Slashdot Mirror
Dragonfly-Sized Insect Spies Spotted, Denied
SRA8 sends in a Washington Post piece about work at various academic, government, and military labs on insect-sized flying spies. A number of people reported what appeared to be flying mechanical insects, larger than dragonflies, over an antiwar rally in Washington DC last month. The reporter got mostly no-comments from the agencies he called trying to pin down what it was they saw. Only the FBI said through a spokesman: "We don't have anything like that." The article describes work on insect cyborgs as well as purely mechanical flying spies, but quotes vice admiral Joe Dyer, former commander of the Naval Air Systems Command now at iRobot in Burlington, Mass., as follows: "I'll be seriously dead before that program deploys." The article also mentions an International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, held in Switzerland in August, at which Japanese researchers demonstrated radio-controlled fliers with four-inch wingspans that resemble hawk moths.
"Nothing to see here, move along."
Hmmmmmm...
Sweet informative mod.
...government spies on you.
If such a thing exist, which i doubt it does, then why would they use it on protesters? If they have developed this type of technology, then I'm sure they'd deploy them in high priority areas like in the Middle East, China, etc..
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Robotic *and* insect overlords
Why is this Your Rights Online? It involves neither rights nor online.
Surveilling protest rallies like this is creepy.
Anyway, were none of these captured? If so, I'm sure the crafty Slashdot crowd could produce some photos.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
I would take these supposed sightings with a huge grain of salt. If you're expecting to be watched, then you just might see something "watching" you. Sometimes a dragonfly is just a dragonfly.
Pidgeon with a camcorder duct taped to it.
See Insect trainers, insect training; insect training manuals; flea circus. Sound creation/manipulation using insects. Image creation using insects. Communication using insects.
I know that it is for sure possible to make a little flying robot. Not "so" hard I would even say. However, what is hard is keeping that little guy with power. I don't think that they have the batteries to power the flight of it, plus the gear to send the pictures back home and not to mention navigation controls. You could maybe manage 5min max for something so small, assuming it was really really light. I dont think 5 min is a useful time though. Who knows, maybe I am wrong though.
if they are not spotted while surveying a crowd of protesters in a busy city, you can use them for real spying. if they are, and they have been too, you need to develop them further.
Read radical news here
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
. . . then I'd be seriously upset with the government for holding back such a revolutionary energy storage technology, yet impressed they're able to keep it away from the general market where it would be worth trillions.
As I've said before, building a robotic insect with cameras, transmitters, and capable of flight is well within our technical capabilities. Stuffing in a battery with enough juice to make it at all useful is not.
Sure, the gov't has limitless budget/captive genius scientists, etc... but really.. the technical hurdles to such a product are enormous... for starters....
Batteries - this would be very difficult to make work for a long time when it has to fly by way of flapping wings!
Control system - Airplanes are *relatively* easy to make a control system for, because they're well studied and time tested(and even this is hard and requires pounds upon pounds of circuitry (yes, the redundancy isn't necessary for a spy bug, but even the smallest processors/accelerometers/gyroscopes weigh more than a fsking bug!). A robot with flapping wings we don't understand well on the original nature-made product? not happening yet!
Reproducing a convincing style of flight
When someone caught/"killed" one, the jig would be up!
What's much more likely is if your "men in black" were to use the hundreds of *readily available* security cameras mounted.... everywhere....
Besides, if it is a protest, what are you hiding? You are OUTSIDE. You are making your desires VISIBLE for the reason of convincing others to take them! you are not in a back room being all clandestine. You want people to see you!
But without the camera. The idea that the government doesn't have something better than a child's toy is laughable. I bet Slashdotters could take one of those toys, put a tiny camera on it, and sell the plans.
It seems there is no video or pictures to share of this, so there is a link to a large video of a demo of some other small flyer that requires a custom player download. This is a good example of modern gotcha journalism where being anxious for clicks and page views and movie downloads to drive their advertising model causes lots of incomplete, poorly edited, or barely relevant material to be included. Using video instead of text is particularly important since that offers a way around most ad blocking technologies.
Some of the articles from Loosechange.com?
Y'know, that's technology that involves our rights too...
Bark! Moonbat, bark!
Good Moonbat!
Maybe someone in the crowd was just playing with their new toy...
http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/sku__WW260GRN?cm_ven=adwords&cm_cat=Media&cm_pla=outdoor+toys&cm_ite=wowwee_dragonfly
http://www.flytechonline.com/
I haven't seen any bug spies, but I'm pretty sure I have seen those unmanned planes more than once. Somewhere, some CIA spook has a picture of me with a beer in hand and flying the bird at the camera.
No Nyarlathotep, No Chaos
Know Nyarlathotep, Know Chaos
Surveilling protest rallies like this is creepy.
It may be creepy, but it is a clear sign that a protest rally is starting to work. Someone noticed, got nervous, and sent spies.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Why no pics? One would think that will all the cameras people have today that SOMEONE would have gotten a picture or ten.
...and a mechanical spy-bird cra*ped on my tinfoil hat.
Evil is the money of root.
..then I've got to go to more antiwar rallies. I can't be the only fool who would love to catch one of these babies and take it home to play with... anyone selling butterfly nets with Faraday cages installed?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Butterfly net.
"If you find something, let me know," said Gary Anderson of the Defense Department's Rapid Reaction Technology Office.
Hey Mr. Anderson, take a look at thi +++ carrier lost +++
no worries. Danny Dunn, Invisible_Boy
I'm a model hobbiest. I happen to fly RC helicopters in the "small" size range. For those that want to believe these are real, more power to you, honestly. It would be really fun to buy consumer level versions of something similar to the purported goverment versions as I'm sure they would be fun as hell to fly. But frankly..... Helicopters, which are tried and tested technology, at the minature level (I fly one with an 18" rotor diamater) it becomes EXTREMELY unstable in any wind. Shrink that down to a 6" diamater and to be honest, you wouldn't be able to control it in anything but a room with no fans, etc, causing air currents. Now we're talking about dragonfly size? AND outdoors? It's, unfortunately, not a reality. At least in my opinion.
...these are not the robotic insect overlord spies you're looking for. You can go about your business.
And some people were so sure that "spy squirrels" in Iran were not for real :).
I'll start worrying when the folks that make RAID insect repellent release a new formula. "Instantly kills Wasps, Hornets, and other flying "insects."
We have an announcement before we get back to the event, so everyone...hey...please listen up. This is important.
The red-dot acid being passed around is B A D - avoid the red-dot acid!
It's a bummer, I know - just don't use it, ok...? Try the blue, I guess. Now, back to the show...
...a beowulf swarm of these!
Nobody will mind if we swing one of these around
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
meaning, when the bugs are flying around, and come across one of us levelheaded beacons of truth in our tinfoil hats, the bugs will purposely go out of their way to attack us and leave us defenseless to the mind control deat rays
the illuminati engineered the bugs that way, because they know us wise tinfoil hat wearers are the last bulwarks of fact standing between them and complete world domination
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots: http://fir.epfl.ch/monteverita.html
Insect size flapping MAV (Japan): http://www.fit.ac.jp/~y-kawa/
My kingdom for some mod points right now!
You wouldn't power such a device with batteries anyways. You'd use a chemical engine. "There's more energy in a drop of gasoline than in a battery that weighs as much as a drop of gasoline." Not that I'm saying they use gasoline. They could use vinegar and baking soda, or some other reaction that creates a lot of gas. There are plenty of chemical reactions that could power a device of that scale a lot more effectively than battery power.
Of course you'd still need to power the electronics, and that would take a battery, but it would be a lot smaller. You could possibly even use a thin film solar panel to produce the power.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Think about it.. protesters would make wonderful labrats for this. They're already primed to think that the government is going to swoop in and brutalize (like at the WTO protests, etc), and paranoia and emotions are running hot. They're on the lookout. As mentioned above, if the flyers can be used and not spotted, especially by an overly paranoid angry crowd, they'd almost definately be successful behind enemy lines on unsuspecting individuals.
You have just won a free Deluxe Tin Hat.
Yes, you will soon be able to join your friends at the DailyKOS and MoveOn.org in their pointless and deranged protests wearing the latest in Tin Hat Fashions.
Made of only the best tin available, this hat is your own personal Faraday cage!
Guaranteed for a life time, or, until the government kidnaps your ass and sends it to a secret CIA prison.
*Please do not use around high tension power lines or electrical substations.
I've seen ads on TV for tiny toy helicopters and more interestingly - ornithopters that look like large dragonflys. They are radio or infrared controlled.
Someone could have been flying these over the crowd.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
The anti-war movement has a drug of choice? Man, and I thought conspiracy theorists were fucking retarded.
I'm not saying that any of these were used (or a newer version of the technology) at the protest but remotely controlled mini-insect UAVs have been around since the 70's. If you go to the CIA's website and take the virtual museum tour (https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/cia-museum/cia-museum-tour/index.html) you can actually look at the Dragonfly Insecothopter that has been declassified. From the CIA text:
"Developed by CIA's Office of Research and Development in the 1970's, this micro-UAV was the first flight of an insect-sized vehicle (insectothopter). It was intended to prove the concept of such miniaturized platforms for intelligence collection. Insectothopter had a miniature engine to move the wings up and down. A small amount of gas was used to drive the engine, and the excess was vented out the rear for extra thrust. The flight tests were impressive. However, control in any kind of crosswind proved too difficult."
Once again Im not saying these were used to spy on protesters, but I know people are going to be like "there is no such thing like this out there...." So I figured I would add in some info to show that this type of tech did exist.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
In "Class 11," by T.J. Waters, a book about the first class of CIA counter-terrorism field agents trained after 9/11 (on pgs 15-17 of the hardcover edition), he claims that the CIA had fully functional flying radio bugs that were nearly indistinguishable from real dragonflies unless you look at them close up and from directly overhead, and that we had these back in 1967.
He goes on to mention that this technology, being 40-years old, "pales in comparison" to what they have today.
You can view these pages for free at Amazon. Search inside the book for "dragonfly" and they'll come right up. It wouldn't let me direct link to the pages.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
After seeing the tag 'charliejade', I was like 'yes!' For those who didn't get to see that great show, it was about a guy that can travel between different universes (the multi-verse) and one of them was extremely techie. In that one, they had insects that were spies.
Of course, I haven't seen it in a while now, so I may be a bit off with that explanation.
Quite an interesting show, despite the slow start.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
A guy in a lab coat is in the Chief's office, demonstrating his new invention that took him a year to develop: a remotely-controlled robotic house-fly that can transmit a live audio feed back to the operator. He flies it around the room then lands it on the Chief's desk. Just then, Maxwell Smart walks in and begins talking to the Chief. He suddenly pauses, whips a rolled-up newspaper from under his arm, and smashes the fly on the desk. The guy in the lab coat leaves the office in tears, cupping the remains of the fly in his hands.
We don't yet have insect-sized spy vehicles. Maybe check back in another 15 years but not now. Besides, we don't need 'em, what we already have is scary enough. Check this shit out.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jvWgeVUqlII
http://youtube.com/watch?v=f04Jf3mnGAU&mode=related&search=spy%20drone%20police%20big%20brother
The picture quality from these drones is simply amazing. The small size means that they're very likely to escape notice from people on the ground. One of the spy drone models I've seen is a four rotor copter running off of battery with a 2.5 hour air time. Longer-haul drones are fixed wing and can stay on station for longer. These little drones are astounding. They can get a line of sight on a second floor window from a few miles away and zoom in until you feel like you're peeking in from a ladder outside. The gyroscopic stabilization means that the images remain clear and useful.
In conjunction with the air vehicles, I'm sure there's probably work going on with vermin-sized spy vehicles, something rat-like. Small enough to penetrate buildings and go unnoticed. Rather than relying on agents to covertly break into locations and install bugs, send in a "rat." If you lose it, no big deal, it's not like one of your agents was killed. Note: I don't have a link for this since I haven't seen it discussed anywhere but it seems like too obvious of an idea, someone has to be working on it somewhere.
Right now we are seeing a huge transition for drones, moving from the era of being remotely piloted aircraft to autonomous robotic aircraft. The Fire Scout the Navy is working on is completely computer-controlled, the only joysticks on the ground equipment are for directing the cameras.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZSok1JRWbu0
I've read about what the scout drones can do for warfare and its revolutionary. Field commanders can get a view of the battlefield that is something you'd expect from a video game, eye in the sky, spying on enemy positions, all of the information relayed to a tactical plot in real-time. Avionics designers have been talking about sensory overload for a long time, the problem where a pilot can have more geegaws and doodads feeding him information than he can deal with at one time. That was the reason why interceptors like the F-14 and F-4 had a dedicated radar operator in addition to the pilot. That's also the reason why a guy-in-back was added to some models of the F-15. With more advanced systems fusing the streams of information into consolidated displays, one pilot can keep up with all of the information. That's why the Apache flies with a pilot and gunner but the canceled Comanche only had a single pilot.
This same process is going to be going on in the army general's command post. And with how bloody cheap technology is getting, you can well imagine the same thing will be happening for the third world military and insurgents as well.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Oh, please, people.
Think rationally for a minute. What benefit can a supposed micro-UAV provide in this kind of gathering? Why on earth would the US Government "out" itself in a situation like this? Any halfway intelligent spy agency (as I believe ours ARE, regardless of any opinions about their oversight) would hold technology like this for really really really important, and otherwise impossible to penetrate, situations, and especially situations where the technology would not be seen (like nighttime).
Think about it. Big gathering. Public place. Plenty of surrounding buildings. No limits on attendance. Hundreds of people waving around cell phone cameras. Recording devices allowed in the area. If you want pictures of who's there, just pretend you're a protester really happy about the size of the crowd, and wander around like an idiot with your (looks like a) $50 CVS disposable video camera, blatantly taking pictures of everything and everyone in sight. You'll get much closer, more stable, clearer pictures, and nobody is the wiser. Why try to hide?
This doesn't pass the basic sniff test. Not many conspiracy theories do, when you really think about them rationally.
I'm a geocacher, and I like to hunt "urban micro" caches - tiny containers hidden in highly-trafficked areas. Hunting for them is not unlike being a spy, I think, and I've found that trying to sneak is very ineffective. If you look like everyone else, and act like everyone else, you can hide your actions a LOT better than if you LOOK like you're trying to hide. Same thing here: it makes a lot more sense to blend in, than try some super-fancy new technology which WILL be noticed.
Incidentally, I am NOT denying these things might exist. But I am pretty certain that if they are being used, it's in much more carefully and wisely chosen scenarios.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I'm sure just as many people in the crowd would have reported seeing BatBoy if you asked them!
What most people don't seem to understand is just how far ahead certain government agencies are. It does not matter that public agencies are behind (better actually). The Marquise program gives a glimpse, for example.
Abstract
The goal of the MARQUISE project is to demonstrate the impact of advanced packaging technologies on a commercial high performance computer architecture. Multi Chip Modules (MCMs), diamond substrates, and phase change spray cooling are used together to shrink a 4 processor, 1 GByte memory version of the Cray J90 supercomputer from a cabinet system down to a form factor suitable for a 19 inch rack [in an
aircraft]. Weight is reduced by 75% and volume is reduced by 80%. Code is currently executing on the MARQUISE testvehicle. The final SOLITAIRE prototype is scheduled for demonstration in late summer 1997.
http://www.redrapids.com/Publications/Sienski/CUG97%20-%20Marquise%20-%20An%20Embedded%20High%20Performance%20Computer%20Demonstration.PDF
...the bill. And this is just a toy, I imagine a well funded lab could make one even better. Either way, nice catch, some one with mod points, and etc.
Adding a microphone/camera and transmitter to the "Moth" sized microflyer (video available) noted in the article might be possible, but your flight time is going to suffer and be in the tens of minutes... not very useful right now or at least until battery efficiencies improve.
Some of the micro-flyer tech. from the noted Flying Insects and Robots Symposium is pretty slick as well. I especially like the Flapping-Wing MAV with a single fixed wing and dual flappers than creates a pseudo-ground effect to fly more efficiently/stably.
Lastly, considering the Blackbird (high altitude/high speed) and stealth technology that the government started developing all the way back in the 1970's for goodness sake, you really need to push the imagination to honestly even guess at what they might be working on currently.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
...or would the European have more load-carrying capacity at that airspeed velocity?
1: line entry points with magnets 2: collect dragonflys 3: ??? 4: profit
Who let John Romero at the research budget?
Dr john chapin http://www.downstate.edu/pharmacology/chapin.htm did mind controlling via electric pulses on rats to control it's movements. I don't think such a technology could be adapted for insects. Though this has been successfully tested on mamals. (rats , bulls).
I think the power suply needed for such devices would be weigh to much if anything else.
Remember COINTELPRO? You know, where the government went after everyone from peace activists to Black Panthers? The government infiltrated activist groups, used dirty tricks like forging press releases, harassed dissidents using the legal system, and even went so far as to break into their houses without search warrants and beat them.
Don't be surprised when our government does bad things to dissidents. They have a long and sordid history of it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Waiting 5, 10 or even 20 years after a program deploys to confirm or announce its deployment is par for the course, and the Admiral would have to play along. Shock and awe!
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
Please, anyone who thinks this is a reality, go to Walmart and pick one of those up (Target carries them too, as well as Toys'R'Us, etc)
Once you get this badboy home, power her up and fly her around! Make sure you do it inside. Oh ya, make sure the AC/Heat is off as well. Also make sure no fans are on. Please also ask everyone around to not walk near it. If any of these happen, it'll make it nearly impossible to fly.
Why am I bringing this up? Well simple. People want to believe in these dragonfly, big brother is watching, micro tech, James Bond style toys. However, they have no idea how difficult it is to actually FLY them.
Indoors, I can fly my (see link) around for quite a while and have a good time at it. It's especially fun to turn on a fan to start a slight breeze just to try and navigate the air currents. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible, but it is a challenge and I like challenges.
Now, if a slight breeze, from a steady fan makes it impossible to fly, what will it do outside in a 2 mph wind with GUSTS to 4mph? The thing, at 6", is stupid hard to control in a house, with a fan on. Now you want me to believe the govt has dragonfly sized "spy" bots flying around OUTSIDE? And that they have any reliability at all?
I'm serious when I say this.. No.. It's just not going to happen. UNLESS you can GUARANTEE zero wind. Nadda, zilch.. Then, ya, might happen. But unfortunately, outside weather is rarely perfectly still and again, the slightest breeze at all, will totally throw it around to the point it is impossible to fly.
Let's ask a very basic question here: Assuming the U.S. Government has such devices, why the hell would they wasted them "spying" on a public protest, when they could easily use parabolic mikes and telephoto lenses to do a much better job?
Here's another one: Why would the government risk expensive, rare devices on a low value target like a public protest?
This whole thing fails all the basic smell tests.
Clear, Dark Skies
They're shaped like insects and certainly don't carry any warning they're a government property. Now suppose I see one of these beasts and "kill" it, can they prosecute me for destroying government property or military equipment when its real nature was concealed?
In my opinion either answer would create a dangerous precedent.
Admiral Dyer (pun intended?) was quoted from his hospice-care room where he is enduring the final stages of pancreatic cancer.
At the time of his quote, it was observed that he had his fingers crossed, leading some to speculate that the admiral instead intends to be mirthfully dead.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
They're paranoid. And why are they so paranoid? Its all the drugs they're taking.
It's most likely an RC-toy from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Sure, maybe the military moded a few of them with tiny cameras and microphones. But it seems far more likely that some civilian just thought it would be cool to play with it in front of a huge crowd.
Ok first off I don't think this happened but just to play devils advocate heres some counter points to the naysayers
1. Why would the gov want to do this? They are are looking for an individual in the crowd and a swarm of photo happy insects make a prefect solution.
2. What about the power? Something this small should require very little power possibly a ground based power system.
3. Why risk using it here when we risk exposure? See 2 if it has a ground based power system then it would have a very limited range and would only be useful for situations where you have large amounts of people in a contained space that you can easily get close to. Also field testing.
The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Dragonfly-sized Insect Spies.
The cyborgs are mine. And they have lasers! If I don't get,,,,,,,, $1000.00, cash, small bills, I will turn them loose on Newark, NJ. You have till Friday!!!!!
Spies on people. Bigger than a dragonfly. Lame.
yes. that's all I'm going to say in all comments from now on.
and maybe sometimes not? Of course, even if you make these things, they'll often meet an untimely end (Murphy's Law says they'll run into Stanley ;-), so they had better be on the inexpensive side.
The Insecticons later ate him to prove their existence. Never give robots a problem that can only be solved via murder.
This is one of those Faux-News talking points. The militant right has pundits, spokespeople, and press agents who have been told to hammer away at the idea that the anti-war movement is the traditional left, that this makes them the same as the pro-union 'left', the pro-NEA 'left', the pro-ACLU 'left', and that all of these are really the HIPPIE DRUGGY COMMIE LEFT.
I disagree with many of this current administration's actions - that doesn't mean I would stoop to claim they are all strung out on Oxycontin.
Who is John Cabal?
I think people are looking in the wrong place. What if it's not the CIA's new surveillance technology but Google testing their new real-world indexing bots?
*ba dum tsch*
No sig for you!!
I remember reading about this kind of thing when I was growing up-- it was "Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy."
http://www.amazon.com/Danny-Dunn-Invisible-Boy-Williams/dp/0671450689/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn,_Invisible_Boy/
Batteries - this would be very difficult to make work for a long time when it has to fly by way of flapping wings!
Control system - Airplanes are *relatively* easy to make a control system for, because they're well studied and time tested(and even this is hard and requires pounds upon pounds of circuitry (yes, the redundancy isn't necessary for a spy bug, but even the smallest processors/accelerometers/gyroscopes weigh more than a fsking bug!). A robot with flapping wings we don't understand well on the original nature-made product? not happening yet!
Reproducing a convincing style of flight
When someone caught/"killed" one, the jig would be up!
What's much more likely is All those hurdles have been overcome.
Work toward this goal has been conducted under a grant from the U.S. Air Force (see reduced size versions of the Reciprocating Chemical Muscle second, third, and fourth generations)
Demonstration of a "milli-scaled" Entomopter was the highest rated project for internal funding by the Georgia Tech Research Institute during the 1998 fiscal year. Applications for patents on the various components of Michelson's research have been submitted with the first having been granted for the overall Entomopter concept on July 4, 2000 and another being granted for the propulsion system September 10, 2002.
You can't take the sky from me...
...until they are small enough to get through the holes in the colanders we wear to shield us from the govt mind-reading rays.
THEN we'll have to worry.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
...on check-list of things to take to protests:
1. Sandwich-board with appropriate slogan
2. Bullhorn
3. Goggles
4. Gas-mask
5. Long-handled butterfly net
Hasn't it been hypothesized that first contact from other sentient life may come in the form of robotic bugs? NASA has even talked about that approach to explore planets in our own solar system. Swarms of cheap, simple bug-like robots.
And if there was a swarm of other-worldly robotic bugs now here on earth, might they not be attracted to an event like a protest? And does anyone believe any government is likely to admit it?
Communication using insects.
So the ants on my desk are really a message? Let's see if I can decipher it...
C...L...E...A...N...Y...O...U...R...O...F...F...I...C...E
No, that doesn't make any sense at all.
Blank until
I'm one of the most strongly anti-war people you will find, am 25, and have never been drunk/stoned/high.
No, it's the democratic governments that are controlled by the people, so therefore, any controlling done by the government is controlling by the people (by proxy).
America is *not* a democracy, however. It is a republic.
http://www.thisnation.com/question/011.html
So in essence, controlling of the populace is done by the government in what they view as the "best interest" of the people and not necessarily at the direct and express request of the people. Big effing difference, at least in my paranoid liberal opinion.
Transistors and Beer!!
You can't take the sky from me...
Actually, an autonomous device about this size capable of storing energy for quite a lot of flight time has already been demonstrated, without devoting much body mass to storage. In addition to possessing quick-tracking wide-angle optics, the device is agile enough in the air to capture objects determined to be a threat in flight.
The device is, of course, a common dragonfly.
Yeah. caused a stir Daily Kos a few days ago.
"You might recall that Gandalf the friendly wizard in the recent classic 'Lord of the Rings' used a moth to call in air support," DARPA program manager Amit Lal said at a symposium in August. Today, he said, "this science fiction vision is within the realm of reality."
Reverse engineering Clarke's "technology is indistiguishable from magic".
and
At the same time, he added, some details do not make sense. Three people at the D.C. event independently described a row of spheres, the size of small berries, attached along the tails of the big dragonflies -- an accoutrement that Louton could not explain. And all reported seeing at least three maneuvering in unison.
"Dragonflies never fly in a pack," he said.
Sounds like the dragonfly's in my area going after a swarm of gnats. It could appear like "unison" as they dart into the cloud.
Unfortunately, there are no screenies, so it did not happen.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I'll even sell you the foil for your windows too.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
R/C ornithopters aren't that rare any more. Check out this video of the CyBird, which is pigeon-sized and battery powered. The video shows four minutes of aggressive aerobatics; it can be flown longer if you spend more time gliding. This thing costs $149.
Smaller ones are available. The dragonfly-sized ones are usually flown indoors, but if winds are low, they can be used outdoors.
So it could either be some Government agency watching, or somebody in the crowd with an R/C toy.
Comments like this make me think I really should start a tin-foil hat business. It looks like there's a growing market for them.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has had artificial dragonflies with eavesdropping capabilities since the 1970s. The mechanical dragonflies were originally constructed to spy on clandestine meetings conducted spontaneously in open spaces, such as parks, where anything larger would be too conspicuous. The operator controlled the dragonfly via remote with a laser pointer like device. These were built and they actually flew and were controllable, but they proved to be ill suited for outdoor use where wind of 2mph or more would render them ineffective (the motor powering the wings was simply not strong enough to overcome the air currents). This was all documented in the book Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class by T. J. Waters.
Think about it:
If 'they'/we have these things, why take the chance of them getting "outed" when just one of these untested devices fails over a crowd, and is found by one of the very people who it is being used against, people who would *love* to use it to cry "Foul!", and "See how the current power structure sucks!". (Which it does - we need a third political party up there, but I digress...)
I think it more likely that it would be tested far away from a place where it might be discovered accidently for whatever reasn, and then very publicly made known about.
No point in having a spy that the enemy knows about...
Now, maybe they've gone past a testing stage, and are actively deployed. In that case, they are just being *used*, and that is a whole 'nother thing...
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
Really? You look stoned in the aerial photos in your dossier.
Evil is the money of root.
I think everyone's getting carried away by the use of the words "insect" and "dragonfly". The article only says "larger than", not even how much larger. There's a picture here: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2627196/. They're advertised on TV. They're significantly larger than an insect, but consider also the helicopters and other flying toys available in the back of Popular Science or through Think Geek, as shown here: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/. In a crowd and from many feet below, it might be hard to tell the difference between a palm-size RC helicopter and a palm-sized insectoid robot.
So the little flying doohickeys exist and are easy to get and it could've just been someone in the crowd horsing around with a toy.
Of course, this also means the government could easily have a form of the same thing with cameras and microphones, but, as has been pointed out, that's a long way to go to listen in on protestors.
The "field test" theory doesn't work either: the consequences of losing the item are too great if they're trying to keep it secret. But if the governement really uses these, no problem-o. Go buy a toy, take it to your next protest, and crash it into the teeny tiny "black helicopters". Fun for all!
Wow, this site has really degenerated from a site that had news, to this bizarre panic room for liberals. Happy 10th, slashdot, hope the boogeymen let you live a little longer...
Please investigate this organized crime member.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Kilgore Trout, PatRIOT
In other words "Pics or it didn't happen."
Plain and simple, anyone can claim anything and someone is going to buy it even if there is absolutely no proof. Just look at homeopathy.
No pictures of the "dragonflies" and I have to conclude it is paranoia and drugs talking.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Posted AC. About a decade ago, when I lived near the New York/Ontario border I remember an instance where a friend and I saw the most unusual "insect". It was on the ground at the time and we both couldn't believe it, the thing did not look like a regular insect though from a distance it could have been mistaken for a dragonfly. From close-up, it was much larger than your average dragon fly, had a camouflage green surface, and seemed bulky. No idea what it was, and I don't have a photo, but it was so strange that I remembered it clearly since that day.
Butterfly nets...
Can't prove it? Oh come on! There's 14 of these for sale on eBay already!
Anyone who's developed electronics know beta crap you give to the customer (generals, in this case) gets onto eBay long before it's actually put into production.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Insect-sized flying surveillance doesn't make much sense for these applications until battery life dramatically improves. A bunch of remote controlled cameras mounted on buildings and street lights is cheaper, simpler, and better.
As a DC resident, I can tell you that we had a minor cicada outbreak in August and September. It was nothing like the big outbreaks you see on the news, and I imagine a lot of people didn't even notice, but, if you paid attention, you could see dead ones on the sidewalks and the occasional one buzz over head.
They're huge, they fly slowly, and they sometimes fly in circles because they're a little stupid. Also, they seem to fly at a wide range of heights. I saw one clinging to the window on the 7th story.
maybe he's trying a new toy http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8996836251682690877
Someone take a butterfly net to the next anti-war rally and catch one of these things. Either take pictures and let it go, or do an autopsy. Can you steal something that doesn't exist?
The U.S. Government has a history of testing on U.S. Citizens. In fact by LAW they can it is part of United States Code - Title 50 - War And National Defense - Chapter 32 - Chemical And Biological Warefare Program.
Secret Military Experimentation on Americans Was "Legal"
BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL TESTING ON HUMAN BEINGS
HISTORY OF SECRET EXPERIMENTATION ON UNITED STATES CITIZENS
If you look there is even more showing this kind of secret testing has been going on for a looong time.
See More
These "insects" are also just another way for the government to ssecretly spy on you, warentless wiretaps wasn't enough. With these things they could "fly" them into your house and see and hear what your are doing/saying while -not- on the phone. Think the government wouldn't do that? What about all the "secret" wiretaps of U.S. Citizens by the NSA - which by the way ins illigal in itself.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
So it's impossible that one of the protesters, or just a kid nearby, was just playing with one of these
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
6 inch RC helicopter for $80 at Skymall
I have no idea if people really saw this or what the logic would be of using such a device at a war protest, but to say that such a device is impossible with not only today's consumer technology, but expensive, secret military technology seems mighty foolish to me. Take a look at the link and see how small such a cheap device is. It can fly for 8 minutes on a charge. I really don't think it's far-fetched to imagine something half the size that can fly twice the amount of time, especially if cost is no problem. That's all they would really need.
Where can I get my iBat, a flying robot bat that eats these flying spook "bugs"? If the spook bugs don't exist, no one will complain when they disappear.
I wonder what kind of authentication those spook bugs use in their surveillance network. Once a few are captured, how will the spook operators tell that fake data isn't being injected into their system by the surveillance targets?
--
make install -not war
I have no idea if people really saw this or what the logic would be of using such a device at a war protest, but to say that such a device is impossible with not only today's consumer technology, but expensive, secret military technology seems mighty foolish to me.
I don't think the main problem for such devices is flight - it's control, and putting a useful payload on the device given the degree of control attainable. Everyone seems to be assuming video, and that it must be sending high-resolution pictures of everyone at the protest to some big central database. This seems unrealistic to me - at best, such a small device is likely to have relatively poor resolution pictures (remember, it must not be not taking them from very close up since nobody could get a good look at it). Telephoto lenses only help if you can keep the platform stable - otherwise you quickly lose your target when the platform gets caught by a puff of air. Wide-angle crowd shots still might be useful for generalized crowd management - for example, if some madman like the guy at VA Tech pulls out a gun, it might help locate him - but they aren't going to be very useful for identifying individuals unless they're pretty high resolution.
But there are lots of other payloads that might be more useful - sniffers (for explosives or for radioactivity), or audio come immediately to mind - and these do not have the very severe directional and distance problems that video does. For many kinds of surveillance they are even more useful than most video would be.
But, again, given that this is DC in the summer it's likely to be .... just a dragonfly. Even if the CIA has thousands of these things, that's a tiny fraction of the number of real dragonflies in DC.
while i agree that it's pretty unlikely that these things really exist ... i would like to challenge those who question the possibility of such a device.
... granted, the biology world may not be able to reproduce it in the consumer market - but it's not completely out of the question to think that the government has the funds and research to create such a thing.
... but not radically so. ;-)
while we certainly don't have the navigation capabilities nor the energy capabilities in the consumer market, a precedent for almost exactly the same type of "device" already exists in nature: real dragonflies! i don't mean that as a joke, but rather - actual dragonflies don't have some special advanced technology that provides them with navigation or energy. they don't require souped-up battery backs and neat-o remote controls
any why not test it at a rally? it's domestic, and perhaps the timing was right and that was the first opportunity.
granted - i'm still skeptical
There are three brands of PillCams (look up capsule endoscopy) already on the market. They are smaller than the body of a dragonfly and can broadcast live video images to a receiver. Just add wings and a more powerful antenna and you have your dragonfly-sized spy plane. The FBI says it doesn’t have anything like that because it’s probably already obsolete.
Why bother spying at a public gathering? To see if anyone noticed, is my guess. And they did. There must have been something unnatural about the way they moved when they flapped their wings, kind of the way bats don’t look like birds.
No match for Robotic Frog countermeasure
(metallic ribbit sound)
'Property of Blackwater' with an LED that counts down.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I suppose they're fair game for target practice and nets.
And still got modded up (typical slashdot antics)..
I just got back from a national park this weekend, there were hundreds of dragonflies, and it was VERY EASY to get a photo of one. Even with my $100 7.1 megapixel camera. Don't believe me?
http://img114.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture059sp8.jpg
Cheers.
Today, hobbyists, i.e. skilled individuals without govt./corp. funding are able to make radio-controlled (or at least infrared controlled) electric-powered aircraft that weigh less than a gram. Many of these hobbyists frequent this forum: http://www.rcgroups.com/indoor-and-micro-models-85. Also note that you can go to most any Target store and buy an off-the-shelf IR-controlled helicopter that measures 6" long at 10 grams and costs around $35. Ten years ago, AeroVironments was building a disk-shaped Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) with a 6" wingspan and was semi-autonomous, had GPS and video and employed a nearly silent direct-drive electric motor.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
A couple of weekends ago I participated in a local triathlon, and afterwards in the park they had stands set up with refreshments, gear, etc, where people gathered to wait for the results. I saw this giant mechanical-looking bug go zooming over the crowd, high in the air, maybe 20 feet up. It looked something like a dragonfly but was enormous, maybe six or eight inches long. The weird thing is that we don't have dragonflies around here, at least I've never seen one. At the time I wasn't sure if it was a real dragonfly or some kind of RC plane/copter. I looked around for someone controlling it but didn't see anything. It just made one pass over the crowd and was gone.
This was not any kind of political gathering, it was just a race like hundreds of others that occur across the country every weekend. But it really struck me as odd and I pointed it out to my wife. Then today I read this article about mechanical dragonflies, and I thought wow, that might have been what I saw.
Your Rights. Online.
Mod parent up.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Were they in flight? That's what we're talking about. Pictures of stationary dragonflies are pretty easy, as you noticed, since you've got all the time in the world to compose the picture and wait on autofocus. I've taken some too: see http://picasaweb.google.com/entropius/RandomPicturesOfStuff/photo#5077785492647280562 (with a 7MP $250 camera). This was a lucky situation -- the wind was high enough that the poor little fellow was hanging on to his plant for dear life, and let me stick a camera right in his face. In better conditions (for the insect) it's harder, but can still be done.
And, just since you apparently want to have a "who knows what they're talking about" fight (please don't flame people for being clueless on the internet until you confirm that they actually are; sometimes they're not):
The insects in your picture are damselflies, not dragonflies. They're in the same order (Odonata), so you get half credit for that one. They seem to be the same as these guys (with an old 3MP camera), and are doing the same thing.
Dragonflies (or mythical dragonfly-like spy robots with tinfoil hats and mind control beams, or whatever the article is about) in *flight* are another matter entirely. The only good picture of one that I know about is here, the photographer had to do the prefocus tricks I mentioned earlier, and everybody agrees that getting that picture took a lot of skill and luck.
HTH.
I had an interesting conversation with some fellow photographers in the DC area last night. Several were at the protest. While most of the protesters either ignored photographers or accommodated them, a few actually reacted negatively and objected strongly when they realized that their picture was being taken. The general response to this was for a group of photographers to swarm around the objecting protester and start snapping away all at once, as a form of collective "FU" and "here's your reality check" before moving on. Apparently, some people don't stop to think through the implications of what they are planning on doing for the day before heading out the door in the morning.
MR. BURNS!!!
...sir.
...pizziola concern?
Homer: J. Montgomery Burns, I know you're guilty! JE'ACCUSE!!!
Burns: Fine, I admit it -- I had Amelia Earhart's plane shot down. That hussy was getting too big for her jumpers.
Homer: No!! You've been spying all over town with your black vans and video cameras!
Burns: Black vans? Hmm. Aren't they involved in some
Homer: WHAAA?!? They were only pizza vans?? Oh, I'm a class 5 idiot!
Burns: Smithers! Release the hounds! And if this man is an employee of the power plant, fire him at once!
Sorry, but I couldn't resist that "Simpsons: Hit And Run" reference.
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
Boo!
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I am surprised that I have not seen anyone comment on the CIA's recruiting commercials that have a dragonfly flying around through the length of the commercial...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg4_MuV4MpY
Ramen
If there was really something at all these places with all these people not only there should be some phone camera shots (dot in the sky) but even some more decent stuff, some professional and a lot of amateurs are always present at events like that, and while it is difficult taking a photo like that is definitively possible.
Take a look at this: http://bayimg.com/NAhogAabi (no, no goatse).
I'm just an amateur with a decent mid-to-low end reflex (EOS 350) and lens (75-300mm optical, not stabilized), that was the first time I tried stuff like that, yet when I saw a Dragonfly continuously flying a 20 meter loop in full sun over shallow water some 10 meters below me (I was standing on the side of a cliff in Sicily) I was able to select high ISO (1600, that's why the image is so grainy), LOW exposure time (1/2000), manual focus, point to the end of the loop (lowest speed), zoom somewhat right (EXIF says it was optical 200, which on that camera means really 320mm focal length), click some 10 times and get four good images like that in various positions of flight.
And you really think if there was something to see there would be no photographs ?
It's really not much of a stretch to imagine the military have something a little smaller, is it?
It's really not much of a stretch to imagine the military have something a little smaller, is it?
How much privacy should one expect in public? Public as in, not in your house or car, but an in an area anyone can get too (public streets etc).
i'm not asking this as "if you have nothing to hide...", but as "seriously, you're in public, public is the opposite of private".
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/snowwolf/index.php/2007/09/16/fly-away-dragonfly/
Because the best place to test secret spy gear is in a big crowd.
Clear, Dark Skies
"So it comes down to these two options.
a. The government of the US can create almost magical technology and then is stupid enough to use it in this manner.
or
b. Someone at a anti-war protest thinks they see robotic spy bug and tells other like minded people that they saw a spy bug who are then sure they saw a spy bug......"
Lets see we have in option A: The dimwits behind the Iraq war, duct tape personal protection and color coded terrorism alerts. In option B: Quite a few rally attending activist tinfoil hat types. Sorry but it seems to me that both of your options are equally valid.
Wabi Sabi
Matthew