5 ms·

Paris night drone mystery deepens

44 points by cichli 12y ago

DavidAdams 12y ago
Ugh, the drones "might be" flown by eco warriors or terrorists. Thanks for the silly speculation, BBC. They might also be flown by Raelians, the Russian Mafia, Simon Cowell, the ghost of Napoleon, Nigerian 419 scammers, Snookie, or Kim Kardashian's butt.
centizen 12y ago
I hope it's just some hobbyists having fun, but this is totally irresponsible. Whether they are trying to make a statement or just play a prank, they are making everyone look bad and giving the media all the reasons they need to run with it.
- carbocation 12y ago
  The media and authorities' reactions do not make this action irresponsible. Is it unlawful? Apparently, yes. Is it immoral? That depends on the purpose, but it is not intrinsically so.
  - centizen 12y ago
    I think that repeatedly flying a UAV in contravention to well known law, over highly populated areas, at night is totally irresponsible. Both to the people below and the UAV community at large. The media reaction has nothing to do with my decision.
    - trvz 12y ago
      Ok, now go tell this to the US.
    - morcheeba 12y ago
      This isn't a highly populated area. There is little chance that if this drone fell at any time it would hit someone or land in a street. A highly populated area is a soccer stadium during a match. And what's wrong with night time? That's when the streets are least populated. You could make many of these bogus arguments about a variety of new technologies ... maybe cars should only be driven during the day? Or film noir rejected because people have an expectation of privacy at night?
      - votingprawn 12y ago
        > This isn't a highly populated area. There is little chance that if this drone fell at any time it would hit someone or land in a street. Only if you consider the only failure mode to be a descent straight down. These 'consumer' multirotors do have a nasty habit of buggering off in random directions when they feel like it: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dji+flyaway https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dji+flyaway > And what's wrong with night time? Maintaining line of sight with the vehicle becomes very difficult when its dark. In some jurisdictions the law actually makes no reference to it being daytime or night-time, only that you able to maintain direct unaided line of sight with the vehicle. When you're in control of what is essentially a 1-2kg flying blender, it is your responsibility to err on the side of caution. Just like when you operate any other device which could significantly harm another. > You could make many of these bogus arguments about a variety of new technologies ... maybe cars should only be driven during the day? You'll probably find laws and rules already exist to protect the public from other new technologies. Take cars for example: - You must be qualified by a government body to use them. - The car must be certified as safe to use on the road, and routinely checked. - You may only use them in specific segregated areas. - You must be able to maintain control over the car at all times. - At night your car must be well lit and must provide you with enough light to see what you are doing. - If you do something stupid/dangerous with your car you are punished.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Also if anything is seriously wrong (and often immoral) in such cases, it's usually the media reaction to things.
  - votingprawn 12y ago
    >The media and authorities' reactions do not make this action irresponsible. It is irresponsible because they are flying a dangerous vehicle in an area where if they lost control they could cause harm to members of the public. And they are doing so under conditions that make harder to maintain clear line of sight to the vehicle, increasing the chance of them losing control.
nodata 12y ago
How has it "deepened"? They didn't know, and now they still don't know.
- d_theorist 12y ago
  It's not even a "mystery" to begin with. It's not difficult to understand what is happening. It's like saying that a hot air balloon sighting is a mystery, just because we don't know who's flying it. Hot air balloons are not mysteries, and neither are "drones".
jgrahamc 12y ago
Given that this is Paris then it's probably going to turn out to be performance art and the flight path of the drones is going to draw something.
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  this sort of positive discrimination is ruining generalisations for everyone.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
Drones drones drones. What drones? Did someone flew a Predator, or was it just a Phantom bought from the "Accessories for GoPro cameras" shelf of the local RadioShack equivalent? There is an important difference between the two, and I don't really like how media and people in general conflate together the whole spectrum of UAVs and RC copters.
- engendered 12y ago
  Radio controlled quadcopters, whether navigating automatically or not, fall under the definition of "drone". The terminology is fine, and the attempt at redefinition is a losing battle.
  - q3k 12y ago
    The terminology is not fine when used in an article - this word can mean: - a cheap Chinese $10 toy that goes out of range after 300m - a racing quadrocopter built at a hackerspace to research autonomous operation, with a tracking GPS, hour-long battery life and first-person-view camera - a professional, thousands-of-dollars, remotely controlled photo rig - a military machine designed to kill human beings in a semi-autonomous manner If I saw one of these near my house I wouldn't so much as blink. If I saw another I would be immediately relocating to another country.
    - engendered 12y ago
      And you really read this article and think "Oh, they might be talking about a missile-equipped military drone"? Of course you don't. This is pedantry nonsense that, while becoming common, is really that someone wants to argue, in utter futility, about the definition of a word. For years HN was caught up naval gazing about the difference between hacker and cracker. Now it is this drone garbage.
      - d_theorist 12y ago
        I think you mean "pedantic nonsense".
joshuaheard 12y ago
Somebody is filming the Paris landmarks for a movie or art project.
htor 12y ago
The plot thickens... No. It doesn't.
sogen 12y ago
Like NIN's "mysterious" snuff video: http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-copy-reports-on-trent-reznors-death/ http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-copy...
ratsbane 12y ago
This illustrates something that might be a significant future problem for law enforcement, etc. - how to enforce anti-drone laws. Perhaps this will lead to an anti-drone technology industry with drone-tracking equipment and drone-capture drones. With radio-controlled devices, direction-finding equipment could work but with autonomous drones...?
- MollyR 12y ago
  There is an interesting south park episode about this. It ended up with police drones brutally destroying civilian drones. I think it was parody of violence occurring during protests. However it still made me wonder, whether drones will become avatars for people who don't want to leave home, and how much history simply repeats.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
DMac87 12y ago
Is there a way to track & regulate these? e.g. if drone operators are breaking the law by flying too low, then do police have the means to cite violators? If so, I don't see what the issue is - they're not enforcing their own law very well. If not... well that's a whole other problem.
logfromblammo 12y ago
When writing offenses into the law that are malum prohibitum, it would be wise to expend a bit of effort in deciding whether such laws are practically enforceable. Parisian authorities would probably have done better to mandate an amateur radio operator's license, identification requirements, and liability insurance. When it's equally illegal for an otherwise innocent hobbyist and for a malevolent bogeyman, it becomes much harder to impute motives to the unseen operator. Though in reality, the authorities are likely far more concerned about unauthorized, copyright-violating photographs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_cl... ) than about terrorism.

44 points by cichli 12y ago

Ugh, the drones "might be" flown by eco warriors or terrorists. Thanks for the silly speculation, BBC. They might also be flown by Raelians, the Russian Mafia, Simon Cowell, the ghost of Napoleon, Nigerian 419 scammers, Snookie, or Kim Kardashian's butt.

centizen 12y ago

I hope it's just some hobbyists having fun, but this is totally irresponsible. Whether they are trying to make a statement or just play a prank, they are making everyone look bad and giving the media all the reasons they need to run with it.

carbocation 12y ago
The media and authorities' reactions do not make this action irresponsible. Is it unlawful? Apparently, yes. Is it immoral? That depends on the purpose, but it is not intrinsically so.
- centizen 12y ago
  I think that repeatedly flying a UAV in contravention to well known law, over highly populated areas, at night is totally irresponsible. Both to the people below and the UAV community at large. The media reaction has nothing to do with my decision.
  - trvz 12y ago
    Ok, now go tell this to the US.
  - morcheeba 12y ago
    This isn't a highly populated area. There is little chance that if this drone fell at any time it would hit someone or land in a street. A highly populated area is a soccer stadium during a match. And what's wrong with night time? That's when the streets are least populated. You could make many of these bogus arguments about a variety of new technologies ... maybe cars should only be driven during the day? Or film noir rejected because people have an expectation of privacy at night?
    - votingprawn 12y ago
      > This isn't a highly populated area. There is little chance that if this drone fell at any time it would hit someone or land in a street. Only if you consider the only failure mode to be a descent straight down. These 'consumer' multirotors do have a nasty habit of buggering off in random directions when they feel like it: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dji+flyaway https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dji+flyaway > And what's wrong with night time? Maintaining line of sight with the vehicle becomes very difficult when its dark. In some jurisdictions the law actually makes no reference to it being daytime or night-time, only that you able to maintain direct unaided line of sight with the vehicle. When you're in control of what is essentially a 1-2kg flying blender, it is your responsibility to err on the side of caution. Just like when you operate any other device which could significantly harm another. > You could make many of these bogus arguments about a variety of new technologies ... maybe cars should only be driven during the day? You'll probably find laws and rules already exist to protect the public from other new technologies. Take cars for example: - You must be qualified by a government body to use them. - The car must be certified as safe to use on the road, and routinely checked. - You may only use them in specific segregated areas. - You must be able to maintain control over the car at all times. - At night your car must be well lit and must provide you with enough light to see what you are doing. - If you do something stupid/dangerous with your car you are punished.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Also if anything is seriously wrong (and often immoral) in such cases, it's usually the media reaction to things.
- votingprawn 12y ago
  >The media and authorities' reactions do not make this action irresponsible. It is irresponsible because they are flying a dangerous vehicle in an area where if they lost control they could cause harm to members of the public. And they are doing so under conditions that make harder to maintain clear line of sight to the vehicle, increasing the chance of them losing control.

nodata 12y ago

How has it "deepened"? They didn't know, and now they still don't know.

d_theorist 12y ago
It's not even a "mystery" to begin with. It's not difficult to understand what is happening. It's like saying that a hot air balloon sighting is a mystery, just because we don't know who's flying it. Hot air balloons are not mysteries, and neither are "drones".

jgrahamc 12y ago

Given that this is Paris then it's probably going to turn out to be performance art and the flight path of the drones is going to draw something.

throwawayaway 12y ago
this sort of positive discrimination is ruining generalisations for everyone.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Drones drones drones. What drones? Did someone flew a Predator, or was it just a Phantom bought from the "Accessories for GoPro cameras" shelf of the local RadioShack equivalent? There is an important difference between the two, and I don't really like how media and people in general conflate together the whole spectrum of UAVs and RC copters.

engendered 12y ago
Radio controlled quadcopters, whether navigating automatically or not, fall under the definition of "drone". The terminology is fine, and the attempt at redefinition is a losing battle.
- q3k 12y ago
  The terminology is not fine when used in an article - this word can mean: - a cheap Chinese $10 toy that goes out of range after 300m - a racing quadrocopter built at a hackerspace to research autonomous operation, with a tracking GPS, hour-long battery life and first-person-view camera - a professional, thousands-of-dollars, remotely controlled photo rig - a military machine designed to kill human beings in a semi-autonomous manner If I saw one of these near my house I wouldn't so much as blink. If I saw another I would be immediately relocating to another country.
  - engendered 12y ago
    And you really read this article and think "Oh, they might be talking about a missile-equipped military drone"? Of course you don't. This is pedantry nonsense that, while becoming common, is really that someone wants to argue, in utter futility, about the definition of a word. For years HN was caught up naval gazing about the difference between hacker and cracker. Now it is this drone garbage.
    - d_theorist 12y ago
      I think you mean "pedantic nonsense".

joshuaheard 12y ago

Somebody is filming the Paris landmarks for a movie or art project.

htor 12y ago

The plot thickens... No. It doesn't.

sogen 12y ago

Like NIN's "mysterious" snuff video: http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-copy-reports-on-trent-reznors-death/ http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-copy...

ratsbane 12y ago

This illustrates something that might be a significant future problem for law enforcement, etc. - how to enforce anti-drone laws. Perhaps this will lead to an anti-drone technology industry with drone-tracking equipment and drone-capture drones. With radio-controlled devices, direction-finding equipment could work but with autonomous drones...?

MollyR 12y ago
There is an interesting south park episode about this. It ended up with police drones brutally destroying civilian drones. I think it was parody of violence occurring during protests. However it still made me wonder, whether drones will become avatars for people who don't want to leave home, and how much history simply repeats.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

DMac87 12y ago

Is there a way to track & regulate these? e.g. if drone operators are breaking the law by flying too low, then do police have the means to cite violators? If so, I don't see what the issue is - they're not enforcing their own law very well. If not... well that's a whole other problem.

logfromblammo 12y ago

When writing offenses into the law that are malum prohibitum, it would be wise to expend a bit of effort in deciding whether such laws are practically enforceable. Parisian authorities would probably have done better to mandate an amateur radio operator's license, identification requirements, and liability insurance. When it's equally illegal for an otherwise innocent hobbyist and for a malevolent bogeyman, it becomes much harder to impute motives to the unseen operator. Though in reality, the authorities are likely far more concerned about unauthorized, copyright-violating photographs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_cl... ) than about terrorism.