Slashdot Mirror
More Drones Set To Use US Air Space
Dupple writes with a quote from the BBC about more testing of Predator drones in U.S. air space: "Tests have been carried out to see whether military drones can mix safely in the air with passenger planes. The tests involved a Predator B drone fitted with radio location systems found on domestic aircraft that help them spot and avoid other planes. The tests will help to pave the way for greater use of drones in America's domestic airspace."
Say farewell forever to even the concept of posse comitatus, limited as it was. Now it is just a Latin phrase you never heard of.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Take that fourth amendment!
Eventually other countries will have drone capability, and will be flying them over US soil. It's important that we develop the technology to do it safely. ;)
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
The Plain View Doctrine (or is it "Plane View"?) probably applies here unfortunately.
Just don't open any ports and hacking is much harder. Also don't install a web browser with java and flash plugins on your aircraft.
Your country is not the one putting this forth. The current set of "leaders" is. Vote them out next Tuesday.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
Your country is not the one putting this forth. The current set of "leaders" is. Vote them out next Tuesday.
2008 called, they want their optimism back
The "radio location system" they mention is probably ADS-B, which emits the position, speed, heading, etc... of planes every second.
Interestingly enough, you can listen in on those with a 20$ tv tuner (software defined radio):
http://www.irrational.net/2012/08/06/tracking-planes-for-20-or-less/
So I guess the good news is at least that we'll be able to tell when and where the drones are flying... if this is abused enough, once could also imagine taking them done with DIY drones.
This type of thing won't happen when Barack Obama is president!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Your country is not the one putting this forth. The current set of "leaders" is. Vote them out next Tuesday.
2008 called, they want their optimism back
Then they too should vote for someone other than the person/group they voted into office back in '08. Because in the past 4 years, we've seen privacy and rights and wealth dwindle to a fraction of what they were prior...
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
They told me if I voted for McCain, we'd see drones blanket our domestic airspace... and they were right.
If domestic drones will be allowed in domestic civilian airspace as long as they carry active ADS-B transponders, then there are a number of receiver+software packages that would enable them to be tracked by anyone with some tech skills.
Google "ADS-B receiver", one example: http://www.scannermaster.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=28-661518
Make no mistake. As soon as the body of safety data gets large enough we will see the elimination of pilots on commercial air craft. Once it is established that the bots drones are safer than human pilots another trade will vanish. Commercial trucking is on the edge of eliminating human drivers already. The safty record looks good and computized drivers do not break rules, speed, or go mental from the boredom.
The purpose of technology has always been to eliminate human labor. The catch is that we have no social structure at hand to take care of the many millions being displaced by job losses due to better technologies.
It was not I who made this about "Rs" or "Ds" - that is your claim, and yours alone. I say vote out the incumbents, scramble things up, break up the good-ol-boy system of this 2 party hegemony we have.
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
Pro: A drone could deliver you a pizza from your favorite joint across town during rush hour in five minutes.
Con: It could also deliver hellfire missiles if you don't tip the operator.
Am I the only person who is surprised that this story hasn't been tagged with "skynet"?
Did you warn them about Sandy? Bet you didn't you bastard.
No need for skillz, there are websites [flightradar24.com] that track stuff for you. (At least their coverage for non-US flights is ADS-B based, real time, and collected from private contributing scanners AFAIK, US flights go through FAA)
Personally I think this test will be a foregone conclusion for political reasons that drones will be deemed useable (even over cities) regardless of how actually safe it is.
Its especially ironic considering the current air law prohibits pilots flying 'experimental' class aircraft or ultralights over cities or any built-up area.
You're laboring under the mistaken assumption that the two major parties have any significant disagreement about civil liberties protections. The proof that they don't is that neither of their presidential candidates has said a word about it.
If you want to protect civil liberties, you're going to have to vote for a minor party candidate. And that means you're going to lose, but at least you won't be voting against constitutional protections.
I am officially gone from
I like your idea. The whole point of a drone is to (quietly) fly low and slow to see stuff. Having a law that requires drones to stay above 30k ft will basically render them useless. Good.
Vote for someone without a D or an R next to their name. Don't vote for the D because you hate the R or vice versa.
Around Lake St. Clair, from SANG
http://www.127wg.ang.af.mil/
Get up!
Because we TOTALLY need drones in domestic airspace to protect us against ______________.
You're assuming, incorrectly, that the power of elected officials to avoid being treated like everyone else disappears once they leave office. For proof to the contrary, I give you war criminal Dick Cheney.
Specifically, Cheney proudly said on national television that he ordered waterboarding of prisoners, which the US declared to be a crime against humanity in 1945.
I am officially gone from
I don't know why there's all this grousing on the message thread! Can't you see?
The title of the submission tells everything needed to know: America is making drones safer!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I would imagine that if this evolves it will end up having constraints attached to it along the lines of the prohibitions on retransmitting or relaying information from other protected radio frequencies. While there are useful reasons to translate and distribute general flight tracking information, I'd be willing to bet that either these services are forced to omit law enforcement transponders altogether, or there will be automated gag orders on such sites regarding to drones under certain circumstances such as pending activity (selective availability on drone tracking data?)
In any case, I would imagine that if you want accurate local drone data you'll have to collect it yourself.
As others have now posted this is possible on the cheap: RTL-SDR software over DVB-T dongles based on Realtek RTL2832U (supposedly as cheap as $20) provide a receiver, and GNU Radio with gr-air-modes gives you decoded ADS-B data streams on a decent PC.
Remember the ever present police hover craft in the dystopian future of Jessica Alba's backside?
THERE IS NO PREDATOR B!
IT'S AN MQ-9 REAPER!
Calling it "Predator B" just leads to confusion, as the production model of the Predator is the MQ-1B, the follow-on to the prototype RQ-1A.
This causes no end of frustration on an almost daily basis at work...
Besides all this, the aircraft in the article was a Guardian, which makes calling it a "Predator B" even more inane.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
While the green party is closer to my views, a vote for the green party is one less vote for the lesser evil.
Say all you want about voting for the lesser evil, but our voting method forces me to do that. If ~500 had voted for the lesser evil in florida we could have been spared GWB.
Waterboarding specifically attempts to avoid water entering the nose, mouth, and airways.
Waterboarding can be done without water entering the victims body, but it can also include procedures where a funnel or syringe is used to dribble water into the back of the victims throat.
Many years ago I went through SERE training, and I was waterboarded as part of the training. The instructors used the less severe method of pouring water onto a cloth covering my mouth and nose. We were given two small dumbells, one to hold in each hand, and told that when it became "unbearable" to just drop the weights and the cloth would be removed. We had a mixture of Navy and Marine personnel, and to give us an extra incentive to last as long as possible they did us one-at-a-time in front of the whole class. I didn't care if I held out longer than the other jarheads, but I was determined not to let any of the "squids" outlast me.
I tried to resist as long as I could, but soon it felt like someone was shooting a blowtorch into my lungs. I would have done anything to make it stop. I was single at the time, but today I have two kids. If I the only way to make it stop was a button that would kill my kids, I think I would push that button. It was that bad. It was certainly enough to make me betray my country and comrades, and no one who hasn't been through it should judge that.
Is it torture? I think it depends on your definition. I had no permanent harm or injury. I think the best answer is to ask if we would consider it torture if it was done to a captured American soldier.
Also, torture can and does result in useful information. Its just not reliable information. There is a difference.
Very true. Anyone who says "torture doesn't work" is clueless. The whole point of our training was to show that it works very well, and expecting anyone to "tough it out" is futile. Instead we need to compartmentalize information on a "need-to-know" basis, and assume that when someone is captured, everything they know is compromised.
There are plenty of methods for getting reliable information. If you have partial information, you can check extracted info against that. Some extracted info can be quickly verified against existing intelligence. If you capture three people, separate them, and continue to torture all three until their stories match up. You can use drugs to help break down resistance, and cloud the detainee's mind so it is difficult to keep the lies consistent. Sodium barbital works well, and can be combined with pain enhancers such as naloxone. If you don't have the drugs available, waterboarding a detainee who is severely sleep deprived works almost as well, but takes more time.
I'm also a pilot. Yes, sport and rec pilots may not have a lot of time (at least not those with new certificates) but they do have "skin" in it, unlike the drone pilots. A drone pilot probably isnt faced with injury or death if he crashes.