Slashdot Mirror
France Cries Foul At World Cup "Spy Drone"
mpicpp (3454017) writes with news of amateur drones appearing at the World Cup, quoting Ars Technica: "France's World Cup soccer team has filed a complaint with FIFA, claiming that someone used a small unmanned aircraft to spy on the team's training camp near São Paulo, Brazil as players prepared for their match against Honduras Sunday, the BBC reports. The quadrocopter appears from video to be a Phantom II autonomous micro-drone with a video camera.
'Apparently, drones are being used more and more,' France's manager Didier Deschamps told the BBC. 'We don't want intrusion into our privacy. It's hard to fight.' Deschamps did not comment on who might be behind the surveillance but said in an interview with Football Italia that he believed the drone was operated by one of France's potential opponents or by a French news agency." Police later captured the drone operator, who claimed just to be a fan bitten by a bit too much curiosity.
'Apparently, drones are being used more and more,' France's manager Didier Deschamps told the BBC. 'We don't want intrusion into our privacy. It's hard to fight.' Deschamps did not comment on who might be behind the surveillance but said in an interview with Football Italia that he believed the drone was operated by one of France's potential opponents or by a French news agency." Police later captured the drone operator, who claimed just to be a fan bitten by a bit too much curiosity.
In many ways, I would like to say "shoot the damn thing!" but depending on local laws that could get ugly. This camp was private property and closed to the public, right?
Still, there must be some way to deter such drones. Capture, and release after disabling the camera? If the drone gets damaged during the capture...well...C'est la vie!
Of course, if it's not private property, my level of sympathy would decrease greatly.
They are still at $1000 but once these toys fall below a tenth of that price, some things will have to change.
It will start with laws to regulate their possession and fines for illicit uses, but it will also promote a business of countermeasures.
Nude beaches, celebrity mansions, "secret" open air activities or even high end hotels that want to guarantee some degree of privacy to their customers, will want a way to block their use.
Whoever knows how to make an anti-drone device better patent it quickly and put it on Amazon for hundreds of bucks. Clients will soon come.
Hey, this isn't Vietnam we're talking about! At least France surrendered to an army!
Don't play foozball outside. Duh.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's worth noting why the French team in particular, so vehemently object to drones, in a way that other nationals might not, or at least might do so less outspokenly.
In France you have ownership of your own image. A photographer needs to have your permission if they want to take a photo that has you as the main subject.
Obviously they don't need permission if you're just an incidental bystander or a face in a crowd. But if you're one of the primary subjects, then in France, you have to give your permission.
This also applies to merchandising and the law is often used in a similar way to trademarking or endorsement.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Probably the Germans doing reconnaissance on the French squad.
So the rest of the world can watch it blow up real good. LA car chases? Pfff! How about daily coverage of cars in Baghdad blowing up real good! FIFA in Brasil? Pfff! Baghdad blowing up real good is IMPOSSIBLE to beat. So,
Baghad needs drones! Send them NOW!
France had the courage to declare war against a bigger country.
Isn't this joke getting a bit old? Sure, US education isn't exactly the best in the world, and it was fun to see Groundskeeper Willie and various US politicians show off their ignorance during the "weapons of mass destruction"- campaign 20 years ago. But far from all americans are this stupid, and it's a bit unfair to continue bashing them every time France is in the news.
You know how people know you are a true 'Murican?
Did you miss the part about local laws? This drone was in Brazil and I'm talking about the laws I know, which is Danish law - if you take a picture in Denmark, they can ask you to remove it and you must comply.
Just because you feel like your picture is important, doesn't mean some random stranger wants to be in on it.
Also, if the subject happens to be a model by trade, they can by local law sue you for the damages to their brand, if the picture you took end up on the internet (there are some exceptions to this). Again local law.
Who was driven out of Vietnam before the US came along
Paintball gun. Non-damaging to the drone, preserves privacy. Simples.
French privacy laws :
That is true... only when you publish the picture... On public grounds, you can take all the pictures of people you want... You need their permission to publish, not to shoot...
Looks like someone here is too stupid to understand game mechanics....
Never under-estimate the depth of stupidity on the internet. Or forum contributors' willingness to dredge and recycle it.
Anyone else notice the shadow of the drone flying over the actual matches (with accompanying replay footage from said drone after certain plays)? Was I the only one fixated on the shadow during the Germany vs Portugal match to see if it was just the usual camera running on wires up and down the field until it went circling in ways only a drone could? The shadow ended up being a corner-of-view distraction to me - I wonder if the players see it moving and think a player might be coming up behind them.
More like they didn't want to be seen practicing Thierry Henry's "technique".
They bring them down!
Best Slashdot Co
Football is, like basketball, largely a game of reaction.
How could "spying" on a training camp be that useful?
-Styopa
We need a revision to the common law statues around private airspace. This law is horribly outdated in the modern environment.
Reasonable provisions could be made, for example, one has complete control of all airspace 500m above their property. This would not interfere with any "real" aircraft but would prohibit spying by cheap quadcopters without a warrant.
"someone used a small unmanned aircraft to spy on the team's training camp"
A 410 loaded with some bird shot and choked right would solve that problem real easy for you and be of no real danger (except for the drone).
I love my Phantom II with camera gimbal!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Apparently, you don't know your own laws:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...
Teams of the future will need to have tall poles with hoisted camouflage netting to counter to drone spying (assuming they cannot find indoor facilities). Perhaps also outward facing strobe lights to distort the camera's imaging.
I like my privacy.
In many ways, I would like to say "shoot the damn thing!" but depending on local laws that could get ugly. [...]
Still, there must be some way to deter such drones. [...]
Microwave guns perhaps?
Most of electronics will get fried and force the device to go down, but there aren't any trajectories as the beam will travel in a straight line, so you don't have to worry about collateral damage (besides where the drone goes down perhaps).
...the phrase "That's why they make shotguns" applies here.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
My AR. Drone 2.0, made by Parrot, a French company arrived today! Can't wait to try it out..
Well he didn't specify what he meant by "remove it". Denmark requires permission to publish a picture so he could be talking about remove it from the internet, rather than from phone memory.
Or just finds soccer really incredibly boring
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Well thank you for posting a link to someone who is trying to boil something quite complicated down to 3 columns.
The actual law is:
 264 a. Den, som uberettiget fotograferer personer, der befinder sig pÃ¥ et ikke frit tilgængeligt sted, straffes med bÃde eller fængsel indtil 6 mÃ¥neder. Det samme gælder den, der ved hjælp af kikkert eller andet apparat uberettiget iagttager sÃ¥danne personer.
 264 a er ændret fra d. 01.07.2001 ved lov nr. 433 af 31.05.2000 (afskaffelse af hæftestraffen)
 264 b. (Ophævet)
 264 c. De i  263, 264 og 264 a indeholdte straffebestemmelser finder tilsvarende anvendelse pÃ¥ den, der uden at have medvirket til gerningen skaffer sig eller uberettiget udnytter oplysninger, som er fremkommet ved overtrædelsen.
 264 c er ændret fra d. 01.07.2004, jfr.  1.7 i lov nr. 352 af 19.05.2004
 264 d. Med bÃde eller fængsel indtil 6 mÃ¥neder straffes den, der uberettiget videregiver meddelelser eller billeder vedrÃrende en andens private forhold eller i Ãvrigt billeder af den pÃ¥gældende under omstændigheder, der Ã¥benbart kan forlanges unddraget offentligheden. Bestemmelsen finder ogsÃ¥ anvendelse, hvor meddelelsen eller billedet vedrÃrer en afdÃd person.
On top of that, you can be punished for publishing pictures on the internet without consent (persondataloven)
Now this law is primarily about non-public places, however, iff you are photographed on a public place you can request they do not take picture(s) of you, that is full frame, up close or zoomed etc. if you happen to be in the background and not primary focus of the picture some exceptions are granted. *HOWEVER* you are still not allowed to publish these pictures, unless they are in the interest of the public, e.g. public television shooting a segment - but again there are exceptions.
LMAO "surrender monkeys," hahaha... Comedy gold! How do you come up with this stuff — sheer idiocy? Endless repetition? What's your secret?
Looks like someone here is too stupid to understand game mechanics....
Games/sports don't matter. Arguably, people who invest their time studying and observing things that don't matter are too stupid to realize this.
PS: An ellipsis is composed of three dots, not four.
Totally possible as there are stalkers everywhere. :)
There's nothing "complicated" about it; it only seems complicated to you because you don't understand it. Danish law appears to be a fairly liberal law on photography, similar to the US. Unlike France, you don't have a right to your own image, and you don't have a right to demand that people remove your image from their camera. Danish law (like the US) merely provides simple privacy protections and protections against commercial use of your image.
(And, geez, if you insist on quoting laws in an obscure Germanic peasant dialect, at least have the courtesy of getting your Unicode encoding right.)
Don't they mean watching their acting lessons? I'm wondering which team gets the best chance at an academy award this year.