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UK Criminals Use Drones To Case Burglary Prospects
turkeydance writes: Burglars in the UK are sending unmanned drones over houses in order to identify potential targets, police have warned. Suffolk Constabulary confirmed it had received at least one report of drones being used by burglars for surveillance of properties. Paul Ford, secretary of the Police Federation National Detectives Forum, said: “Drones can be noisy and very visible so hopefully criminals risk giving themselves away. If members of the public observe drones being used in areas which make them suspicious they should contact police using the 101 non-emergency number to report it."
A burglar wouldn't draw attention to themselves like that, so that's just some rozzer trying to dream up anti-drone propaganda.
Protip: if you're not sure which preposition to use, put both.
At the bottom of the
"At least one report" does not a national trend make. And calls to the "non-emergency number" would result in the police doing absolutely nothing except log it anyway.
Pointless story.
With all this recent drone paranoia, it's only a matter of time before some bozo comes up with a tiny laser system mounted on an accoustic/optical detector combination that shoots them out of the sky, or at least fries their cameras. Hell, you can purchase 4W laser 'pens' over the Internet. The rest is not that hard to do if safety is not a requirement !!!
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Telepresence,
incredibly difficult to trace back to operator if done properly,
Can not only reconnoiter but potentially interact with and manipulate environment.
Capable of moving and delivering goods.
Oh yeah I can't see these being used for criminal purposes. The surprising thing is we haven't seen this earlier.
So the article is from 2014, and old news. Why is this on /. now?
At this rate, we'll see a story about the hypervisor floppy-disk vulnerability in... December.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Now they are noisy, but wait a while and you won't notice even one that's hanging above your head for about 2 meters..
Also there are already pretty quiet drones out there with camera's..
But it is one of the things I already expected would happen, next to the modern peeping tom's (which you already see some video's on youtube)..
If there are unmaned drones, that means there are manned drones as well. I never knew that. To me a drone was always unmaned.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Forget abowt it now! Regulation will make this whole niche a bitch, pretty much like anything else.
This is strikingly similar in tone to the stories circulating a few years ago that anyone taking photos of buildings in public places was (obviously!) a terrorist.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
And yet a bad burglar is supposed to launch a drone, fly around houses, alerting people to something, 'casing' joints, then fly it back home?
Or far more likely, is that a policeman, Paul Ford in this case is looking for opportunity to expand policing:
"Paul Ford, secretary of the Police Federation National Detectives Forum.... We must remain alive to the POTENTIAL risks posed by the misuse of technology”
Just a bad policeman writing fictional crime scenarios to protect against.
The British police have a long and illustrious history of releasing demonstrably untrue statements to the press on the assumption that no one will call them out on it because they are the police, and that's when their not giving "anonymous tips" that person X who's house they just raided on live TV is some sort of nazi-pedo-terroist.
Of course criminals are casing their turf with drones, they have CCTV cams all over the City of London too don't they?
"to for".
American idiots.
A better use would be narcotics delivery service. Place the online order, pay with bitcoin, drone flies over with little packet within 30 minutes and drops it off.
The cheaper drones become, the less people will worry about losing one. Simple ROI calculation.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Is this Slashdot or The Daily Mail?
But... but... you're not allowed to fly drones over residential areas! How are the criminals getting around this law?
Oh no, wait, it's just legitimate photography businesses (like mine) which get hurt by the drone laws. Pervs and criminals will carry on regardless.
We need to legalize shooting down drones that come into our homes airspace without permission.
Paintball or airsoft would be excellent ways to accomplish this with little impact on the neighbors.
No need to give the local police their own air force to patrol and defend the skies from robber drones.
OOTO - Out Of The Ordinary, is what law enforcement officers are trained to spot and is often a good starting point for possible criminal activity. But to the general public a "noisy and very visible" drone, or even someone wandering around someone else's property is not OOTO to them as the main activity is not the indicator.
So the advice given is in effect worse than useless and will result in way too many false positives / negatives. Now if the police were to offer free courses in situational awareness and OOTO then that might be a start, though isn't that what we pay taxes for non-existent beat cops for?
In finishing, a nice piece of research from a few years ago, talked to convicted burglars and what they look for in a target. One thing they found was that it was much preferred to case and burgle during the 1pm - 4pm period than any other time of the day or night because people are at work, there is lower delivery traffic, its easy to see and people don't see you are a burglar but as a workman. They also found that for those criminals that end up committing crime at night, much prefer properties with BIG Bright spot lights on than in complete darkenss because the bright lights leave dark shadows to stand in and means you don't have to carry round a flash-light which often attracts more trouble than its worth.
Once again South Park forsaw this tricky issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Gently reply
Thanks. That's yet another reason to loath Amazon's scheme to deliver packages by drone. It's be quite easy for sophisticated burglars to acquire an Amazon-like drone and use it to spot, not just weak spots in a house, but who is away on vacation.
In other news:
UK police officers fly drones in their free time, to incite citizens to call out for more police officer to be hired.
No need to get caught in the act., if a window is open somewhere, the done just flies in and grabs the jewellery and other light stuff that's lying around, that's what the camera is for. It's much more secure in the back of the van outside.
A 'window opening device' shouldn't be that complicated to add as well, just a plastic tube with a spring and a stone to be released by a servo.
Also I'm waiting for arsonists to do the same thing, just with a pound of fire accelerants instead of a grabbing arm.
The only good drone is a dead drone!
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So we call the police on regular people flying drones because they MAY be suspicious but we allow the police to violate the law by flying their drones without warrants?
Got it.
"Burglars use cell phones too so call the non-emergency police number to report ANY suspicious usage. Cars, too. And...."
Hm.
Might a growth opportunity for the home Surface to Air Missile defense market.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
My drone can carry a zoom-capable point-n-shoot and at 3 meters is on average 65dB hovering at 2m. That's Toyota corolla territory... not that loud.