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NoFlyZone.org Aims To Keep the Airspace Above Your Home Drone-Free
Zothecula writes About the only thing growing quicker than the number of privately owned drones is the level of concern surrounding them. Questions of privacy and how these things can be regulated are pretty well-founded, but are so far yet to be met with any convincing answers. NoFlyZone.org may go some way to providing a solution, allowing users to enter their address to create drone-free zones in the airspace over their homes.
Why? what do you have to hide?
Once the FAA sets rules, it probably doesn't matter what you want or don't want. That's the way it worked with airspace for piloted flights.
Here are some examples of what that can lead to:
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The FAA has sole purview over airspace rights. If the aircraft is high enough according to FAA rules (which of as of yet specify manned vehicles only, at a minimum of 500 feet) then it is outside of your, as a landowner, ability to control. These people are not the ones to lobby; the FAA needs to create rules for drone use at low-altitudes to remove the current ambiguity.
Back in my day, we called them RC helicopters.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Wouldn't the big players be Boeing and Airbus?
the address and its GPS coordinates ... is then relayed to drone manufacturers to create a geofence around the home and render their products unable to fly over the property.
So we're going to count on the manufacturers to voluntarily add a feature to their drones that makes them unable to fly in a huge list of tiny spaces? Oh okay. This should solve everything. /sarcasm
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Has anyone come up with a way of attracting drones and then downing and taking possession of them? Could be high-tech hacking, or simply getting something grabbed by Google maps imagery that tempts people to fly their drones into the "confiscation zone". A profitable criminal enterprise. Or, of course, police could do this before doing something dodgy (a subtler version of the "EMP before planned police brutality" scene in Doctorow's Little Brother).
Silly click bait idea just trying to gain traction in the news cycle.
So, what is being suggested is that every drone carry with it every person's address that doesn't want a drone above it?
Doesn't that sound a whole lot like a list of addresses the police would love to have? And if you sign up for this list, then somebody who uses a drone for nefarious purposes will respect this address, as opposed to (say) disabling the GPS receiver?
This is a great idea, because we know that you never get unsolicited cell phone calls from Credit Card Services or "Hi, Seniors..."
This is without a doubt the most ridiculous solution to a problem that doesn't exist that I have ever come across.
So, let me state the obvious, just in case someone has missed it: That genie is out of the bottle, and there's no putting her back in.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
"Oh noes, teh website says we can't fly hear".
Does anybody think that will work?
Voluntary compliance and self regulation by corporations is never gonna happen. And the people who are using these things for shady purposes won't give a crap. The people who use them for shady purposes who work for the government definitely won't.
In fact, I predict a bunch of drones explicitly flying over those homes just to send a big "f- you" and see what is there.
They'll adhere with things which could bring the government down on them, but Joe Citizen saying "don't fly here" ... never gonna happen.
I view this whole prospect as nothing more than wishful thinking at best, or outright deception at worst. And since it carries no enforcement or penalties, it's an empty promise.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I would only consider a "No Fly Zone" for drones above my house if it specifically (and especially) includes Government Drones. Otherwise such laws are useless and counterproductive. Legislators tend to always find exclusions for government use. Their drones would fly while the private ones would be grounded. As always, Big Brother is permitted unlimitted ability to watch you while you are not permitted to view them - National Security Reasons, you know.
What a great way to harvest email adresses and "some basic information" to sell to 3rd parties.
Then exactly what authority do they have to enforce this?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I'm sure this will work just as well, if not better, than the national do not call list for telemarketers.
keep those bloody Chinooks from flying over about 10 times a day?
So exactly how precise are these geofences going to be? Because I see it one of two ways. Either they'll be so small they're pointless, or they'll be too large and spill over into a neighboring property, at which point if your neighbors have personal no-fly zones, you can't fly a drone over your own property.
Someone will develop open-source drone control software that ignores all that crap with a bit of tweaking, or doesn't have such nonsense built into it in the first place.
Oh, right, they already have. There are several implementations of open-source drone control software from various groups. If manufacturers go this route people will DIY.
I have noticed that everyone that has expressed deep concern to me about drone spying seems to have little to not a care in the world about digital mass surveillance. Based on this correlation, I wonder if, amusingly, this list may be a great way to identify easy targets for digital identity theft.
Seriously though, when I think of the resulting abuses from the do-not-call registry idea, where for a nominal fee, marketers could get a full list of these active, valued phone numbers, I can't help thinking of the abuses. What does this group of people have in common, and can that be leveraged with political messaging in support of a particular state or federal party?
I'm not going to speculate on how many people will refer to the registry while logging their drone's flight plan with the FAA.
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With many drones disabling the GPS receiver is either [a] difficult or [b] strongly ill-advised (as it's used to make station-keeping in a breeze much easier and automatic as opposed to a constant fight against air current).
Why even bother with this? My shotgun provides for a much more effective no-fly zone over my house than this website ever could.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Will it work as well as the do not call list?....
By the time everyone adds their address, government adds parks that you are not allowed to fly in, cities add other areas they don't want you in, and you add your own address because you don't want others to fly over your house, you are left with flying over the ocean. The site could just save everyone time and exclude all land.
I personally have avoided drones. I fly non drone Radio Control aircraft like RC helicopters, RC Sailplanes, etc which I have not put any form of GPS on. I do use altimeters for DLG hand launch height comparison.
I just hope this public drone news noise doesn't cause problems for us RC flyers that do not fly drones. I mainly fly motor-less sailplanes now. You hand launch it by discus throw and the find thermals to go up as high as you can see it.
So when I feel concerned about my privacy, I should just enter my address on a website? Confusing...
Screw voluntary compliance and screw more regulation. How about a small turret mounted em cannon or jammer? Or surely it cant be hard to usurp control of anything over my property, forcing it to land and rendering it salvage for my collection.. Please, overfly my property..
"A mind reader? That sounds like sci fi." "Honey, we live on a space ship"
Put a drone at 300 feet up or more and first of all, you won't likely see it and second it will be able to be over the neighboring property and still "surveil" you place even though it is not within the 'geo-fence.'
What is worse, a PI with a remote blimp and good cameras could do it for a long time at 500-1000 feet and you wouldn't have a clue if he was right over your house.
Think about it, If the drones don't fly over your house, how are you going to gun them down and steal their loot?
Explain to us why we should not expect these guys or their business partners to profit off our personal information. Afterall, these guys are storing stuff in the AWS cloud, as per their privacy policy suggests...
I'm sure this will work great, just like the no call list. I'm going to start work on nomodrone right away.
Very little can stop an evil player. This simply makes it easier for those manufacturers and users who wish to be responsible citizens. Like the "Do Not Call" list, it doesn't eliminate the problem, but does help reduce it.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
DEA and NSA may use the list as possible points of interest on planning drone routes over cities. They wouldn't have any legal or technological restrictions on airspace.
The truth shall set you free!
"...OK, sir, I've found the problem. Your order was not delivered because we have your address listed as a no-fly zone."
"...that's right, sir."
"...all you need to do is go to 'no fly zone dot org' and click the large 'unregister' button at the top of the page. Once the change goes through, your order will be on its way."
"...it should only take about fifteen minutes to process the change, sir."
"I understand your frustration with the delay, sir, but unfortunately, noflyzone.org is a third party website, and there's nothing we can do to accelerate the process."
"All right, then, sir, your pizza will on its way just as soon as that is resolved. Thank you again for your order. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"
"You too, sir. Goodbye."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
for flying pests.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This is about as obvious as the 'have you ever used illegal drugs/are you using illegal drugs right now' type questions you find on employment applications. Running a grow operation or meth lab in your house? Organized crime? Terrorist cell? Don't want any pesky drones flying around then do you? Create a 'no-fly' zone, and worry no more about pesky law enforcement ruining your day! In all seriousness, yeah, probably just some jackholes wanting to get your personal information for FREE, which they sell to whoever. Then you get drones flying around your property anyway, and all that extra SPAM, telemarketing calls, and junk mail.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If I sign up for this list, does that give me the right to operate Interceptor Drones and Airsoft AA Auto-Turret Miniguns on my property to enforce the No Fly Zone against any potentially bad actors?
From what I've read, once a homeowner enters his address, it takes a while for it to be incorporated into a firmware update and eventually downloaded to user's devices. So it stands to reason that it would also take a while to get an address removed from firmware updates. So, let's say I don't like drones AT ALL. I just don't like those damned things buzzing around all over the place at all. So I just enter the addresses of all of my neighbors ... hell, everyone within a mile of me, whatever. Now those poor fools can't fly their drones in their own yards ... and it'll take them months (?) to sort it out.
Seems like it has the potential to cause far more grief than it prevents.
With a good telescope from a mountain, a high tree or from a high building it is possible to see you in your backyard.
This could be a psychological problem more than a real one. If I cant see who is actually looking at me I will feel better.
Oh yes, and the other is the virtual one. When hanging pictures on your property on a Facebook page, why to bother about drones?
I am always suspicious of web sites that present only one interface -- something like "sign up here". No reading what the implications are first. No up-front disclosure of how to terminate the agreement if you change your mind. Basically, no information disclosed until you are already committed.
The web site appears to have a glaring omission. Provides for easy opt-in, but what about opt-out?
Suppose you own a property, and the previous owner was on the list. You buy a drone, and want to fly it on your own property. Oops!
Even if they fix that problem, and provide a way to remove an address from the list, there needs to be a robust way of ensuring that the change propagates quickly to new and existing drones.
Seems very half-baked and gimmicky to me.
Only some companies' software honors no fly zones. DJI Naza flight controller is one of them. The open source Pixhawk does not.
If there's a drone directly over my property it probably isn't looking into my home, but my neighbor's.
If someone wants to look into my windows with a drone they are probably going to do it from some distance away from my property, thus affording a better view. Unless you can get your neighbors signed up for this you're screwed.
Because "drone" sounds much more scary than remote controlled toy helicopter. Would this no fly zone apply to tethered drones (kites) and inflatable drones (balloons) too?
NoFlyZone is like those 800 "who-calls-me" web sites. Maybe they will raise issue awareness - but like who-calls-me there isn't anything they can do about it. Its just a place for people to complain.
Better yet - it looks to be structured just like the DoNotCallMe database.
I like that an advertisement for a "who-calls-me" like service made it onto /.
Yeah, this is going to be great. What's the betting someone finds a remote vulnerability and hacks these drones to invert the flag so they just fly straight to the nearest no-fly-zone?
And then everyone realized that the reason had been dumb.
People were trying to store an attribute of a thing (and a rather arbitrary one, of the hundreds of things you might want to know about something) within its name, instead of using a relational lookup. All of our experiences in various ways, have repeatedly taught us this is a naive way of storing information, which ultimately creates more problems than it solves.
Go ahead and have your "movie 1990 720p BrRip x264" but I'll have "movie (1990).mkv" and store whatever-the-fuck-I need, within the file (or perhaps the filesystem's extended attributes or resource forks). So while you're out there renaming everything because you just thought of a new field you want to add to the table, I just add a field to the table, without having to change other information.
Get it? The old TLD rules were, for all practical purposes, made up by non-nerds without any data modeling experience. (Or so it seems. Yes, I realize the truth is complicater, but the fact is, anyone with a few years programming experience will see it as a design mistake.) Eventually people realized the silliness and dropped it.
Then, because people are stupid, we sometimes recreate the flawed reasoning, so you get worthless shit like .xxx. Tell me again, which approach is all about money?
With many drones disabling the GPS receiver is either [a] difficult or [b] strongly ill-advised (as it's used to make station-keeping in a breeze much easier and automatic as opposed to a constant fight against air current).
You don't know yet, but your comment is much more to the point than one might think.
One of the biggest issues that the FAA now faces is that hordes of untrained "pilots", people flying a larger-than-toy aircraft remotely, without having a basic understanding of the aerodynamics. What if the flight crew of your JFK-SFO flight solely relied on GPS to maintain control of the aircraft? I'm sure you would not be happy. Well, neither am I, with a 6 pound piece of metal with propellers spinning at 3000+ RPM right above my head, controlled by someone who doesn't have the single clue of how to crab for a cross-wind landing.
This is one of the reasons why the FAA is considering to mandate actual pilot certificates before handing out a License to Drone.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
The process seems simple enough. Users visit NoFlyZone.org and enter their home address along with some basic information. This data is then processed by the NoFlyZone.org database, which registers the address and its GPS coordinates. This information is then relayed to drone manufacturers to create a geofence around the home and render their products unable to fly over the property.
Fucking stupid on so many levels, but I have to say it never ceases to amaze me at the things humans will build, and then try to monetize.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
it will be legislated out of existence. I saw this http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-... article, kind of reminded me skydivers and hang gliders used their organizations USPA and USHPA to maintain some control. Otherwise FAA will step in and make it very difficult to enjoy these hobbies. Well I'm stretching this analogy and organizing RC hobbyists is like herding cats.
mfwright@batnet.com
Doesn't that sound a whole lot like a list of addresses the police would love to have?
Why, are you worried that the police will come arrest you in the middle of the night just because you don't want amateur pilots sending drones over your house?
I have already secured the domain name "nodeerzone.com" so that state and federal highway officials can start putting in for stretches of highway they don't want deer to cross over. They will pay $20K/km to add highway sections to a public list. The deer will know not to cross these sections because of signs ($500 apiece) that say:
--NO-- DEER CROSSING!
I mean it, deer, you better not fucking cross here
Nothing posted to
...12 gauge shotgun. drone flies down close enough, blow it out of the sky.
All the recent scandals involving the government violating civil rights (IRS political targeting, NSA/parallel construction, refusal to come clean on 'stingray' cellphone interception, etc etc) give legitimate and logical reason for serious concerns by law-abiding citizens concerning how and for what purposes government will employ this technology against them.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'll be Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, and Syria would be right interested to sign up for this.
Well, neither am I, with a 6 pound piece of metal with propellers spinning at 3000+ RPM right above my head, controlled by someone who doesn't have the single clue of how to crab for a cross-wind landing.
How does crabbing for a landing affect their ability to fly above you? Or is this just an unrelated skill you are demanding as an example? If they are at 100'+ over your property and headed past (not circling), their complete ignorance of aerodynamics will have no effect on you.
Learn to love Alaska
RC is pure maddness. DC Forever
Like the NoDeerZone.com guy said... what a useless app. There's no enforcement capability here, no laws behind it, and no way to let a drone pilot know that the airspace they're flying through is "banned", with no penalties.
This is worse than one of those 2000s dot-coms with no product - this is something that will give people false hope. I call that fraud - maybe their local prosecutors will too.
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
This is like robots.txt - but for airspace instead webservers.
I went with open source target identification and tracking software in a "robotic" turret mounted on the side of my home's chimney (similar to the Nerf tracking turrets you may have seen, though a little more "machine-shoppy") which engages any proximity drones within the image database with dual high rate of fire paintball guns filled with bath oil beads. Seven downed so far, woo! And fun to watch as well!
Time for micro SAM sites to appear.
How does crabbing for a landing affect their ability to fly above you? Or is this just an unrelated skill you are demanding as an example? If they are at 100'+ over your property and headed past (not circling), their complete ignorance of aerodynamics will have no effect on you.
Very simple, they will not be able to properly control the vehicle. And let me give you an example.
I recently bought a small quadcopter with a camera (Hubsan x4). I flew it around my neighborhood a bit and one of my neighbors liked it and bought one as well. He crashed it on the first day, simply because he could not understand that the wind was blowing his precious helicopter away and he had to adjust for the wind direction. His lack of a basic understanding of aerodynamics and the forces of nature in flight, made it impossible for him to control the aircraft.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
So you used it as an unrelated example of their ability to to control the device, rather than complaining about the actual problem, people who can't control their devices.
Learn to love Alaska
So you used it as an unrelated example of their ability to to control the device, rather than complaining about the actual problem, people who can't control their devices.
Yes. My point is that people who just go out and buy a drone without any form of training have no clue about the aerodynamics of flight, and thus are not qualified to fly an aircraft. The only difference between someone remotely piloting an aircraft and someone behind the controls of an aircraft is that if the first one fucks up, he doesn't die, but someone else may.
That doesn't mean that I agree with the FAA's proposal to have people earn a real pilot's certificate. Some instruction like this would probably be sufficient. But at least something.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Well, neither am I, with a 6 pound piece of metal with propellers spinning at 3000+ RPM right above my head, controlled by someone who doesn't have the single clue of how to crab for a cross-wind landing.
So crabbing is irrelevant. RPM and weight are irrelevant.
The only point you made was that you don't know how to make a point.
Learn to love Alaska
So crabbing is irrelevant. RPM and weight are irrelevant.
No, not entirely. At some point you'll have to land the aircraft. And if the operator fails, the aircraft will land itself. Potentially on my head. Potentially with propellers spinning at 3000+ RPM. Crabbing is relevant, and so are RPM and weight.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
If he's landing on your head, crabbing is irrelevant to your safety. Or would you think that a crabbing aircraft wouldn't hurt if it rammed into you?
Learn to love Alaska