Slashdot Mirror
Droning On
MagnetarJones writes "Another washingtonpost.com article reports that Federal regulators have begun considering rules that would allow drones, the pilotless planes being used in the war in Afghanistan, to fly in U.S. airspace. Supporters envision the use of drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, for such tasks as moving cargo, pinpointing traffic problems, patrolling the border, searching for fugitives or fighting forest fires..."
Has anyone thought about the privacy issues related to this? Yes, there's the whole "big brother" thing, but there's also a concern about the security of the data these drones send back.
There was some guy from the UK that somehow, accidentally, tapped into unencrypted military communications on public satellites.
It seems that our military satellite infrastructure is somewhat overloaded, so they push some of the load onto commercial satellites.
This guy tried to tell the US Navy, maybe some other branches, and some of the British military about this. They all dismissed him. So, he went to the media...
I saw this on CNN from a hotel in Europe, and you could watch US troop movements right on this guy's TV.
Who thinks that something similar can, and probably will, happen if we have drones flying over our homes. I'm not sure what the immediate motivation for tapping into things like this is, but someone else probably knows...
Did anyone else see, or hear about, this story and have more specific info?
Now, I'm not saying this is a totally horrible idea. It has some merits, as well as drawbacks (high crash rate, and so on). Certainly, better monitoring of airspace and the ability to track certain events is of great value.
As for privacy in general, there's a happy medium (somewhere). You will never have total safety and total privacy. In fact, you'll probably never have just one of those things. We just need to find the right point in the middle...
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
The USA is sliding down the slippery slope to what it really wants to be, deep in it's belly: a xenophobic police state.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
"What's the cargo capacity on one of those drones?"
You might fit a fag packet and a set of spare underwear. Best leave the crates of books behind, though.