. Drones have range deniability for things like ransom pickups as well. As an aside, I expect anti-drone systems to become a significant debate soon enough (e.g. if there's a drone peeping in my windows, what rights do I have to disable it?), and then to become a significant commercial concern.

swartkrans 12y ago
> what rights do I have to disable it? Your rights probably are limited to calling the police, like pretty much any other non-immediate danger legal situation that involve applying the use of force.
- hyperliner 12y ago
  Interesting point. Quick question(s): Is it "use of force" when targeting a piece of equipment? If you park your car in my driveway, I can move it. I may have liability, but I think I can destroy it if it is "invading" my property. Do I not have some "height rights" at home?
  - swartkrans 12y ago
    I don't know, but I hope you have enough money to pay a lawyer. Personally, I would just call the police.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Who will do what? Commiserate with you over the phone. I'd get a butterfly net or a paintball gun, take the thing out, and dump it in the trash compactor. Who's going to come demanding the thing? What can they say? "When I was flying my gadget illegally in your airspace, you damaged it!" to which you reply "Lets go down to the station and work this out".
      - swartkrans 12y ago
        I'm pretty sure the police will come by if you call them, that's their job. There may be the chance that they're all busy dealing with more important things, but they will come, if only to come and take a police report.
- gnopgnip 12y ago
  If you do destroy their drone while it is on your property what will they do, call the police?
  - swartkrans 12y ago
    Probably yes.
    - swartkrans 12y ago
      Ok maybe yes, not probably, but if they do call the police, are you going to admit to destroying their thing? Are you sure you're going to be in the clear there? Why take that risk?
higherpurpose 12y ago
I think there should be a centralized tracking system for drones, and each drone should have a unique cryptographic identifier, so you always know who made the drone and who owned it. Then, while you still won't be able to stop assassinations and such, just like you can't stop them now anyway, you can at least know who did it, and punish them afterwards.
- MHordecki 12y ago
  How would you make sure this cryptographic identifier cannot be tampered with?
- deelowe 12y ago
  Huh? What makes you think criminals will be sure to use a drone with such an ID system? There are no unique parts to a drone. Other than the motor controller and motors, it's mostly cellphone parts. Motors and controller have several other applications.
  - Drakim 12y ago
    Drones that fail to ID themselves will be shot down on sight.
    - yeahsure 12y ago
      You could always spoof the ID so that kinda defeats the purpose.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - drewbug 12y ago
        Maybe have each drone regularly broadcast their GPS's most recent NMEA sentence (latitude, longitude, timestamp, altitude, etc.) signed with their public key? That's what came up with after thinking about it for a bit. There's probably a better solution out there.
ggreer 12y ago
I didn't want to put too much speculation in my comment, but you're right that there are a ton of things that individuals could do with drones. Here's a movie plot attack: A week/month/etc beforehand, plant 4-8 drones a half-mile downrange of the airport a VIP is scheduled to fly out of. When their plane takes off, trigger the drones to fly into the the plane's turbines. A fully-loaded plane with no working engines would quickly stall and turn into a fireball on the ground. You might not even need explosive payloads for this to work.
- akozak 12y ago
  Hobby planes have been around for a long time. Wouldn't this have happened by now if it were such a risk?
  - ggreer 12y ago
    Good point, but I think this hasn't happened because almost nobody is a psychopath, and most psychopaths are incompetent. If I believed otherwise, I wouldn't speculate about these things publicly. Also, it would be hard to pilot multiple RC planes or helicopters simultaneously. Any attack that requires people cooperating is much less likely.
    - hyperliner 12y ago
      "most psychopaths are incompetent" I wish you were right.
    - eksith 12y ago
      Psychopaths have a wide range of traits, but I believe those who would consider doing something like this, also tend to have poor impulse control that may interfere with their plans ahead. What makes it a terrifying possibility is that terrorists, who I don't think are all psychopathic, may have a better chance of pulling it off.
    - baddox 12y ago
      Not to mention that the vast majority of people who would be willing and capable of pulling off such an attack are probably people in government, so government regulation wouldn't make sense as a recommendation.
jkestner 12y ago
Looking forward to clouds of warring aerial nanobots, a la Diamond Age.
mortenjorck 12y ago
It’s only a matter of time before state and municipal governments start moving en masse to regulate civil drones – which is why there probably needs to be an association of some sort (is there one?) to get out in front and start the conversation in the right place. I could imagine license tags being one outcome of this process: If a drone goes spying outside your window or damages your property, you now have a fairly simple recourse of reporting that tag number. The existence of this recourse would also go a long way toward making civil drone use less scary and more socially acceptable.
- eksith 12y ago
  There is AUVSI http://www.auvsi.org/auvsi/home/ http://www.auvsi.org/auvsi/home/ (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International). I don't exactly know how effective they are what they do or even what they do, for that matter. They do seem to come up a lot in these drone issues, but their Wikipedia page appears to be self-written. There may need to be something more than that; a "drone lobby" perhaps?
  - jjwiseman 12y ago
    The AUVSI is known for generally representing more of the traditional military-industrial side of the drone business than the smaller, more entrepreneurial side. E.g. see their corporate membership list, which includes Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed, Northrup Grumman, Rockwell & Saab (along with newer members like Google & Amazon) at the "Diamond Level": http://www.auvsi.org/membershipandchapters/corporatemembers http://www.auvsi.org/membershipandchapters/corporatemembers The Silicon Valley chapter of the AUVSI is more progressive with regard to small business drone advocacy, but it's hard to tell if that is having an impact nationally.
meowface 12y ago
I support Bitcoins and disagree with most of the arguments that they promote criminality, but I have to admit that collecting a ransom would be much easier by accepting it as Bitcoin (or other alternative cryptocurrencies, some of them much more anonymous than Bitcoin). Lots of "ransomware" malware out there is already using this tactic, and law enforcement have no money to follow.
baddox 12y ago
Drones are less practical than existing tools for most everything you just listed. For peeping in windows, a drone is extremely impractical. A telescope will yield much better results. The only thing a drone can better do is look down at your roof, or over your fence if your fence is higher than nearby buildings. For assassination, traditional tools are clearly more practical in nearly every case. A hunting rifle at a few hundred meters is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper, more reliable, easier to use, and more difficult to trace than some drone with a mounted weapon. I don't really know how arsonists generally do their thing, but I can't imagine that dropping something flammable is more practical than just driving by and throwing it. I'm sure there are very specific cases where sophisticated drone usage could be useful for committing these crimes, but I don't think it's a major concern, and not even one of the biggest concerns of drones.
- lwhi 12y ago
  I think the biggest 'benefit' to having a drone perform these tasks is the fact a robot is carrying out the task. For example, instructing a drone to assassinate is potentially closer to hiring a hitman, than murdering someone firsthand with a shotgun. Closer in the sense that the puportrator feels a sense of detachment.
- hamstergene 12y ago
  You seem to be only considering the moment of crime and disregarding what happens before and after it. A tool that almost completely removes risk of getting caught and need for alibi will surely be seen as more practical by all except mad and ridiculously dumb people, regardless of how less effective it is.
  - baddox 12y ago
    I considered the likelihood of getting caught as well. I mentioned that explicitly in the rifle example. It's fairly obvious for the telescope example. For arson, again, I don't know much about how arson tends to be committed, but it seems that a drone is not inherently harder to track than a car, bicycle, or person on foot, given the range, speed, reliability, and conspicuousness of those modes of transportation.
downandout 12y ago
Agreed. Murders/assassinations via drone, with no hope of determining who did it, are coming sooner than later. Drug cartels, street gangs, etc. can already easily afford a weaponized drone - they just may not (yet) know how to obtain/build one. The ability to anonymously open fire on virtually any target one chooses is a scary reality, but it's almost here. With no risk of prosecution, murders will happen that never would have happened before. Be nice to your neighbors :) .

by personZ 12y ago

swartkrans 12y ago

> what rights do I have to disable it? Your rights probably are limited to calling the police, like pretty much any other non-immediate danger legal situation that involve applying the use of force.

hyperliner 12y ago
Interesting point. Quick question(s): Is it "use of force" when targeting a piece of equipment? If you park your car in my driveway, I can move it. I may have liability, but I think I can destroy it if it is "invading" my property. Do I not have some "height rights" at home?
- swartkrans 12y ago
  I don't know, but I hope you have enough money to pay a lawyer. Personally, I would just call the police.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Who will do what? Commiserate with you over the phone. I'd get a butterfly net or a paintball gun, take the thing out, and dump it in the trash compactor. Who's going to come demanding the thing? What can they say? "When I was flying my gadget illegally in your airspace, you damaged it!" to which you reply "Lets go down to the station and work this out".
    - swartkrans 12y ago
      I'm pretty sure the police will come by if you call them, that's their job. There may be the chance that they're all busy dealing with more important things, but they will come, if only to come and take a police report.
gnopgnip 12y ago
If you do destroy their drone while it is on your property what will they do, call the police?
- swartkrans 12y ago
  Probably yes.
  - swartkrans 12y ago
    Ok maybe yes, not probably, but if they do call the police, are you going to admit to destroying their thing? Are you sure you're going to be in the clear there? Why take that risk?

higherpurpose 12y ago

I think there should be a centralized tracking system for drones, and each drone should have a unique cryptographic identifier, so you always know who made the drone and who owned it. Then, while you still won't be able to stop assassinations and such, just like you can't stop them now anyway, you can at least know who did it, and punish them afterwards.

MHordecki 12y ago
How would you make sure this cryptographic identifier cannot be tampered with?
deelowe 12y ago
Huh? What makes you think criminals will be sure to use a drone with such an ID system? There are no unique parts to a drone. Other than the motor controller and motors, it's mostly cellphone parts. Motors and controller have several other applications.
- Drakim 12y ago
  Drones that fail to ID themselves will be shot down on sight.
  - yeahsure 12y ago
    You could always spoof the ID so that kinda defeats the purpose.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - drewbug 12y ago
      Maybe have each drone regularly broadcast their GPS's most recent NMEA sentence (latitude, longitude, timestamp, altitude, etc.) signed with their public key? That's what came up with after thinking about it for a bit. There's probably a better solution out there.

ggreer 12y ago

I didn't want to put too much speculation in my comment, but you're right that there are a ton of things that individuals could do with drones. Here's a movie plot attack: A week/month/etc beforehand, plant 4-8 drones a half-mile downrange of the airport a VIP is scheduled to fly out of. When their plane takes off, trigger the drones to fly into the the plane's turbines. A fully-loaded plane with no working engines would quickly stall and turn into a fireball on the ground. You might not even need explosive payloads for this to work.

akozak 12y ago
Hobby planes have been around for a long time. Wouldn't this have happened by now if it were such a risk?
- ggreer 12y ago
  Good point, but I think this hasn't happened because almost nobody is a psychopath, and most psychopaths are incompetent. If I believed otherwise, I wouldn't speculate about these things publicly. Also, it would be hard to pilot multiple RC planes or helicopters simultaneously. Any attack that requires people cooperating is much less likely.
  - hyperliner 12y ago
    "most psychopaths are incompetent" I wish you were right.
  - eksith 12y ago
    Psychopaths have a wide range of traits, but I believe those who would consider doing something like this, also tend to have poor impulse control that may interfere with their plans ahead. What makes it a terrifying possibility is that terrorists, who I don't think are all psychopathic, may have a better chance of pulling it off.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Not to mention that the vast majority of people who would be willing and capable of pulling off such an attack are probably people in government, so government regulation wouldn't make sense as a recommendation.

jkestner 12y ago

Looking forward to clouds of warring aerial nanobots, a la Diamond Age.

mortenjorck 12y ago

It’s only a matter of time before state and municipal governments start moving en masse to regulate civil drones – which is why there probably needs to be an association of some sort (is there one?) to get out in front and start the conversation in the right place. I could imagine license tags being one outcome of this process: If a drone goes spying outside your window or damages your property, you now have a fairly simple recourse of reporting that tag number. The existence of this recourse would also go a long way toward making civil drone use less scary and more socially acceptable.

eksith 12y ago
There is AUVSI http://www.auvsi.org/auvsi/home/ http://www.auvsi.org/auvsi/home/ (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International). I don't exactly know how effective they are what they do or even what they do, for that matter. They do seem to come up a lot in these drone issues, but their Wikipedia page appears to be self-written. There may need to be something more than that; a "drone lobby" perhaps?
- jjwiseman 12y ago
  The AUVSI is known for generally representing more of the traditional military-industrial side of the drone business than the smaller, more entrepreneurial side. E.g. see their corporate membership list, which includes Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed, Northrup Grumman, Rockwell & Saab (along with newer members like Google & Amazon) at the "Diamond Level": http://www.auvsi.org/membershipandchapters/corporatemembers http://www.auvsi.org/membershipandchapters/corporatemembers The Silicon Valley chapter of the AUVSI is more progressive with regard to small business drone advocacy, but it's hard to tell if that is having an impact nationally.

meowface 12y ago

I support Bitcoins and disagree with most of the arguments that they promote criminality, but I have to admit that collecting a ransom would be much easier by accepting it as Bitcoin (or other alternative cryptocurrencies, some of them much more anonymous than Bitcoin). Lots of "ransomware" malware out there is already using this tactic, and law enforcement have no money to follow.

baddox 12y ago

Drones are less practical than existing tools for most everything you just listed. For peeping in windows, a drone is extremely impractical. A telescope will yield much better results. The only thing a drone can better do is look down at your roof, or over your fence if your fence is higher than nearby buildings. For assassination, traditional tools are clearly more practical in nearly every case. A hunting rifle at a few hundred meters is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper, more reliable, easier to use, and more difficult to trace than some drone with a mounted weapon. I don't really know how arsonists generally do their thing, but I can't imagine that dropping something flammable is more practical than just driving by and throwing it. I'm sure there are very specific cases where sophisticated drone usage could be useful for committing these crimes, but I don't think it's a major concern, and not even one of the biggest concerns of drones.

lwhi 12y ago
I think the biggest 'benefit' to having a drone perform these tasks is the fact a robot is carrying out the task. For example, instructing a drone to assassinate is potentially closer to hiring a hitman, than murdering someone firsthand with a shotgun. Closer in the sense that the puportrator feels a sense of detachment.
hamstergene 12y ago
You seem to be only considering the moment of crime and disregarding what happens before and after it. A tool that almost completely removes risk of getting caught and need for alibi will surely be seen as more practical by all except mad and ridiculously dumb people, regardless of how less effective it is.
- baddox 12y ago
  I considered the likelihood of getting caught as well. I mentioned that explicitly in the rifle example. It's fairly obvious for the telescope example. For arson, again, I don't know much about how arson tends to be committed, but it seems that a drone is not inherently harder to track than a car, bicycle, or person on foot, given the range, speed, reliability, and conspicuousness of those modes of transportation.

downandout 12y ago

Agreed. Murders/assassinations via drone, with no hope of determining who did it, are coming sooner than later. Drug cartels, street gangs, etc. can already easily afford a weaponized drone - they just may not (yet) know how to obtain/build one. The ability to anonymously open fire on virtually any target one chooses is a scary reality, but it's almost here. With no risk of prosecution, murders will happen that never would have happened before. Be nice to your neighbors :) .