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Armed Robot Drones To Join UK Police Force
Lanxon writes "British criminals should soon prepare to be shot at from unmanned airborne police robots. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers. But these drones could be armed with tasers, non-lethal projectiles and ultra-powerful disorienting strobe lighting apparatus, reports Wired. The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by one police force, to BAE System's new 12m-wide armed HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan."
Your Rights Offline
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
I wonder if the robot is a cousin of that one...
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/07/28/2012218/Londons-Robotic-Fire-Brigade
The one in the TFA seems to have tracks instead of wheels but they seem similar. Same company building them maybe ?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
The LRAD is a highly directional speaker made of a flat array of piezoelectric transducers, producing intense beam of sound in a 30-degree cone. It can be used as a loudhailer, or deafen the target with a jarring, discordant noise. Some ships now carry LRAD as an anti-pirate measure: It was used to drive off an attack on the Seabourn Spirit off Somalia in 2005.
I recommend UK people carry rubber bungs to put in their ears, in the case of planetary destruction by Vogons and attack by insane police UAVs.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
British criminals...antisocial motorists
Last I heard, antisocial motoring was rather annoying, but not actually a crime.
"Citizens^W Subjects of the Crown, prepare to be coerced into socially approved behaviours!"
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
February 10 @ 6:43 PM: When Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence?
February 10 @ 9:45 PM: Six-legged Robot Teaches Itself to Walk
February 11 @ 2:24 AM: Armed Robot Drones to Join UK Police Force
In less than 8 hours we have gone from wondering about AI, to robots that have learned how to walk, to robots that are flying around shooting at people. This is all happening much too fast.
Sure why not. Why not make them sniper bots while you're at it, throw in nuclear powered autonomous plains too...
FFS!
Hehe, ignore parent post, picture is misleading. It seems TFA and the summary is talking about flying robots, hehe ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Neato! No longer will a call to the cops that your house has been burgled and there are footprints and fingerprints all over the place result in a response of 'we are too busy to investigate, here's a crime number for your insurance claim'. Now it will be 'we will have a unit over the area within minutes, here's a crime number for your insurance claim'. Still no investigation, but maybe the drone can measure how cars are parked and issue some tickets.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Your Rights On roads
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
another paradigm shift in law enforcement. Keeping the keyboard cops on their butts and the streets of England safe, with Hunter Taser bots!
Anything sub-lethal will be childishly easy to defeat, once it's been seen in action a few times. And no doubt the methods used will quickly be adapted by terrorists for Third World use on the more dangerous versions of the drones.
I sat here for barely a minute and came up with three ways to mislead and confuse the drones that would almost certainly have a high degree of success. And I'm no expert.
One hint: how will the cops look when they taser a minor who happens to be dressed like the alleged criminal, and how difficult would it be to engineer such a substitution?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Dammit you guys...
1984 and Brazil (movie not country) are not bloody HOWTO guides!
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
I think you know where this is going...
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Game over. :(
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
This is a highly speculative article, assuming that because these drones can carry weapons that they will.
While I wouldn't put it past the Home Office to want to do this, I'd be surprised if the Police were too keen.
Here in the UK there is a strange dichotomy, we seem perfectly happy to be watched all the time, but the idea of armed police is an absolute no go.
Riot police in the UK don't even use water cannon, and rubber bullets haven't been used by british police in decades. There are a few areas which have introduced a handful of Tasers, but these are used by specialist armed response units, not the average bobby on the beat. The idea of launching anything potentially dangerous from the air seem highly unlikely when they don't even use it on the ground.
Of course that doesn't stop the police from being violent, but when they are it tends to be national news for weeks after. See the death of Ian Tomlinson and the controversial "ketteling" technique used at the demonstrations in the summer for good examples.
The UK Police are currently trying desperately trying to improve their public image after a lot of bad press from the 2009 demos, and the ongoing harassment of photographers and the abuse of the Section 44 Stop and Search powers. Doing something like this would put them back to square one the moment it goes wrong.
So while not impossible, this report seemed to be highly speculative and purely designed to get clicks and build paranoia.
For all their flaws, the UK police are not actually idiots, and in a land where police are not armed, and using a baton in a riot is considered heavy handed, let alone water cannon and rubber bullets, launching Tasers from the sky would be public relations disaster.
Paul Leader
will the armed robot drones run Linux?
If you don't know what you're doing, you can't make mistakes.
it's just another brick in the wall. I can't believe these tactics and tools are the will of the people of the UK. I sincerely hope that if it is not they rein in their government--while they still can.
I'll just quote myself from two weeks ago ... Guess it took less then a month for the idea to go from "surveilance" to "armed reponsons". I do wonder what the next step will be; perhaps a little printer so it can give you a ticket right then and there.
"Since most police officers in the UK dont carry firearms this would or could be a faster response then sending out the Armed response vehicles. So I do wonder how long it will take them to arm the drones, after all what harm could that possibly do ... That way you can stop all them tractor thieves and cashpoint burglers dead in the their tracks."
Could be tasers. Why stop there, let us go for missiles (to much collateral damage tho) and chainguns (not sure it could take one of those - probably to large and shakes to much etc) while we are at it. BRING IT ON!
And because it's Britain, there isn't much to worry about. The project will be delayed by 8 years, overrun its budget by about 12 Million GBP. They'll come up with a crap logo for it as they did for the Olympics, and within a few hours of launch, the drones will malfunction and start tasering trees; eventually the whole project will be scrapped for health and safety reasons, I mean, what if the tree falls on someone while it's being tasered?
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
herti-corp
but more seriously
BAE is the second largest defense contractor in the world. It got caught doing bribery years back and promised not to do it any more. But of course it did and lied about it. The big bribe lately was a bribe of the Saudis on maybe a 43 billion dollar deal., which is even discussed in the bribee's autobiography.
Now you might think BAE might get their ticket pulled. But on the brit side, BAE is key to their global strategy and on the usa side, a real investigation of the saudi deal would yield information on how the bribe was spent, which would be troublesome with respect to 9/11. So everyone gave BAE a nice plea deal, where BAE pays a few hundred million dollars for lying about bribery, but the charge does not mention bribery.
Of course Obama should have nixed the plea bargin, but the deal was so wired and had been in the works so long, only Obama could have nixed it. It is worth noting, but it is almost pointless to complain very much. Still, crushing BAE would have been helpful.
wikipedia under BAE-Systems has a lot on BAE.
robot: Good day human. You have the right to remain silent.... robot reboots ......System updating ......delete UK laws ......uploading Chinese laws
robot: you are to be executed.
accused: but you have just read me my rights
boom
. . . a bunch of British MPs abused a system for living expenses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal
. . . especially the guy who used tax payer money to clean the "moat" around his estate . . .
. . . a drone armed with a Hellfire missile would be appropriate justice for him.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I think that is acutally a depiction of the iRobot Warrior. Same company that makes roombas.
Ofcourse, it'll start without harm with just the cops patrolling the street. Then they remove the human factor to bring in computerized lawenforcement. They do that with hanging CCTV everywhere. Ofcourse, to prevent terrorism and such. But it's not enough. It seems crime is still not solved. So what do we do? Bring in military drones with a lobotomy on it's weaponry. However this will still not produce the required results so we use military drones but with 100% effectiveness to link them to a central computer-core.
In the near future the artificial intelligence network will be called Skynet and will become self-aware. Then it will build an army of machines.
I don't understand but 'some' people warned us about this.
http://news.cnet.com/i/tim/20090414/iRobot_Warrior_PackBot_270x203.jpg -- seems pretty close
And my first thought was not about Terminator, but about Robocop. Seeing how it goes, I'll bet that they'll put some social and then commercial advertisements into them, forcing you to listen to it.
"Stay calm, citizen, your crime report is being processed. Meanwhile, consider that with new Toyota your chances of getting in accident are statistically lower, and it comfortable and ergonomic interior would help you to recover from stress much faster. Think about your future right now!" Now that is a scary thought.
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
Nate here from Wired. Somehow the URL Slashdot's pointing to has been truncated. Correct one is: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-02/10/future-police-meet-the-uk's-armed-robot-drones.aspx
I know this part of TFS was about a slightly different story, but: "[...] modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers" sums up the state of the UK perfectly, our Glorious Government will spend millions on police drones that carry out surveillance on everyone from protesters to motorists to people throwing away rubbish, so everyone except criminals then?
It's the same old pattern, if it costs a fortune and can be used to keep the guy on the street under control, the budget is endless whether the excuse is terrorism/crime (new strict laws, insane airport security, full body scanners, ID cards, numerous measures to spy on everything we do) or our own "safety" (miles and miles of speed cameras, even on roads where you're lucky to be doing half the speed limit most of the time), and yet nobody seems to feel any safer.
That flying ultra-powerful strobes are perfect for an outdoor rave?
Actually, I'd have to disagree with that.
They'll find a way to monetise this - have the robots automatically hand out fines, for instance - and believe me, within a year they will be amazingly efficient.
I see a commenter who's never been tased.
Call back with these lame film comparisons when the drones start strapping people to chairs and interrogating them. If anything, this is more like Minority Report.
after bobbies
here come robbies
to catch robbers
raised with teletubbies
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
Straight out of the TV show...
Next thing you know, we will be experimenting with genetically modified super hot chicks that can kick ass and ride a bike to save the day and take out these drones.
...become the Daily Mail?
20 paragraphs of speculation, then:
In 2008 the Met rejected government plans for a wider issue of tasers to non-specialist officers because of the fear they could cause, and there have been numerous complaints of abuse. For some, the arrival of a hovering law-enforcement drone with a video eyes and a 50,000-volt taser at the ready might be a police technology too far.
So the Met police, not exactly known for their touchy-feely approach, have rejected a more widespread use of weapons despite it having been approved by the government, but they're now going to begin flying armed drones?
The drones that have been used by British police forces so far have been four rotor craft with cameras. Given that they're ground controlled, the difference between their use and that of helicopter surveillance (and I'm not asserting that the latter is used appropriately in all circumstances) appears primarily to be that of cost, rather than the impending rise of the machines.
(The captcha on this was "conforms". Doubleplus ungood.)
...what they're trying to say is they're increasing their police force? Or are these robots not standard-issue Englishmen?
Tell that to Sergeant Killbot. His new 133.7 firmware includes a Modern Literature database and a hardware irony decoder.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
on unmaned remote controled vehicles is ultimately the only thing that will deter shoplifters.
"... and yet nobody seems to feel any safer."
And of course there is good reason for that: nobody is any safer.
Traffic cameras have actually increased accident rates. A recent report said that approximately 1 crime was solved for every 100,000 surveillance cameras installed (there are over a million in London). The report did not say whether any of them were major crimes, or whether the same crime might have been solved anyway had the cops been on the street instead of behind cameras. And how about cost? How much does it cost to install 100,000 cameras and pay someone to watch them?
And so on. It seems like it has just been an endless stream of the same old thing: give up your liberties in order to make you "safer", but in reality it inconveniences you greatly, costs you a lot of money, and doesn't work. But you have still lost those liberties.
--
"They that give up essential liberties in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin
. . . Daleks!.
Apologies, I did not mean to make it look like I was mixing traffic and surveillance cameras. They are separate issues, but accidentally got put into the same paragraph.
They'll never program robots to have the hatred, malice and spite of real coppers. Maybe a robot could gun down an unarmed man on a tube station platform, but could it convincingly circulate a wholly misleading account of events afterwards? And then, after the inquest, issue a press release basically saying "We don't care, we'll do it again if we feel like it".
Actually, I'd argue I don't feel any safer because I didn't feel unsafe before. I'm more likely to die by alcohol poisoning, in a car accident, from a heart attack, or cancer, and these are all things that I can have a direct influence on.
Terrorism just doesn't scare me.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Great. I'm curious to know if they are cooperating with the IDF in this project, which was happily flying around UAV's in Gaza last year.
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead ... or stopped protesting the government. On a more serious note, why is it that governments and military seems to want to place weapons in the hands of robots? Yes, yes, it is easier to get a robot to fire on the "enemy" (particularly if that enemy is a civilian), but I would very much like to not have a cylon uprising, thank you very much. Asimov had a reason for building his fictional robots with his three laws of robotics. Yes, a bit naive, given how power structures work, but a good sort of naive.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
"... and yet nobody seems to feel any safer."
And of course there is good reason for that: nobody is any safer.
Traffic cameras have actually increased accident rates.
That's not relevant. Have traffic cameras reduced injury rates and/or seriousness of injury? British roads are some of the safest in the world, but that's a combination of traffic patterns, road design, driving style, congestion, law enforcement, and so one. We have very safe motorways, but we don't do so well on residential roads (although the spread of 20mph limits should help there).
How much does it cost to install 100,000 cameras and pay someone to watch them?
A small proportion of installed cameras in the UK are monitored. Most of them are owned privately (in shops etc), and the recording is only looked at if something happens.
Many of the monitored cameras work with the police. One person monitors multiple cameras, and if they see trouble they tell the police where to go. I assume this is cheaper than having enough police to be watching all those places on the street.
Provided they ever make another London GTA game that is, they seem to assume only American cities are of interest.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Before some enterprising young cracker decyphered their radio control signal, took one over and crashed it into the house of commons, preferebly through one of the windows so they could set off the strobe/taser/deafening noise during prime minister's question time.
Won't the drones be controlled by real people as opposed to being AI-controlled? If accuracy is an issue, I guess they could always round up a bunch of the best Counter Strike players to control them. The tea bagging might be a bit hard to explain at the press conference afterwards, mind.
We're talking about small UAVs, not full on gunships. Too far away for a rifle and too small for a chaingun turret.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
They'll implement adaptive difficulty levels, I'm sure.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
The british gov can deliver on weapons platforms, Al-Yamamah worked out just fine.
Flying LRAD aimed at you will be creative.
Old way was a on a truck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EUU0BpQego the fun starts at 1 min in.
Or in the USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSMyY3_dmrM
If its used by the forward intelligence teams,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6im93mDOhFc
this will get very personal and direct.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Actually, I'm much less concerned about drones acting in dangerous situations than cops or soldiers.
If you find yourself under fire, you'll likely go fight-or-flight, and unless you're superbly trained and disciplined, you won't keep calm but fire at everything that might be the shooter. If you find your remotely-controlled drone under fire while you're comfortably sitting in front of a computer screen, the situation is different. Sure, losing a drone might not be great, but the decision between sacrificing a drone and possibly killing some innocent civilian is a no-brainer. Especially if you've got a lawyer standing right behind you, ensuring that you don't break any regulations.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Have you even read either of those books? The amount of times people on slashdot shit out "references" to 1984 which basically consist of mentioning the title of the book whenever the uk government proposes anything invasive or tries to give too much power to the police. This is not insightful. Do you even know what 1984 is about, other than "they have cameras everywhere"?
If somehow a Scientology Party got into power in britain, then I'd start shitting myself about "1984"
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
A recent report said that approximately 1 crime was solved for every 100,000 surveillance cameras installed
That's quite impressive. By the time you've wired the camera in, powered it, connected it to some sort of recording system and sat someone at the other end, I can't imagine you'd see much change out of £150-200 per camera (and that's before you consider the wages for the person watching the camera). Which comes to around £20 million per crime solved.
I wonder how many more policemen you could hire for £20 million.
The HERTI is not armed - it is purely reconnaissance. The BAE Fury is the armed version.
"That's not relevant."
Why isn't it? I don't know about the UK, but here, cameras were installed at traffic lights for the specific purpose of catching people running red lights. The onstensible motivation for installing the cameras was to discourage people from running those red lights, and thereby prevent accidents. But according to reports from the UK (who have had them longer than we), and those U.S. cities which have had them for a couple of years, pretty consistently indicate that they have the opposite effect: that of actually increasing the accident rate. None of the studies of which I am aware noted any significant increase or decrease in relative injury or fatality rate of those accidents.
So, basically, they have just the opposite societal effect as was intended, and as was used to justify their expense to the public. But the fact of the matter is, we KNOW why they were installed in our community, despite what the local politicians said: they were put there to generate revenue for the police department through the issuance of traffic tickets. I know that is so because they are required to report it. Those same politicians recently voted to increase the number of cameras in my city, using as justification the fact that each existing camera brought in a bit more than 3 times the revenue than what it cost. They did not even bother to pretend this time that they were for preventing accidents.
"A small proportion of installed cameras in the UK are monitored. Most of them are owned privately (in shops etc), and the recording is only looked at if something happens."
Whether they are owned privately or not is the part that is irrelevant. It still eventually comes down to societal cost. Those businesses that installed cameras will increase their prices or their margins so the "the people" eventually pay for them.
As for the other part: so, only a small proportion are monitored. How small? Is maybe 0.1% a good rough guess? If so, then here is what you still have in London, according to those figures from the BBC: you still have the societal cost of installing 1,000,000 cameras and the video systems that go with them, plus the cost of 1,000 people to watch those systems, to solve 10 crimes. Not even necessarily major crimes.
That is a lot of cost. And even if you figure the initial cost is gone after the first year, you still have the cost of paying 1,000 people to watch cameras in order to solve 10 crimes. That is still a lot of cost. 1000 x annual wages or salary, to solve 10 crimes.
And that is one of the reasons we don't do it here.
Pardon me. Certainly some businesses use cameras, but nowhere near the extent seen in the UK. And of those, probably 1/3 - 1/3 are fakes.
probably 20
...I obey the laws of physics....
How soon will cheap / diy schematics for jammers become available and these UAV's start crashing into things ?
No, you're all right.
The Police should do nothing to modernise at all and stick to using the same procedures from the 19th and 20th century whilst the criminal fraternity leaves them behind.
Grow up!
Hydraulic? Brake fluid? Lighter fluid?
You don't know your fluids! It's battery fluid. He's bleeding!
Indeed! If there's ever a story about the state providing pornography to all I bet there'll be no 1984 references.
I hate cops as much, if not more than anyone, so I'm not trying to defend them. However, it seems to me that crap like this, which, if it does get tried in the US, at least doesn't get so much press, is probably due to the fact that most of your police in the UK aren't themselves armed. In the US, they've all got pistols and most of them carry at least a shotgun, if not an AR-15, in their cruiser. They wear bullet-proof vests a lot of the time and can just suck it up and take risks themselves without needing to resort to this sort of crap.
Do flying missile drones make sense in a place like Afghanistan where trying to get from place to place under general terms is sort of a bitch? Yes. Does using outright military technology to police the local population make sense? Not on your life, but then again, what would one expect from a country that oppressed a third of the world with the use of their military power? Of course, now that the ripened fruits of colonialism have come home to roost and the battle has been turned inward, this is what you get.
I am a lot more afraid of the increasingly draconian powers of governments than I am of terrorists.
Next to this lot, one more drone in the sky that isn't going to do more than spy on you, tase you or cause an epileptic fit with its strobe lights seems like nothing, which tells you have far we have fallen. Roll in 6 May, and may none of the big parties achieve a working majority that lets them take any of this madness any further.
By the way, was anyone else dumbfounded while listening to David Miliband talking about the release of the torture information yesterday? Speaking in Parliament, he seemed far more interested in being nice to the US and protecting the intelligence agencies than he was about the fact that our government knew about torture being carried out on a British resident, and did nothing about it! He even had the cheek to claim that the revelation of this information now showed that everyone had recourse to the law and the system was working, which I'm sure will be a great comfort to those under control orders who clearly do not have any such thing, not to mention to the man who was held and tortured for years in this particular case. I thought our succession of increasingly abusive Home Secretaries was bad, but Miliband, D. has just made it to second place on my "really doesn't get it" scale, right behind Blair, T.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"That's not relevant."
Why isn't it?
It's not relevant, in the sense that I don't really care about someone causing minor vehicle damage rear-ending a car that stops a bit too quickly at the lights. I care about the people suffering serious injury when someone runs the lights.
But according to reports from the UK (who have had them longer than we), and those U.S. cities which have had them for a couple of years, pretty consistently indicate that they have the opposite effect
The only reports like that I've seen have been from very biased motoring organisations.
The government statistics show the number of "KSI" (people killed or seriously injured) is reduced.
they were put there to generate revenue for the police department through the issuance of traffic tickets
Which doesn't happen in the UK (at least, not at a local level). The revenue goes to central government. Local authorities (local government) get grants for road safety, which they might use on cameras, or they might use on education, training, or redesigning roads.
In the USA there seem to be places that have installed cameras and decreased the yellow-light time. Here, the yellow light time is standard (for a given speed of road).
That is a lot of cost. And even if you figure the initial cost is gone after the first year, you still have the cost of paying 1,000 people to watch cameras in order to solve 10 crimes. That is still a lot of cost. 1000 x annual wages or salary, to solve 10 crimes.
You've just made up a load of numbers.
People monitoring cameras don't solve crimes, although they might witness them. Police looking through what was recorded may get evidence which they can use to solve crimes and convict criminals.
Monitored cameras are either a deterrent -- they move the problem elsewhere, although obviously not as well as a policeman standing in the street would -- or they are used for directing the police.
Your Rights Outside
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
However, in 2005 the British Medical Journal published a systematic review "Effectiveness of speed cameras in preventing road traffic collisions and related casualties: a systematic review". This is a meta-analysis of all articles related to speed-camera sites, collisions, injuries and deaths. They conclude:
Existing research consistently shows that speed cameras are an effective intervention in reducing road traffic collisions and related casualties.
Whilst this doesn't directly address red-light cameras it suggests that introducing traffic cameras causes people to improve their driving habits.
We've gone and created Daleks, and now Captain Jack's not here to save us, and the Doctor's off regenerating somewhere...
we're screwed.
Flying robots zapping criminals with electricity...
Eventually, however, the robots reach the point where they are both functional and profitable for the government. Subsequently, Margaret Thatcher will be re-elected, and the robots will be privatized as Robocops, Plc, and will never work again.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The government statistics show the number of "KSI" (people killed or seriously injured) is reduced.
From your link:
after allowing for the long-term trend, but without allowing for selection effects (such as regression-to-mean) there was a 22% reduction in personal injury collisions (PICs) at sites after cameras were introduced.
(my emphasis) ie, they don't show any such thing. They don't show anything at all regarding collisions. Speed cameras are frequently installed in places where there have recently been many serious accidents, quite possibly including places where the accident rate has been above its long term average. You need to find some better statistics (or, better, someone needs to carry out a properly designed and randomized trial). By drawing the conclusion that they do from this the government is simply lying about what it knows.
I was thinking terminators, hunter killers to be specific.
I never understood the hysterics about cameras in public places. If these cameras infringe upon your rights so severely, what about the numerous cameras located in every bank, convenience store, and supermarket on the planet? How are those any different?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I'm still waiting for the obligatory "Terminator" and "RoboCop" reference.
I'm a BBS orphan in a blogging world.
Heh, soon we'll have flying robots which tase you, then nick your wallet.
How long until the drones start leaking oil?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
The article suggests that they could potentially go the same way as the military, although the title/summary makes it appear as if it were a certainty.
"It's not relevant, in the sense that I don't really care about someone causing minor vehicle damage rear-ending a car that stops a bit too quickly at the lights. I care about the people suffering serious injury when someone runs the lights."
But I think it is relevant because that was the whole gist of the reports: the intersection cameras INCREASED the accident rate. Not only did they not decrease red light running, but they also increased other types of accidents. Any way you look at it, it's still an overall negative effect on public safety. Here is a link to 5 studies done in the US and Canada. I have not found the story I first read from the BBC, but I assure you that is where I was first informed of this issue.
The yellow light time is a standard in the U.S., too. Those cities that were found to have reduced it were given heavy fines and other penalties.
No, I did not just "make up numbers". But when I went to look up the article I found that I had made a rather large mistake. The number is 1 crime in 1,000, not 1 in 100,000. Apologies, that was definitely a memory failure on my part.
"People monitoring cameras don't solve crimes, although they might witness them."
Not according to the BBC article I just linked to above. I was just using their wording. Complain to them.
"Monitored cameras are either a deterrent -- they move the problem elsewhere, although obviously not as well as a policeman standing in the street would -- or they are used for directing the police."
That has no bearing whatever on my comments.
I'm unsure about the first three without examples, but I can tell you more about the magistracy. The three magistrates who sit are essentially a small jury, and as such examine fact over law. Advice (more instruction) on the law (and appropriate sentencing) is given by a legal advisor who is a trained solicitor, often with quite considerable experience. Magistrates almost always follow the guidance of the legal advisor as there are big issues with being overly harsh or lenient. I know several magistrates.
New guidelines are very much against using Section 44 powers to stop people taking photographs. The idiocy of some of the stops got too embarrassing.
Besides that, +1 my man. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Those are only "public" places to a very limited degree. You have a choice whether you want to go to a particular store or bank, but depending on your circumstances you might not have much of a choice whether to walk down the sidewalk.
if they keep logs of any activity done with the drones. It may reduce, if not eliminate, abuse by officers.
Moderation is overrated.
I'm glad I emigrated from the UK. I despair how the government have totally undermined any notion of personal rights and freedom and the police are allowed to use military weapons and surveillance against innocent citizens.
The whole "ability to reduce crime" with these things is a cover up. There have been plenty of studies which all (re)discover that the most effective activity to lower crime is simple community policing, meaning cops on foot patrol and on bicycles, explicitly not sat in cars and hiding behind cameras.
Its clear the real reason the police want these is just to extract even more money through bullying motorists. Road users are a soft target with lots of money. They're a lot easier, safer and more profitable to go after than actual criminals.
I really hope everyone in the UK gets busy making EMP devices, and turns hunting these things into a sport like pheasant shooting. Except I already know that nobody will do anything because the British spirit has already been beaten up so badly that the people are divided and conquered, and just totally submissive to anything now.
Does this mean that we're no longer have long car chasing videos to watch? You know, like OJ's?
Actually, I'd argue I don't feel any safer because I didn't feel unsafe before. I'm more likely to die by alcohol poisoning, in a car accident, from a heart attack, or cancer, and these are all things that I can have a direct influence on.
Terrorism just doesn't scare me.
Amen brother.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
I couldn't help being reminded of Civil Protection's technology in Half-Life 2. If you've played even the very first level, you'll remember the flying scanners that strobe you and take your picture: http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/City_Scanner
I suppose the drones described in the story are a combination of those scanners and Manhacks, except the drones probably can't fly too low. Of course, with miniaturization ...
Especially if you've got a lawyer standing right behind you, ensuring that you don't break any regulations.
This does nothing to relieve fears that robots are handy tools create a brutal totalitarian state. Especially if you have a political officer standing right behind you, ensuring that you don't show any leniency.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
But I think it is relevant because that was the whole gist of the reports: the intersection cameras INCREASED the accident rate. [...] Any way you look at it, it's still an overall negative effect on public safety.
I still don't think the accident rate is important. The injury rate is important. Reports that only consider the accident rate are shortsighted.
Here is a link to 5 studies done in the US and Canada
...hand-picked by a motoring organisation. I can pick five studies on the Internet showing the opposite. This is probably a good start.
Your sig is particularly befitting of this subject.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
is crime in the UK "out of control"? is there a "plague" of lawfulness? i don't know what the rates of crime are or how they're perceived there. these methods sound like something that would be employed by a desperate govt, trying to rein in something akin to a mass insurrection.
"To stop the terrorists."
"I still don't think the accident rate is important. The injury rate is important. Reports that only consider the accident rate are shortsighted."
Up above, if you look again, I stated "None of the studies of which I am aware noted any significant increase or decrease in relative injury or fatality rate of those accidents."
"...hand-picked by a motoring organisation. I can pick five studies on the Internet showing the opposite."
And maybe you can in the UK. As I mentioned, I did not find the UK study I first read about anyway. But if you look at the US (which is more relevant for a comparison since that's where these studies were done), you will find that almost every Google entry says the same thing. So that's not much of a refutation. Unless you have evidence or actual reason to suspect bias, the important thing is the message, not the messenger. What motivation would a "motoring organization" have to bias a message about this and thereby put its customers in danger?
...the market for volley guns would take off. New manufacturers would come online nearly overnite.
I can just imagine a stereotypical U.S. liberal (who definitely hates guns but should also hate police surveillance, even though they often don't) contemplating the situation. How long before their head would explode?
Butterfly nets
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
As someone who's read Theodore Dalrymple, PC "David Copperfield," and so on, I'd say that even when they complete it, it won't help. The English government (and the Scottish one, from what I understand) is desperate to restore some form of order, but doesn't have the will to shred some of its bureaucracy and increase police patrols in the orthodox Giuliani fashion. Stuffing the country to the gills with thoughtscreens hasn't been an adequate substitute for that, so I doubt that stuffing it with war droids will be either -- although in both of these cases, countries both more cruel and more competent than Great Britain will probably take to the new technologies with abandon. (I'm looking at China, of course...)
Neutered, but born.
I'd imagine that'd be more of a Brave New World scenario...
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
What motivation would a "motoring organization" have to bias a message about this and thereby put its customers in danger?
I wonder if the difference between the US and UK on this might be the general number of pedestrians? Unfortunately, it's often pedestrians (or cyclists) that are killed or injured on junctions in the UK.
I suspect bias because most motoring organisation websites somewhere have a section complaining about speed limits etc, and how their right to use the road is infringed.
On motorists.org's FAQ:
Q. Isn't slower always safer?
A. No, federal and state studies have consistently shown that the drivers most likely to get into accidents in traffic are those traveling significantly below the average speed.
But people driving significantly slower than the average speed isn't related to the speed limit. They haven't answered their question.
Q. Wouldn't everyone drive faster if the speed limit was raised?
A. No [...]
So doesn't that mean there'd be more drivers travelling slower than the average speed? (since there's a wider range of speeds.) The previous answer said this was unsafe.
Speed alone is rarely the cause of accidents.
But a lower speed always makes the resulting crash less serious, and improves everyone's chances of survival.
For those neither British nor interested in Googling it, fly-tipping is "illegal dumping" (of trash, etc.) or "littering".
Here is the UK in review... Police killed innocent man they suspected was a "terrorist". Government installs CCTV cameras everywhere. Government implements nationwide call, email, and other data sniffing. Government installs body scanners in airport. Government plans on implementing armed robot drones. Really, there is a clear pattern of escalation leading to a police state over there. You guys are in deep shit.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
Non-lethal projectiles (e.g. rubber bullets) can break bones and put out eyes. Better than death, I suppose, but I don't care to tell that to a guy who has only one eye for the rest of his life.
-kgj
"But people driving significantly slower than the average speed isn't related to the speed limit. They haven't answered their question."
:0) I am only exaggerating a little but I have been in other parts of the US where the average highway speed was closer to 20mph over the speed limit. So between regions, there is probably not a whole lot of correlation, but in any given region, there is.
I agree that it is somewhat misleading. The speed studies to which they refer only related to highway speeds. And at least in the US, the speed limit is very closely related to the average speed... it is often about 5mph lower than the average speed, in my area.
"So doesn't that mean there'd be more drivers travelling slower than the average speed? (since there's a wider range of speeds.) The previous answer said this was unsafe."
Haha, that would seem to logically follow, wouldn't it?
The original study to which they refer was done when the speed limits across much of the United States were forced, by the Federal government, to be reduced from about 70mph in most places to 55mph. They expected to see a dramatic downturn in accidents and fatalities. They did not. In fact there was very little change at all.
Years later, when the law was relaxed, most of those areas increased the speed limit back to what they had before. And even though those speeds were 20mph or more faster than the year before, again the accident and fatality rate changed little if at all.
Other studies in the United States have shown similar results. This really is rather interesting. Psychologists in the workplace have found that changing the working conditions to make them better leads to higher productivity... but only temporarily. Somewhat surprisingly, they also found that changing the working conditions from better to worse also led -- temporarily -- to higher productivity. And this behavior was pretty consistent. Eventually, they had to admit that at least to a certain extent, it was simply a change that caused the different behavior, whether that change was good or bad.
So one might expect for there to be a similar effect on the highways as well. But it didn't happen. A lot of people have been scratching their heads over this, but I don't think anyone has yet found an explanation.
That's it...I'm buying a crow bar !
End of Line.
And so on. It seems like it has just been an endless stream of the same old thing: give up your liberties in order to make you "safer", but in reality it inconveniences you greatly, costs you a lot of money, and doesn't work. But you have still lost those liberties.
It's never been about "safety." That's just the excuse gov't uses to get suckers to support the new laws they pass to control its subjects and increase revenue. Nothing like invoking the fear of little Timmy being run down to get Mom and Pop to vote for speed cameras! Oh, just think of the children!
The only ultimate reasons government does anything AT ALL are money (redistributed to reward subjects loyal to whoever's in command at the time), control (of the citizens), and above all, maintaining power. You see different flavors of it depending on what side of the pond you're on, but the end goals are the same. Just look at the TSA in the United States as a related example -- is it REALLY about making travelers as safe as possible, or creating jobs for those often otherwise unemployable (a favorite government pasttime these days)? Let's compare TSA's post-9/11 track record versus El Al's -- seen any shoe or underwear bombers (sorry, "alleged" underwear bombers) flying into Tel Aviv lately? TSA is a bad joke, and our enemies know it.
It means that the citizens have the duty to make that scheme more expensive.
Or just switch to km/h, and woosh, all cars are 1.6 times slower. (Which will also make the island seem bigger.)
WTF is wrong with people? I can only find one catapult reference in this whole discussion, so far!
I for one will be popping into a fishing stuff shop and getting a catapult or 2 - I remember from being a kid that even the cheap ones are pretty effective. A catapult and a bag of ball bearings, stones, marbles, or nuts, will be pretty effective against these flying pieces of shit. (BBs and marbles are very effective against mounted police on the streets, too).
And failing that, an old microwave oven, modified, could probably make above my home into a no-fly-zone for these things. Or at least stop remote control, and leave the thing to just have to fly away autonomously.
Actually, I saved a the details of how to make a GPS jammer not so long ago, on the off chance it would come in useful in the future. I never thought that future would be so soon :(
Car analogies break down.
That is a lot of cost. And even if you figure the initial cost is gone after the first year, you still have the cost of paying 1,000 people to watch cameras in order to solve 10 crimes. That is still a lot of cost. 1000 x annual wages or salary, to solve 10 crimes.
The same holds true here. Generally when shortening is discovered, it is rectified & generally costs the city a good hunk of change.
http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/
Also, many cities are removing traffic cameras now, because people are driving safer which has led to a loss of revenue for the police dept. Which I think is hilarious, personally.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-redlights_15met.ART.North.Edition1.468120d.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/03/cities-removing/
There is a war going on for your mind.
His point wasn't a gripe with the system of magistrates courts, it was that magistrates can basically make up rules, and if you break them, you go to prison (do not pass go, do not collect 200UKP).
Oh, and the evidence requirements for ASBOs are much lower than for traditional crimes. Hearsay is allowed in court for ASBO trials!
Car analogies break down.
A small proportion of installed cameras in the UK are monitored. Most of them are owned privately (in shops etc), and the recording is only looked at if something happens.
And a large segment of private cameras out there are connected to automatic numberplate recognition, and are networked into the state's numberplate tracking databases.
Petrol station forecourts, before you ask.
Car analogies break down.
Geez, what a way to spoil a good frotting. here I was all worried that they would employ chain-gun wielding autonomous robots to shoot first and not bother with questions and then you bring in all these sensible facts.
Now what am I to do with all this frot I build up eh?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If somehow a Scientology Party got into power in britain, then I'd start shitting myself about "1984"
Oh, they will be in, in May.
Cameron talks far too much about faith schools.
And prove my point that they'll be in and fucking the country up fast(er), this comment will probably get modded down!
Car analogies break down.
Let me see, now...
"Armed Robot Drones to Join UK Police Force"
Since most of the current ones seem to be mindless automatons who shoot to kill innocent civilians, I fail to see how this will be a change to the current situation... With the possible exception that, of course, it would be ludicrous to put a machine in the dock before declaring that there was no case to answer...
My first thought was "like, you know, bees?" Which led to robot queens, robot hives, ....
Hmm..sounds like time to come up with efficient, home made HERF guns...and start bringing these damned droids down to earth.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
that this is the same culture that produces Top Gear.
Exactly. I, too, know some people who have served as magistrates. Perhaps more importantly, I have been a witness in court and seen several magistrates at work. I found the behaviour of those I observed to be exemplary, and they did indeed consult with their "learned colleague" on several occasions while deliberating.
However, that does not mean I think they should have the power to legislate, even if I personally have never seen anyone abuse that power. Likewise, I do not think police officers or PCSOs should have any powers to issue summary fines on their own authority, even though I personally have never seen a false accusation made.
Justice systems need separation of powers and due process for the accused, because any system on that sort of scale is going to make mistakes even if everyone acts with the best of intentions, and the consequences of those mistakes for innocent people can be severe.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
But these drones could be armed with tasers, non-lethal projectiles and ultra-powerful disorienting strobe lighting apparatus, reports Wired.
Remind me never to visit London without my Dalekanium shell to protect my privacy and freedom from the local government.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Who needs film comparisons when you have Gitmo?
Everyone, don your rubber suits and mirror shades!
Never buy the 1.0 model...
Constitutionally Correct
So, about the disorienting strobe lighting...
Q1: Does it only work on people, or does it also work on other drones?
Q2(A): If it doesn't work on other drones, then my drone which I fly against their drones will be OK, right?
Q2(B): If it does work against other drones, this means they will on be able to fly one at a time, right?
-- Terry
Actually there are studies (you can probably find them on thenewspaper.com) showing that *serious* injury-accidents increased by 30% to 50% or so at most intersections where redlight cameras were implemented. (I may misremember the figures but it was something in that range.)
Conversely, there are several studies showing that somewhere around 90-95% of redlight running *and* accidents go away if you just give people another half-second of yellow-light time in which to make a decision.
That the whole thing is absolutely about money and NOT about safety is well-illustrated by the fact that so many of the camera-infested lights have had their yellow time SHORTENED, sometimes below the legal minimum, because this is likewise documented to cause an increase in unintentional redlight-running, and therefore of ticket revenue.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Terrorism just doesn't scare me.
Then... I guess it really isn't terrorism!
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
How have: "traffic cameras have actually increased accident rates"?
Have people been crashing after being blinded by the strobe lights?
I'll be the first to say it: 1984 and V for Vendetta. I am come on, flying, armed, police drones?
Of course it's Britain.
See I knew AIRFIX were still in business.
All cows eat grass!
I know my legal rights regarding FIREARMS and I have a FAC. (Firearms Certificate) If these drones end up over my private land or use my air space, they are going to be shot down from the SKY. I was just clay pigeon shooting! My ex mil mates will join me and legally I am allowed to shoot anything on my private land or airspace within reason. I say bring it on, this will will be fun. Who is going to edge bets on the first one shot out of the sky or the crystal code signal used gets hacked and the drone crashes? Love NSN
All cows eat grass!
Okay, this person was already modded down (and rightfully so). But I had a hard time resisting mentioning how ridiculous he is being to think he is even worth my time.
"Welcome to the Internet, where we judge a person on ability rather than attitude."
Well, bud, according to your score, apparently you have been judged wanting.
When it is controlled by a person it is not a robot. Your car is not a robot. The "bots" in Robot Wars where not robots, they were remotely controlled cars with weapons.
A land mine or heat seeking missile would be robots(ish).
This system sounds like it is remotely controlled (and therefor not a robot).
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Sorry, but the British approach to security is getting way to close to Orwell's 1984. Seems he may have simply been off by a few decades. Between the level of public video surveillance and now armed flying robots, they'll soon have two way TV's that don't turn off (though a lot of folks leave their PC on, and have a video camera on their monitor already) complete with one channel, and a better understanding of INGSOC.(Posted a moment ago anonymously by accident.)
Or this one. Funny that it was considered completely no-go back then while it will hardly raise an eyebrow today.
Says you. This should strike fear into the heart of every fly-tipper out there.
What the hell is fly-tipping anyway? Here in the good ol' US of A, we tip cows. Ya gotta get low for good leverage, and get yer back into it, but cow tipping is a bona fide gentleman's sport 'round these parts.
Are Brits so past weak that they can only tip flies? Surely they got cows somewhere... maybe they just need a big ol' American to show em how its done.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
LRAD wasn't developed by the brits. Cool vids, though. Always nice to see some cops earning their pay.
Flame me if you want, but I think that most of the replies to this should result in loss of nerd standing.
THIMK - we will have hundreds of airborne web cams just crying out for an app to pick up and decode the feed
and stream it to our mums' basements.
This is just the tech that geeks have been waiting for, but we need to work together to make it happen.
I - develop hard/soft ware to get feed.
II - develop AI to select "good" content - content tagging and search engine possibly with integrated alerts for really good stuff
III - second phase - bot to search social and news networks for good target locations and send calls to get coverage.
First job - call your MP/senator/president/dictator/mafia_boss to get as`many of these things up with best possible camera and audio kit that money can buy. (go easy on weapons unless snuff is your scene)
PS. other projects such as finding concerts/sporting events/celebrity weddings etc. should also be pushed but don't mention following politicians or police/military operations.
nec sorte nec fato
I think the worst one is "incitement to hatred". You can be punished for the actions of others who may have been influenced by something you said.
So say I write on my blog that the Pope is responsible for the deaths of millions and the suffering caused by the AIDS epidemic due to his opposition to contraception. Some idiot reads it and decides all Catholics must also be responsible and then attacks one. I could go to prison for "incitement to religious hatred".
Thoughtcrime plain and simple.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yes, that's definitely one of the worst. Asking someone to commit a specific crime is one thing. Helping someone to commit a specific crime is another. I don't mind the law penalising people who do these things, but some vague notion that you are trying to affect someone's feelings and that any actions they take afterwards are somehow your responsibility is a different matter.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
... I love that song ...
Braziiiiiiiiiiil? Ta da, la la, dum dum, de de ...