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An Open Letter To Google Chairman Eric Schmidt On Drones
savuporo writes "A DC Area Drone User Group has posted an open letter in response to recent comments by Eric Schmidt about banning drones from private use. The closing section reads: 'Personally owned flying robots today have the power to change the balance of power between individuals and large bureaucracies in much the same way the Internet did in the past. And just as the military researchers who developed GPS for guiding munitions could never have imagined their technology would be used in the future to help people conduct health surveys in the world's poorest countries or help people find dates in the world's richest, there is a whole world of socially positive and banal applications for drones that are yet to be discovered. We should embrace this chance that technology provides instead of strangling these opportunities in their infancy. Our hope is that you and the rest of Google's leadership will embrace this pro-technology agenda in the future rather than seeking to stifle it. We would welcome the opportunity to speak further with you about this topic.'"
Good grief, fuck Google. Who care's what Schmit thinks?
We're approaching a level of non-invasive brain-computer interface quality that could conceivably be used for controlling a drone. Combine that with smaller, cheaper drones(think UPenn quadrocopters), and you can give people halfway decent surrogate systems relatively soon.
So, if you make your fortune by collecting information about everything including what some folks would consider 'private', readily divulge the information to governments without notifying those the data was collected about, then have a problem when others begin collecting information that's publicly available, does that make you a fool or a hypocrite an elitist, or what? I'm having a problem classifying the degree to which Schmidt's foot is crammed down his own throat.
I really think we need to change the 2nd amendment to be "The Right to Bear Technology" (this includes cryptography).
Instead of whining about his privacy, shouldn't Eric just refrain from doing things he doesn't want others to see? That's what he told us plebes, anyway.
But Eric's comments make him sound like kind of a moron. Maybe he should stick to computers.
Hint: "Uhh, durr, how would you like it if your neighbor just built a tall treehouse in his yard and stared at your house all day! These treehouses have to be regulated! Oh, and duhh, what if someone uses an RC controlled car and they just drive it around menacingly on your sidewalk in front of your house!".
And now, back to things that are likely to happen in any meaningful number and which can't be easily handled with existing statutes...
The DC group is basically saying with drones the public can more easily "wikileaks" those who have the power, hiding behind high fences and walls. Scrutinize them to the same degree they scrutinize us. If we're going to lose our privacy, they should to.
He is not intellectually qualified to be making the decisions of the Google CEO. He's a dork. A geek minus the technical understanding.
He really showed his ass on Colbert last night: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/425750/april-23-2013/eric-schmidt
His comments about privacy alone "...they shouldn't be doing bad things" show his ignorance.
On the Colbert Report interview, he claims, "no one knows what the internet is..." and that "humans will one day live forever" and that your "data cannot be deleted"
All of which are false. 1. The internet is a global computer network capable of running applications with continuous connections among users. 2. is not falsifiable so it's just used-car salesman bullshit and 3. if it is stored in memory, it by definition can be deleted. if it's not stored in memory, then it's not on the internet.
And from another discussion I've found that there be trolls on the topic of Schmidt...so, those who say 'He's a CEO not a technician!@!@11'...fsk off...every CEO needs a basic understanding of what they are doing. Schmidt is a fanboi of his own product and it's egregious.
Thank you Dave Raggett
... is that WE are the people. We make the laws, not them, alone.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I'm curious about what they mean by "power to change the balance of power between individuals and large bureaucracies in much the same way the Internet did in the past".
The Internet improves the ability of the people to speak back and organise themselves. Perhaps personal drones will allow the people to shoot back, with missiles?
This is the same guy that doesn't think we should be allowed to drive.
I work on a NASA mission that studies tropical storms and attempts to understand their structure so they can be detected/avoided earlier. If it wasn't for the Global Hawk drones we use, pilots would be in danger from flying over the storms and flights would be much shorter (~8hr vs 24+hr) limiting the amount of science that can be done. Here's an article about the first year of three's results: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/missions/hs3/news/hs3-nadine.html
....or drones for nobody.
If you'd prefer no regulation, then consider how much invasion of privacy someone who wanted to redo Googles Streetview and mapping could do with drones instead of land vehicles? Also reflect on the fact that large companies have the resources to have large fleets of drones. There are huge privacy implications and a start on addressing them is needed now.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Unlicensed drones can't fly within 100m of private property, and if they carry a camera capable of zoom, 100m * Max_Zoom of people's property.
Simple, fly your drones, keep them away from other peoples property.
No different than Google being made to blur faces, delete broadcast wifi, or hide number plates. There's limits even to public space, privacy is a fundamental right, there is no right to do whatever you want in public space, and if these drones can be used to annoy and invade privacy then their use needs to be limited.
Oh and to the 'drones for everybody or drones for nobody' argument, if a drone can be used to invade someones privacy then even if the sheriff is flying a drone over private property, it's a search. No different than when the Feds went around shining high gain IR cameras onto peoples homes to look for possible pot growing offenses without a search warrant:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93127&page=1#.UXjD-MpdkcE
No. The CEO is the final decision maker on all resource allocation. The CEO has final approval of all deals. The CEO chooses who works for the company. The CEO has to sign **Sarbanes-Oxley** and risk jail time on the company's financial accuracy.
You are a troll for sure, but your notions are ruining American business and I hate it. You really deserve to work in a cubicle doing drone work with your attitude.
If you disagree, you can type your bullshit argument but it won't get a response from me. This response is the only response necessary.
You are giving the **CEO** a pass. You and everyone who uses your line of thinking is a troll.
Thank you Dave Raggett
False dichotomy, how about drones for everyone, but if you fly them over private property you need to be above 100m, or out of camera range, or have a search warrant if your the police?
You know... like you right to fly a drone, shouldn't take away my right to privacy.
I find it a bit difficult to understand that something banal is socially positive. Then again, maybe I am just not too social.
Well presumably Timothy can't see any privacy problem, so he won't mind me pointing to his location?
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.9163333N+77.040667W&hl=en&sll=77.040667,-38.916333&sspn=38.811128,88.066406&t=m&z=17
Is that the red brick house because your picture GPS says 1762 Willard street yet your DNS says 1778 Willard
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.9163333N+77.040667W&hl=en&ll=38.916289,-77.041259&spn=0.003364,0.002688&sll=77.040667,-38.916333&sspn=38.811128,88.066406&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=38.91629,-77.04112&panoid=DkuD61xjNNxqPJv7ixGc6g&cbp=12,200.57,,0,20.57
http://seowho.is/dcdrone.org
IMHO, there's a serious privacy problem with these drones, and it should be addressed just as there's a serious privacy problem with DNS that needs to be addressed, and a serious problem with Google Street View than needs to be addressed and a serious problem with iPhones that stick GPS locations in by default that needs to be addressed!
If you don't like cameras stuck into your windows, it's no different from how everyone else feels. It's intrusive even if its in public space.
All of this privacy invading **** needs to be regulated. Every single bit of it! And Apple should turn off your iPhone 4's habit of sticking in GPS location time and date, and websites are speech and DNS should not require the public address, and Street View should NOT let you zoom into windows and Drones should NOT be able to fly over private property. It's no different than if your neighbor climbed up ladder and started watching you over the hedge with a pair of binoculars. It needs to be regulated.
People see individual privacy infringements and they fight there little freedom, and don't see the big picture.
"I want my own drone so I can sell the live feed of Kate Middleton's* boobs when she bathes topless in France."
More seriously: how will we as a society handle these devices when we can all afford them - either to buy or lease on a minutely basis ?
[* Aka, the Duchess of Cambridge]
Everything they say or have written in their usage terms of what you should not be doing are the very things that they are doing or fear would cause them harm to what they are doing. It is a psychotic protectionist reaction. If you ever want to beat a business at their own game you have to do all the things they tell you not to do. Basically you negate all their terms and then use it like a bucket list of things to do.
I agree, they need regulation, but for corps only.
If its for private use, zero regulation. Current laws are enough to make the obvious illegal.
ie. 500 drones with ricin payloads
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
That eric guy is a total hypocritical fucking wanker.
Does that mean that "possession of drone parts" will become a criminal offense? Android phones are drone parts...
The proposal is ridiculous if not for any other reason than that drones will likely be used extensively for home deliveries, environmental monitoring, and other purposes.
It's all good, until we decide the people have too much power. Schmidt is really arguing that he, after spying on people and collaborating with the government, deserves the same protection as the government.
What if I used the drone to spy on you or your wife Mary over your house? Wouldn't you expect the law to protect your privacy?
IMHO, the use of surveillance drones should be regulated, both for corps, and people.
Personally owned flying robots today have the power to change the balance of power between individuals and large bureaucracies in much the same way the Internet did in the past.
The internet has enabled people to get unlimited quantities of porn, bully strangers at a distance, and do shopping from their homes. It has not altered the balance of power between individuals and bureaucracies, states or corporations in any tangible way.
And before anyone says it, the Arab spring was about masses of bodies on the streets, not the invention of Twatter.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
and the internet has greatly increased surveillance of individuals as much, or more than, it has increased their ability to communicate. and drones increase the ability of governments and corporations to monitor and spy. they do indeed change the balance of power -- sharply towards surveillance and monitoring.
Some satire I wrote five years ago when Google created Knol, reposted here: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2011-February/000401.html
Gold Leader: Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are semantic wikis and desktops going to be against [that]? ...
General Dodonna: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small cgi script on a shared server or desktop to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense.
Commander #1: We've analyzed their attack on Knol, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your Golden Parachute standing by?
Governor Schmidt: Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.
----
Maybe the same goes fro private drones in the balance between meshworks and hierarchies?
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation."
Interesting ammendent suggestion. Also related by me: http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc./76207-8319
All that said, I think Eric Schmidt has done a lot of great things, and we could have much worse at the heart of Google. Anyone in that position would face a lot of constraints about what he could say or do; it's amazing anyone could do as well as he has. As Langdon Winner wrote about, the systems (including bureaucracies) we create shape the nature of what components are allowed to exists in them. If the components (including people) act too far out of expectations, they are replaced.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
And why, exactly, would you think Google wants to "change the balance of power"?
People who have power very rarely want to "change the balance of power".
You are welcome on my lawn.
from the offices of the people who have an unmanned car parked outside your house
automatically taking pictures, posting the images online-
and "accidentally" logging your wifi packets.
Seems legit.
Shoot 'em all, government and civilian....
Streetview, Google Earth, etc. Drones with cameras compete with all of the Google services that take pictures. Of course he wants to squash them.
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
E. Schmidt, CEO Google, inc.
Clearly, if you have something that you don't want anyone to fly a drone over, maybe you shouldn't have it in the first place...
I would extend it to "Right to Bear Tools", as we are indeed, tool using species.
Also, I would add a note concerning protection of Bears, the poor beasts have had enough of their land (and belongings) taken from them already.
...anyone else feels that Schmit's view on drone somewhat hypocritical?
It is perfectly technologically feasible to just listen to conversations within your house via a laser-window snooping method; it is perfectly feasible to track what you type on your (unshielded) keyboard via proper snooping mechanisms (free radio waves belong to aether, right ?).
Technology will not protect you from this asshattery; such things would never be accepted in Japan, because there, the WHOLE SOCIETY, ATOMICALLY does not condone such unpoliteness; and YOUR arguments reduce to technological barriers.
I know that I'll get some snide reply, considering who I am reaplying to, but still, this is free aether, after all.
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
In the USA, there are all sorts of homeowner associations that control a neighborhood's "view shed", aka the objects that are visible in the sky within a neighborhood. I've seen them successfully push back against businesses wanting to build tall buildings nearby on exactly the grounds that it created an invasive space. I don't know what the answer is, but it does seem like someone should be able to get a private space that still has view of the sun and we should find a legal structure that makes that possible.
That legal structure may be allowing drones... and allow people to shoot the damn things as soon as they are within eyesight of private property. Could be fun!
You cannot police 300 m. people (US) with tanks, battleships and fighter planes.
The military is ineffective in the use against the civilians, and if it even happens, it is already too late to return to Republic.
Again, I repeat - it is impossible, logistically, for even a 10 Trillion army to wage war against 300 m. Armed Citizens.
You will understand it, later in life. When you learn about what assymetric warfare is.
And again, I repeat, it is impossible to supress people via SWAT teams even, when they can expect bullets to rain down on them when they break and enter.
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
No, U R Banal
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
Arab Springs were about covert CIA action, nothing more.
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
as greed is hypocritical; you have to be a known practitioner of altruism for your self-interest to arouse suspicions of hypocrisy.
He just wants to take away pew-pews of others, so that only he has the pew-pews. What is hypocritical in that ? The man is a perfect definition of asshole.
Ahh, posting while drunk is heavenly. /. math: 129 of 126 loaded
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
So, you really have no idea about what we are talking about here I take it?
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
if like leaf blowers, you're gonna love drones.
I'll allow it.
My vendetta is with b.s. business practices and anyone who thinks they are the only way to do business. It's not personal to him, although Schmidt doesn't help his cause by being the CEO of Google and saying what he does about privacy.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Not so. I don't think of intellect or superiority in that way for myself personally. I don't begrudge his personal success, but I do hate what it symbolizes (he's by no means the worst CEO).
I also would love to have his budget for my company so maybe there's some sour grapes there?
Strip away my style and my arguments are sound. Business in American has gone off the wheels. It is evidenced by the sizable minority who believe in the 'perception is reality' school of business.
It's not a given that Google has to profit from selling our privacy! It is possible for companies to be good to employees, the earth, pay full taxes, source in the US and still profit.
Because people like you accept the marketing-driven business model (what I mean when I say 'bullshit'), it is able to perpetuate. I use harsh language. Maybe it's too much?
I won't stop crowing about bringing business back to reality though...
Thank you Dave Raggett